CHAPTER 10 HE FOUND ME

I stared at the man on the cot. My hand was still caught in his weak grip.

"Julian," I said slowly. "You're saying Julian did this."

"Yes, Princess." His voice was thin, like it cost him everything just to talk. "He was there. I saw his face."

Cassian stepped closer, his arms crossed, his jaw tight. "You're certain. Not someone who looks like him. Not a trick of the smoke."

"I traded with the Silver Paw Pack for two years," the man said. "I know Alpha Julian Vance's face. I saw him standing at the edge of the trees, watching the rogues attack us. He wasn't fighting. He wasn't running. He was just watching."

"Watching," I repeated. My mouth felt dry.

"He said something too," the man went on, wincing as he shifted on the cot. "Before I ran, I heard him. He said, 'Tell her I'm coming.' That's all. Then the rogues hit us and I didn't see him again."

The room went quiet. Even the healer working on the other side of the wing stopped moving for a second.

Tell her I'm coming.

My stomach turned into a cold, hard rock.

Cassian looked at me. "This changes things."

"I know," I said.

"You said he was cruel in small ways. Petty ways. He's never been the type to get his own hands dirty." Cassian's voice was flat, but I could hear the edge under it. "This isn't small anymore, Aurora. Six people are dead."

"I know," I said again, because I didn't have anything better.

The wounded man's grip on my wrist finally loosened. His eyes started to drift shut, exhausted from talking.

"Get him water," Cassian told the healer. "And keep two guards on this door at all times. No one talks to him without me knowing."

We stepped outside into the corridor, and for a second neither of us said anything. I leaned against the cold stone wall and closed my eyes.

"He's not supposed to be capable of this," I said quietly. "Julian complains about paperwork. He whines about cold apartments. He doesn't plan attacks on trade caravans."

"People change," Cassian said. "Or maybe he had help planning it. The note. The ring. The dead stable boy. Someone's been setting all this up for a while."

"You think Julian and whoever's inside your keep are working together."

"I think it's the only thing that makes sense right now." Cassian rubbed the back of his neck, tired in a way I hadn't seen from him before. "Someone here knows things they shouldn't. Someone here let a stranger walk right up to my kitchen door in the middle of the night. And now your ex-husband shows up watching an attack on my border and says he's coming for you."

"So what do we do?"

"We find out who's helping him. And we get ready for him to actually show up."

That afternoon, Cassian called every guard, every general, and every household staff member into the courtyard. He stood on the front steps with me beside him, and for the first time since I'd arrived, I saw him look truly angry.

"Someone in this keep has been talking to outsiders," he said, his voice carrying across the whole yard. "A stable boy is dead. A threat was left against my wife. And now we have proof that an enemy of this house is planning an attack. I want names. I want answers. And I promise you, whoever is responsible will not like what happens when I find them."

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. But I watched the crowd carefully, the way I used to watch Julian's family at dinner, looking for the smallest crack in someone's face.

That's when I saw it.

One of the younger maids, a girl named Petra who usually kept her eyes down and her mouth shut, was staring at the ground so hard it looked painful. Her hands were shaking at her sides.

I leaned toward Cassian. "The maid. Third row. She knows something."

Cassian's eyes flicked over, just briefly, before he addressed the crowd again. "Dismissed. Get back to your posts."

The moment the crowd started to break apart, two guards moved in quietly and pulled Petra aside before she could disappear into the group. She started crying almost immediately.

We took her to a small side room. She wouldn't stop shaking.

"I didn't want to," she said, over and over. "I didn't want to, I swear it, but he said he'd hurt my little brother."

"Who?" Cassian asked, his voice gentler now than it had been in the courtyard.

"A man," Petra said. "He found me in the village two weeks ago. Before the princess even arrived. He gave me a letter and told me to leave the back kitchen door unlocked whenever he needed it open. He said if I told anyone, he'd know, and he'd make sure my brother paid for it."

"Did you see his face?" I asked.

She nodded, wiping her eyes. "He had blond hair. Nice clothes. Spoke like someone from the city, not the villages around here."

My blood went cold. That matched Julian, easily.

"Did he say his name?" Cassian asked.

Petra shook her head. "No. But he wore a ring. Silver, shaped like a wolf's head. I remember because it caught the light when he handed me the letter."

I froze completely.

That ring. I knew that ring. It was Marcus's ring — Julian's closest lieutenant, the same man who had laughed at me from behind that curtain in the Silver Paw lounge, the same man who called me a pathetic burden not worth keeping around.

"Marcus," I whispered.

"Who?" Cassian asked.

"Julian's second in command," I said, my heart pounding hard against my ribs. "If Marcus was here two weeks ago, leaving letters and unlocking doors, that means this wasn't a sudden decision. Julian's been planning this since before I even left the Bloodmoon estate."

Cassian's face turned to stone. "Which means he already knew where you'd end up. Before the ink was even dry on our contract."

We both went quiet, letting that settle.

Then one of the guards from the front gate came running into the room, out of breath, his face white as bone.

"Alpha," he gasped. "There's a rider at the front gate. He says he has a message for the princess. He won't leave until she comes out and hears it herself."

"Who is he?" Cassian demanded.

The guard swallowed hard.

"He says his name is Julian Vance," he said. "And he says he's not leaving without his wife.”