The warning

POV: Matteo

I didn't stand there frozen. I went straight to Sofia's quarters, the emissary's words still ringing in my ears, and knocked hard enough to wake her if she'd already gone to bed.

She opened the door in a robe, hair loose, one look at my face enough to pull her fully awake.

"What happened," she said.

"A rival emissary just cornered me on the terrace," I said, the words spilling faster than I meant them to. "He knew about gaps in the border patrols. He talked about the bond like it was already cracking, like people are just waiting for the right moment to prove it's not real."

Sofia's expression didn't do the thing I was braced for, the polite dismissal, the you're overreacting. It went still instead, careful.

"Sit down," she said, stepping back to let me in.

"You knew," I said, reading it off her face before she'd said a word. "Something's already happening."

"The rival pack's been testing the border for weeks," she said. "Small incursions. Nothing the council's told the wider household about yet."

"Weeks," I repeated. "And nobody thought to mention this to me."

"You're not exactly on the council's list of people they update first," she said, gentler than the words deserved. "That's not personal. That's just how it's always worked."

I sat down hard on the edge of her settee, the fear in my chest curdling into something closer to anger. "It's always personal when it's my safety they're keeping quiet about."

"I know," Sofia said. "I'm sorry."

I stayed with her another hour, running through everything the emissary had said, everything Sofia could confirm and everything she couldn't, until there was nothing left to say and I finally walked back toward the chambers alone, no closer to steady than when I'd knocked on her door.

Rhys wasn't back yet. I sat up waiting anyway, telling myself it was only because I needed to warn him, nothing more, and mostly believing the lie.

It was well past two in the morning when I heard him come in, boots heavy in the hall, tired in a way that had nothing to do with the late hour.

"You're still awake," he said, stopping in the doorway.

"I needed to tell you something," I said, standing. "A rival emissary approached me tonight. He knew things about the border patrols, Rhys. Details that shouldn't have left this compound."

Something shifted behind his eyes, quick and unreadable. "What exactly did he say."

I told him everything, watching his face carefully the whole time, the way his jaw set tighter with every detail, the way he didn't look surprised so much as grim, like I was confirming something he already half suspected.

"You should have come to me the second it happened," he said.

"You'd already left the hall."

"Then you should have sent for me."

"I didn't know where you'd gone," I said, sharper than I meant it, two years of swallowed frustration bleeding into three words.

He didn't answer that. He crossed the room instead, closer than he usually let himself get, and for one strange, unscripted second, something in his face cracked open.

"Be careful," he said, low, almost rough. "Please. Just... be careful, Matteo."

I stood there, stunned into silence. Two years of careful distance, of correct hands and cold mornings, and here he was asking me to be careful like it actually mattered to him whether I was.

"Rhys—"

"It's late," he said, already retreating, the softness folding itself back up and away before I could reach for it. "You should sleep."

He turned and disappeared into the adjoining room before I could say another word, and I stood there in the dark holding the shape of what he'd almost given me, furious at how badly I still wanted more of it.

I didn't sleep. Hours later, restless, I got up for water and passed his study on the way, door cracked just slightly, low voices spilling out into the hall.

Dave's voice. Rhys's voice. Both of them tight in a way that stopped me cold in the corridor.

"The patrol schedules don't match what was reported to the council," Rhys was saying, quiet, controlled in the way he got right before he lost his temper entirely.

"I can explain that," Dave said.

"Then explain it."

A pause. Long enough that I found myself holding still, barely breathing, one hand flat against the wall.

"If he finds out I moved them," Dave said, voice dropping lower, sharper, edged with something that sounded almost like fear, "this ends both of us."

I stood frozen in the dark hallway, my heart hammering against my ribs. I didn't know who he was. I didn't know what Dave had moved, or why it would end anything, or why Rhys's silence on the other side of that door sounded less like shock and more like a man who already knew exactly what Dave meant.