Chapter 6: The Alpha Prince's Warning

Tahlia's POV

"Stay away from him."

Ronan's voice cut across the courtyard the moment Alaric's card disappeared into my pocket. He closed the distance in long, furious strides, still in his training clothes, chest heaving, glaring at Alaric like the man had insulted his bloodline just by standing there.

I didn't step back.

"I wasn't aware I needed your permission to speak to anyone."

His eyes flashed gold. "This is allied territory. My father's territory. Alaric Neron has no business interfering in matters that don't concern him."

"Matters?" I gave a short, humorless laugh. "You mean me?"

"Yes."

"You rejected me." My voice stayed steady even as my pulse hammered in my throat. "In front of hundreds of wolves. Called me fatass and watched me fall. So tell me, Alpha Prince—what gives you the right to decide who I talk to now?"

His jaw clenched hard enough that I heard his teeth click. "That was—"

"A mistake? A drunken joke? Something I'm supposed to forget because you don't like the consequences?"

He stepped closer. The bond between us—broken, shredded, but somehow still alive—throbbed like a fresh bruise. My wolf stirred under my skin, caught between old instinct and new fury.

"You don't understand what you're doing," he said, his voice dropping into the low register that used to make lesser wolves bare their throats. "Alaric is using you. He sees a useful mind, nothing more. The second you stop being convenient, he'll discard you the same way—"

"The same way you did?"

Silence.

The courtyard had gone quiet. A few warriors found sudden interest in the training posts. Someone near the gates stopped walking altogether. I felt the weight of their stares, the same hungry attention that had watched me collapse days ago. Only this time, I was still standing.

Ronan's gaze dropped to my arm.

The bruise still circled my wrist from the night of the festival—the night he'd grabbed me hard enough to leave marks while the whole pack laughed. It had faded to a sickly yellow-green, but it was still there. Still proof.

Something flickered across his face. Guilt, raw and brief, almost human—before his pride slammed the door on it.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said, quiet enough that the others couldn't catch every word. "Not like that."

"But you did." I lifted my arm so the bruise caught the light. "You left marks. Then you walked away while everyone else enjoyed the show. Do you remember the laughter, Ronan? Because I do. I hear it every time I close my eyes."

His hands curled into fists. "Tahlia—"

"Don't." My voice held steady only because the numbness hadn't fully worn off. "You lost the right to say my name like it means something the second you rejected me. You don't get to soften it now."

Footsteps approached from the corridor—measured, unhurried, entirely unbothered by the tension in the air.

"She's right."

Alaric's voice was quiet, but it carried across the stones. Ronan's head snapped up, gold burning brighter in his eyes, the way fire flares right before it jumps the line.

Alaric stopped a few paces away, hands loose at his sides, expression unreadable. He looked between us, then settled his attention on Ronan with the calm of a man who'd already worked out every possible outcome of this conversation and found none of them frightening.

"Tahlia is free to make her own decisions," he said. "She isn't your mate. You made sure of that in front of witnesses. Which means she isn't under your authority, your protection, or your control."

Ronan took a step toward him. The air between them thickened, two Alphas measuring each other for the first time without politics or distance to soften it. My own wolf pressed forward—not in submission, but in readiness.

"You overstep, Neron."

"I offered her a position." Alaric's voice didn't rise. "One that values what she can do. If that threatens you, the problem isn't me."

"You think you can walk into my family's allied territory and take whatever you want?"

"I'm not taking anything." His gaze flicked to me, then back. "I'm offering. The choice is hers. Something you seem to have forgotten exists."

My heart slammed against my ribs. The card in my pocket felt heavier now, like it carried the weight of every door that had ever closed in my face.

Ronan turned back to me. "You're not leaving with him."

"You don't get to decide that."

"I am still the Alpha Prince of Silver Ridge—"

"And I am still the woman you humiliated in front of your entire pack." I held his stare and refused to look away, even as the bond between us twisted like a live wire. "You don't get both. You don't get to reject me and then act like you still own what's left."

The growl that rolled out of his chest was pure wolf. Several warriors shifted uneasily; one of the younger ones actually stepped back. Alaric didn't move, but the air around him seemed to cool, that quiet kind of dominance that never needed volume to be felt.

"Careful," Alaric said. "You're scaring your own people."

Ronan ignored him, eyes locked on mine, bright with something that looked too much like panic wearing rage as a mask.

"You belong here," he said. "With your pack. With the people who—"

"With the people who laughed while I bled on the stones?" My voice cracked, and I hated the sound of it—hated that he could still pull that weakness out of me. "No. I don't. I never did. I just stayed because I didn't know I was allowed to leave."

He reached for me.

His hand closed around my wrist, the same wrist still marked from the last time he'd grabbed me. The grip was tight, possessive, desperate. The broken bond flared in protest, a sharp spike of heat and pain that stole my breath and narrowed my vision.

My wolf surged.

She'd been quiet for days, curled around the hollow the rejection had carved out of me. Now she rose like a storm, furious and finished with being handled. Strength flooded my arms, sudden and clean. I twisted hard and shoved his hand off me.

Ronan stumbled back, eyes wide.

The courtyard went completely still.

I stood there breathing hard, wrist throbbing, my wolf still growling low in my head. Alaric had moved closer without my noticing—a solid presence at my shoulder—but he didn't touch me. He just waited, giving me the space no one in Briar Hollow had ever bothered to offer.

Ronan stared at his own hand like it had betrayed him.

Then he looked at me—really looked—and for the first time since the festival, there was no arrogance left in his face.

Only the first trace of fear.