24.Arrest warrant

Elle

James arrived while Mom was still standing beneath the carved wolf above the station doors, staring at the black windows as if she could force one of them to give Franz back.

He did not waste time on greetings. “The king’s physician is with your son. Franz is awake, his brace has not shifted, and he knows you are here. His Majesty is preparing the order that will release him tonight.”

Mom’s knees nearly folded. Dad caught her around the waist while she covered her mouth and cried without making a sound.

Relief came through me hard enough to hurt. Franz knew we had not abandoned him. For now, that had to be enough.

James held open the rear door of a black Crown car. “Miss Whitmore. His Majesty is waiting.”

Dad looked from the car to the bruise Soren had left beneath my jaw. “If Dominic expects you to pay for correcting his daughter’s cruelty, you walk away. I don’t care what title he carries.”

“Franz comes first.”

“So do you.” His voice roughened. “Don’t forget that just because a king noticed you.”

I hugged him before the fear in his face could undo me, then held Mom long enough to feel her shaking. “When that door opens, take Franz home. Don’t wait for me.”

“Call me the second you know anything.” Mom gripped the back of my coat. “And bring yourself home too, Elle.”

Rain blurred the capital beyond the car windows. Crown patrols moved along the palace wall in pairs, silver breastplates flashing beneath moon banners. The oldest streets had been laid before wolves agreed to one king, and the stones still carried the crests of packs that had vanished into the Crown centuries ago. Tonight every ancient symbol looked like another reminder that Rosalie had inherited power she had never learned to fear.

James passed me a cold cloth. I wiped Soren’s blood from my cuff and held it against my jaw.

“Aurelia has the strongest privacy wards outside the royal residence,” he said. “Nothing spoken inside its dining room can be carried through a pack link or caught by a listening stone.”

That explained the secrecy. It did not explain why the king had closed the entire restaurant for us.

Aurelia stood in the old Lycan quarter, inside a stone house marked with the crescent-and-claw symbol used before the kingdom had a crown. Three Michelin stars gleamed beside the door, and warm light filled every window.

The wards brushed over my skin as I entered. Traffic disappeared. Strange scents vanished with it. Beeswax, cedar smoke, rain, and Dominic remained.

My wolf lunged toward him so violently that I missed a step.

Dominic waited beside the only occupied table. White flowers separated two place settings, and the city opened beneath the glass wall behind him. He had removed every witness and built something that looked painfully like a date.

Then he saw my face.

Dominic’s expression hardened. Power struck the room without noise, rattling the flames inside their glass holders. Gold flooded his eyes as he crossed the distance between us.

His hand lifted, stopped just short of the bruise, then settled beneath my chin with a care that made his fury worse. “Soren.”

It was not a question.

“Dad broke his mouth.”

“Your father showed restraint.” Dominic’s thumb grazed the swollen edge. “I would not have.”

My pulse kicked against his wrist. His wolf felt it. The gold in his eyes sharpened, and for one dangerous second his attention dropped to my lips.

Mine rose to meet him, hungry for a man I still had every reason to resist.

I caught his wrist. “Franz.”

Dominic came back to himself. “Rosalie’s order is dead. The inquiry is closed, Franz’s record is clear, and no Crown officer will touch him again without my signature.”

The release order lay beside his plate. Dominic signed it, pressed his ring into black-silver wax, and watched the royal wolf appear beneath his hand.

James entered. Dominic passed him the order. “Put this in the commander’s hand. Stay until Franz leaves with his parents.”

The order left with James.

Dominic pulled out my chair. “Your brother is not the price of anything that happens in this room.”

I believed him. That should have made the rest easier.

It did not.

I sat. Dominic took the chair beside mine rather than the one across the table, his thigh pressing against mine beneath the linen. The contact burned because I wanted more of it.

“How did Rosalie hide the arrest from you?”

His jaw hardened. “I gave my heir an emergency seal. It was designed for an attack on the succession, not for punishing a man who frightened her. She used it to close the order until morning review. That seal no longer answers to her.”

“You trusted her with enough power to bury a wounded man beneath silver.”

“I did.” He took the blow without reaching for an excuse. “My daughter abused my authority. The failure is hers, but the authority was mine. I will answer for that.”

His willingness to own it stole the next accusation from my mouth.

A server brought roasted venison, black bread, and vegetables glazed with mountain honey, then disappeared through the warded archway. Dominic saw my hand tremble and pushed the bread toward me.

“Eat before anger puts you on the floor.”

“That sounded like an order.”

“It was concern wearing the only voice I seem to possess tonight.”

The dry answer almost pulled a laugh from me. I ate, and hunger woke painfully with the first bite. Dominic said nothing. He only moved the venison closer.

“Rosalie knew,” I said. “Her wolf reached for Franz before she saw the chair. When his leg gave out, she moved to catch him. Then she remembered everyone was watching.”

Dominic went still.

I told him about the recognition in Rosalie’s scent, the horror that followed, and the way Franz surrendered because the guards were hurting Dad. Dominic’s fork remained untouched.

“She called him a cripple. She looked at what Silver Claw did to him and treated it as proof he wasn’t good enough for her.”

Pain crossed Dominic’s face. “I taught her grief would excuse cruelty because I spent years excusing hers. Amelia disappeared, and I kept telling myself Rosalie had already lost enough.”

“Franz lost his entire life. He didn’t put her in a cell.”

“I know.” His voice dropped. “And Rosalie will learn that my love is not permission.”

The promise had no softness in it. It sounded like judgment.

Beyond the glass, the palace towers glowed along the ridge. Statues of the first Lycan kings watched over the capital with stone wolves at their feet, but Dominic looked neither ancient nor untouchable beside me. He looked like a father who had finally seen the damage done by every excuse he had made.

“Will the court challenge Franz’s release?” I asked.

“They can try. The mate laws are older than Rosalie’s title. No wolf can be imprisoned for claiming a bond, and no royal can compel its acceptance. If Franz was mistaken, that is a matter for the Goddess and the two wolves involved. Not a Crown cell.”

“And if he wasn’t mistaken?”

Dominic looked toward the city. “Then my daughter has lied to herself about more than one man.”

The wards left only our scents inside the room, and my wolf settled into Dominic’s presence as though she had fought all day to return to it. His knee never left mine.

I looked at the candles and empty tables. “Did you close a three-star restaurant to discuss an arrest warrant?”

“No.”

The answer came too quickly to be polished.

Dominic studied me with brutal attention. “The palace would turn you into gossip before you reached the door. I emptied this place because I did not want anyone else near you tonight.”

My wolf pressed harder against my skin. “That sounds dangerously close to honesty.”

“You demanded it the last time you walked away.”

A black leather folder rested near his hand. I had spent the entire meal pretending not to see it.

Dominic placed it between us.

He had freed my brother before asking for anything. Now Dominic watched me in silence, waiting to learn whether I would leave him again.