chapter 5

NANCY'S POV

Arian's question sat in the air longer than it should have. I could feel Jayden watching him, waiting to see if he'd push it, and I hated that I was doing the same.

"A rogue pack," I said again, because repeating a lie was easier than inventing a new one. "There's not much else to say."

"There's plenty else to say." Arian didn't raise his voice. He never seemed to need to. "Rogue packs don't produce hair like that. Or eyes."

My fork sat untouched beside the plate. I kept my hands in my lap where they wouldn't shake.

"Maybe I'm special," I said, flat, daring him to push further.

Something flickered behind his eyes. Not quite a smile. "That's one word for it."

"Arian." Jayden's voice again, easier than before but still a warning. "She's had a rough couple of days. Let her eat."

"She's not eating," Neven cut in, nodding toward my untouched plate. "In case you hadn't noticed."

He wasn't wrong. I glanced at the food — some kind of roasted bird, glazed vegetables that probably cost more than anything I'd eaten in a year — and my stomach twisted with hunger and suspicion in equal measure.

"Not hungry," I lied.

"You've been unconscious for two days, and you're not hungry." Neven's tone made it clear he didn't believe a word of it. "Right."

I met his eyes. "Would you eat something a stranger put in front of you after everything I've been through?"

That landed. For a second, something almost like understanding crossed his face before he buried it under irritation again. "Fine. Starve. Not my problem."

"Neven." This time it was Arian who said the name, low, and Neven's jaw tightened, but he said nothing else.

I looked between the three of them, Jayden watching me like I was something fragile he wanted to keep, Neven watching me like I was a blade someone had left unattended, Arian just watching, unreadable, patient in a way that scared me more than either of the others.

They didn't agree on what I was. That much was obvious. And whatever cracks ran between the three of them, maybe those cracks were something I could use.

"You don't trust each other's read on me," I said before I could stop myself.

Silence.

Jayden's easy smile faltered for half a second. Neven's eyes narrowed. Arian just tilted his head slightly, like I'd said something mildly interesting instead of something true.

"That's a bold thing to say at a table you don't belong at," Neven said.

"You brought me to this table."

"Jayden brought you to this table."

"Because it was the right thing to do," Jayden said, easy again, though there was an edge under it now that hadn't been there a minute ago. "She's a guest. Guests eat."

"Guests don't get locked in cells first," I said.

Nobody had an answer for that.

The maid who'd brought my plate reappeared to refill water glasses, and the sound of it — glass against glass, ordinary and small — was the only thing that moved for a moment. I used it to look away from all three of them, down at the food, at my own hands, anywhere but the weight of their attention.

"How long do you plan on keeping me here?" I asked, quietly.

"Until we know what you are," Arian said. No hesitation. No softness either, though it wasn't cruel — just certain, the way people talk about facts instead of choices.

"And if I'm nothing? Just a maid who got lucky and didn't die?"

"You didn't get lucky," Arian said. "Wolfsbane doesn't work like that. It doesn't change people. It kills them."

I didn't have an answer for that either, because he was right, and I didn't know what I was any more than they did.

Jayden reached over and nudged my plate an inch closer to me. "Eat something. Nobody's poisoning you. If we wanted you dead, you'd have been dead in the dungeon, not sitting at my table in my jacket."

It wasn't his jacket anymore, technically. I was still wearing the memory of it, the smell of sandalwood that had clung to my skin even after the bath. I didn't correct him.

I picked at the vegetables, just enough to prove a point, not enough to actually trust any of it. The taste barely registered. My whole body was too busy cataloguing exits, watching hands, waiting for something to go wrong the way it always eventually did.

"Where's home, really?" Neven asked, quieter than before, like he'd decided to try a different angle. "Not the rogue pack story. The real one."

I set my fork down. "Why does it matter so much to you?"

"Because things that look like you usually mean trouble for the rest of us." He said it without heat, which somehow made it worse than if he'd shouted it. "I'd rather know what kind before it finds us."

"I'm not trouble."

"You stabbed a man and tore silver bars out of a wall with your hands." Neven raised an eyebrow. "Forgive me if I don't take your word for it."

I had nothing to say to that, because it was true, and because some small ugly part of me was almost proud of it.

The meal went on that way — questions I dodged, silences I sat through, Jayden filling the gaps with things that were almost jokes, Neven watching me as if I might combust, Arian saying little else but never once looking away. By the time the plates were cleared, I'd eaten maybe a third of what had been put in front of me and felt more exposed than I had all day.

I stood too fast. The chair scraped hard against the floor, and I mumbled something about being tired, about needing to lie down, already turning before anyone could stop me.

A hand caught my wrist.

Not Jayden's. Not Neven's.

Arian's fingers wrapped loosely around my wrist, warm in a way I hadn't expected, and for a second neither of us moved. His grip wasn't tight. It wasn't a threat.

"You're limping," he said, low enough that it felt like it was meant only for me. "From the fight in the forest."

I hadn't realized I was.

"I'm fine," I said, though my voice came out thinner than I meant it to.

His thumb moved, barely, against the inside of my wrist. Not quite a caress. Just contact. Just enough to make my pulse stutter under his fingers, and from the way his eyes flicked down to where he was touching me, I knew he'd felt it too.

Then he let go, like nothing had happened at all.

"Get some rest," he said, already turning back to the table, back to whatever unreadable calm he wore like armor.

I didn't move for a second. Couldn't.

Behind me, I heard Neven mutter something under his breath that I didn't catch, and Jayden laugh, like he'd seen something the rest of us hadn't.

I walked out of that dining room with my wrist still burning where Arian had touched it, and I didn't understand why.