Chapter 36

Kade

He left for Blackthorn three days later, alone except for a small guard escort, the parting from Wren considerably harder than the short distance technically warranted.

"Three days there, whatever business needs handling, three days back," he said, holding her hands in the pale morning light outside the Nightshade pack house, reluctant to actually let go. "I need to do this properly. Face my father, sort out the council, handle things with Seraphine honestly instead of leaving it as some vague understanding neither of us has actually said out loud to the people who need to hear it."

"I know." Wren squeezed his hands once, then stepped back, some of her careful composure visibly reasserting itself, though not entirely — not the way it might have three weeks ago. "Be careful on the road. Whoever's hunting me might decide hunting the people I care about is an easier way to get to me."

"I'll be careful." He kissed her once, brief and warm, still getting used to the fact that he was allowed to. "I'll come back to you. I promise."

"Don't promise things you can't fully control."

"I can control this one." Something certain and unshakable in his voice that hadn't been there five years ago, or maybe hadn't been tested enough to show itself. "I'm coming back, Wren. Whatever it takes."

The ride to Blackthorn passed in three days of watchful quiet, Kade's small escort taking the threat seriously enough to avoid the most exposed roads, and he found himself, more than once, turning over exactly how he intended to have the conversations waiting for him at the other end.

His father was in the study when he arrived, predictably, and looked up from his reports with an expression that suggested he'd already guessed, in broad strokes, what this particular homecoming was going to involve.

"You found her." Not a question.

"I found her." Kade closed the study door behind him, steady in a way he hadn't managed in their last several difficult conversations. "She's remarkable, Father. Everything the rumors said and considerably more besides. I intend to be part of her life going forward, in whatever capacity she'll eventually allow. I wanted you to hear that directly from me, not through council gossip."

Marcus set down his reports slowly, studying his son with an expression Kade couldn't immediately read. "And your marriage."

"Seraphine and I have already discussed it, honestly, before I ever reached Nightshade's borders. We're not going to pretend at something that was never real to begin with, not anymore. I intend to formalize a separation, properly, with whatever political care the Ashborne alliance requires to hold regardless." Kade held his father's gaze, steady. "I know this isn't the arithmetic you'd have chosen for me. I'm choosing it anyway. I've spent five years living inside your version of the calculation, and it cost me nearly everything it was supposed to protect. I'm not doing that again."

Marcus was quiet a long moment, something working behind his composed expression that Kade hadn't seen from him often in twenty-seven years of being his son. "Do you remember," he said finally, "when I told you I rejected a mate once. Before your mother."

"I remember."

"I never told you the rest of it. I let you assume I made peace with it, the way I told you that you would. I didn't." Something rougher entered his father's voice, an old grief finally surfacing after decades of careful burial. "I spent thirty years telling myself duty was the same thing as strength, because believing anything else meant admitting I'd traded the one real thing I ever wanted for a seat and a war I'm not even certain would have actually happened if I'd chosen differently. I don't know that anymore, Kade. I've had thirty years to wonder, and I still don't know." He looked at his son directly, something almost pleading in it. "Don't spend thirty years wondering. If she's real, if this is real — don't let the seat cost you what it cost me."

Kade hadn't expected that, hadn't expected anything close to it, and found himself, for the first time in longer than he could remember, simply grateful for his father's honesty instead of braced against his father's expectations. "Thank you," he said quietly. "For telling me that."

"Don't thank me. I should have told you years ago, before you made the same mistake I did." Marcus straightened, something of his old composure reasserting itself, though gentler now, less armored than before. "Go handle things with Seraphine properly. She deserves that much, whatever else is true. And Kade—" He paused, something almost soft crossing his weathered face. "I'd like to meet her eventually. Wren. Properly, not across a summit hall. If she's willing."

"I think she would be. Eventually." Kade allowed himself a small, real smile, something easing in his chest that had been tight for longer than this particular conversation accounted for. "Thank you, Father."

He found Seraphine in the garden later that afternoon, tending to something that didn't particularly need tending, and she looked up at his approach with an expression that told him she'd already guessed the shape of this conversation too.

"You found her, and something's changed." Not quite a question.

"Something's changed." He sat on the low stone bench beside her, choosing his words with the care this particular conversation deserved. "I wanted to talk to you honestly, Seraphine, before rumor or council gossip beat me to it. I care about Wren. I intend to pursue that, properly, whatever it eventually becomes. I wanted you to hear that from me directly, and I wanted to ask what you need from me, going forward, to make sure this doesn't cost you anything you don't choose to give up yourself."

Seraphine set down her gardening tools, considering the question with the same careful precision she brought to everything. "I've had five years to prepare for this conversation, Kade, whether I fully admitted that to myself or not. I don't need you to feel guilty about it. I need a few practical things, and then I think we'll both be considerably better off."

"Name them."

"A formal separation, handled with enough political grace that neither Ashborne nor Blackthorn reads it as an insult severe enough to reopen old hostilities. Time — not much, but some — to decide what I actually want next, now that I'm not required to want anything in particular on your behalf. And honesty, going forward, about whatever this becomes with Wren, so I'm never blindsided by something I should have been told directly." She held his gaze, something steady and dignified in it that he suspected he'd never fully appreciated until this exact moment. "In exchange, I'll give you my full, public support for the separation, and I'll make sure Ashborne understands this isn't a rejection of the alliance, just an honest correction of an arrangement that was never going to work the way it was originally built."

"That's more than fair."

"I know it is." A small, wry smile, more genuine than bitter. "I told you once, at our wedding, that I hoped whatever this was would pass. I don't think I meant it quite the way it sounds now, looking back. I think some part of me already knew, even then, that it wasn't going to pass, and that the kindest thing either of us could eventually do was stop pretending otherwise." She stood, brushing dirt from her hands, something lighter in her posture than Kade had seen in years. "Go be happy, Kade. Properly, this time. You've more than earned the attempt, whatever mistakes got you here."