Chapter 4

Layla

The last time I saw those eyes, I was dying.

The memory hit before I could stop it. A bed that smelled like smoke and medicine. My body too broken to lift my own hand.

And Valerius, sitting at the edge of the mattress, watching me with that same dark, unreadable gaze.

"You won't be alone," he'd said. His voice was hoarse. Ruined, like the rest of him.

That was the last thing I saw before everything went dark.

Now he was alive. Sitting in the back of an armored car with an arrow buried in the leather beside his shoulder, and he was looking right at me, and I forgot how to breathe.

My wolf went quiet. Not from fear. From something deeper, something that ached in a way I didn't have words for yet.

He was safe. The arrow had missed.

The relief hit so hard my legs buckled, and the shift took me before I could fight it. Fur pulled back into skin. Bones cracked and reformed. Cold night air hit bare flesh, and I was human again, crouched on the gravel in front of the Lycan King's convoy.

Valerius was already moving.

He came out of the car in one smooth motion and closed his hand around my upper arm before I could stand. He hauled me upright like I weighed nothing.

"Why are you here."

Not a question. His grip was iron, and his eyes were worse.

I looked at his face. Sharp jaw, dark hair, nothing warm in his expression. He was striking. I'd forgotten that—or maybe I'd never let myself notice.

This was Valerius before the curse. Clear-eyed and precise.

He didn't recognize me.

Of course he didn't. The woman he would know in another life was scarred beyond recognition, nameless, a ghost who hid behind a mask. That woman didn't exist yet.

Something cracked open in my chest. I sealed it shut.

The gravel bit into my bare feet. Cold. Sharp.

"I came to stop the assassination." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "The arrow in your seat was meant for your throat. I have information about who sent the shooter."

His eyes moved across my face, reading me the way a predator reads terrain. The full weight of the Lycan King's attention pressed down like a physical force. I'd felt it before, in another life. My wolf pressed against my ribs, urging me to bare my throat.

I didn't.

"I want to negotiate," I said. "I have intelligence you need. In exchange, I want an alliance."

His hand left my arm and caught my jaw instead. Fingers pressed into the hollows beneath my cheekbones, tilting my face up.

He leaned in, close enough to feel his breath on my skin. Every instinct I had screamed danger.

He studied me for a long time. Then he gave a short, dismissive laugh.

"Where do you get the nerve," he said, "to negotiate with a king—Layla Thorne?"

I went still.

He knew my name.

How?

My heart slammed against my ribs.

I stared at Valerius and the words slipped out before I could stop them."You know?"

His brow lifted a fraction.

"Layla Thorne. Second daughter of Alpha Marcus Thorne's Pack. Twin sister of Aurora, who holds a betrothal agreement with the crown." He didn't pause between facts. "Your Pack is allied with the Vance family. Did you think I would be ignorant of my betrothed's household?"

The ground shifted under me.

He knew my name because of Aurora. Because I was a footnote: the twin sister, a line in a political file.

In my last life, I'd guarded his back for years. I'd watched over him while he broke apart. And he'd never known my real name, because by then my face was gone and I was too afraid to tell him.

Now he knew my name, and he still didn't know me.

I couldn't find the ally I'd lost. The Valerius who sat by my deathbed and told me I wasn't alone was a whole lifetime away.

But Valerius was already moving. His hand caught my chin and tilted my face up, turning it left, then right, studying me. "What were you expecting?"

My skin went cold. Valerius with his mind intact was terrifyingly perceptive. He'd caught the flash of surprise on my face when he said my name, and he'd read it correctly.

I adjusted. Fast.

"The assassin was sent by Kaelen Vance's people," I said.

"You're betraying your own pack's ally." His voice dropped. "Why."

"Because they have magic that targets wolves. A spell that strips a wolf from its host." I held his gaze. "They want to take mine."

His jaw tightened. Small. A tightening at the corners of his eyes, a flash of something cold and sharp. But I caught it. I'd spent years learning this face.

He knew. He knew because he'd already lost his own wolf. A secret so closely guarded that barely anyone in the kingdom suspected it.

"That's impossible," he said evenly. "No such spell exists."

"The version they showed my family is gentler." I kept my voice level. "But behind it is something darker. Your Majesty wouldn't want your subjects exposed to this kind of sorcery. And right now I'm the person closest to the conspiracy."

Silence.

He stared at me, perfectly still.

"What do you actually want."

I want to save you from what's coming. I want to undo the curse that turned you into a man your own kingdom feared. I wanted to change both our futures.

"I want to leave my pack," I said. "As long as Pack law binds me to my father's authority, I can't go. Only the Lycan King can override that."

The pressure that rolled off him was physical. It pressed against my ribs and made my wolf flatten herself against my spine. But I held still. I knew him. In any timeline, Valerius Radcliff did not kill people who came to him unarmed.

"Your Majesty." His beta appeared from the tree line, dust on his uniform, face grim. "The shooter has been apprehended. He'd taken poison before we could question him."

We both turned. The beta's gaze moved between us. The suspicion was plain on his face.

Valerius's guards shifted behind him.

Valerius didn't acknowledge it. "Follow the body. I want to know who trained him, who funded him, and how he crossed into Thorne territory. Focus on the Thorne and Vance packs."

The beta saluted and disappeared into the dark.

Valerius released my arm. I stumbled back half a step.

"I don't know what you're hiding," he said. He was already turning toward the car, his voice flat and disinterested, like we'd been discussing logistics. "But taking one person out of a pack is not difficult for me."

I let myself breathe.

"However." He stopped at the car door without looking back. "I don't keep people with unclear loyalties near my throat. If my investigation clears you, your wish is granted."

He glanced over his shoulder.

"If it doesn't — you'll be executed as an accomplice."