Chapter 6: Poisoned Wine

Wren POV

Thornvale's housekeeper was a broad, grey-haired woman named Hilde who looked at me

exactly once, sniffed, and handed me an apron.

"Alpha says you're to serve at the high table tonight," she said. "There's a welcome feast

for the warriors who rode to the border. You'll pour the Alpha's wine."

The apron slipped out of my fingers.

I bent to pick it up so she wouldn't see my face. "The Alpha asked for me? By name?"

"By name." Hilde's mouth thinned. "Don't ask me why. The man hasn't let a new servant

near his cup in five years."

I knew why.

He wanted to put me on display. The tribute bride, the Silvercrest scullery maid, pouring wine for the Alpha who'd promised to reject her. He wanted every wolf in Thornvale to see me

bowing at his elbow, so that when he cast me aside at the full moon, they'd all remember how

small I'd been.

It was cruel. It was clever.

It was also exactly what Celeste had planned.

On your first night in Thornvale, you'll pour the Alpha's wine.

I stood in the corner of the servants' hall with my new apron clutched in both hands and

felt the walls press in on me. Had she known? Had she known he would do this? Or was the

Goddess simply laughing at me, one more time?

Wren. Lark's voice was small and anxious. She had barely stopped talking since dawn. She

was full of questions and wonder, a wolf who had been asleep for twenty-two years and was

waking up hungry for the world. Wren, what's in the little bottle?

I didn't answer her.

Wren. The bottle in the hem. It smells wrong. It smells like death.

I know, I thought. Please. Please just let me think.

* * *

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Hilde put me to work scrubbing pots until noon. Nobody in the Thornvale kitchens spoke

to me, but everybody looked. Two young maids at the bread table whispered behind their

hands every time I passed. A scullery boy deliberately knocked a bucket of greasy water across

the floor I'd just finished, then grinned while I mopped it up again.

It didn't matter. I had survived eleven years of Celeste. Thornvale's kitchen staff were

amateurs.

Just after midday, the kitchen door banged open and the whole room went quiet.

Mara Quinn strolled in, still in her riding leathers, a half-eaten apple in one hand. She

didn't look at anyone else. She walked straight across the kitchen to where I knelt beside the

washtub, and she crouched down so her face was level with mine.

"So," she said pleasantly. "You're the one."

"My lady?"

"Don't." She took a bite of the apple and chewed slowly. "I was there last night, girl. I saw

his eyes go gold. I saw him put you on his own horse. Forty warriors saw it too, and by now

the whole pack knows. Do you know what they're saying?"

I said nothing.

"They're saying Celeste sent the Alpha a second-chance mate." Mara smiled. It didn't reach

her eyes. "Isn't that sweet?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Of course you don't." She leaned closer, and her voice dropped so low that only I could

hear it. "Here's what I know. For three years I've fought beside that man. Bled beside him.

Shared his bed when he couldn't stand to be alone with his own thoughts. I've earned my place

at his side, and I am not going to lose it to a wolfless Silvercrest dishrag who smells like the

river."

She stood up and tossed the apple core into my washtub. It sank with a little splash.

"He's going to reject you at the full moon," she said, loud enough for the whole kitchen to

hear now. "He promised. And when he does, I'll be standing right beside him."

She walked out. The door banged shut behind her.

Slowly, the kitchen came back to life around me. The maids at the bread table were openly

laughing now. Hilde said nothing at all, but when she passed me on her way to the larder, she

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set a clean cloth beside my bucket. I didn't know if it was kindness or pity.

I fished the apple core out of the water and kept scrubbing.

* * *

I found a moment alone in the linen store an hour before the feast.

I unpicked the stitches in my cloak's hem with shaking fingers. The vial slid out into my

palm, cold and clear and innocent as rainwater. I held it up to the narrow window. It caught the

evening light and glittered.

It was so small. A few drops. Celeste's maid had said it had no taste and no smell. That it

would take an hour to work, and that it would look like his heart had simply stopped.

I pictured Finn in the stables. Muck on his boots and straw in his hair, grinning at me with

that gap in his teeth. I mucked all six stalls, Wren. Finn, who'd cried over a dying dog. Finn,

who'd never hurt anyone in his life.

Then I pictured the Alpha's face this morning. I'll send you back to her in pieces.

He was cruel. He was cold. He'd made it very clear that I meant nothing to him.

He's our mate, Lark whispered.

"He doesn't want to be," I said aloud, and my voice cracked in the small dusty room.

That doesn't change what he is.

I closed my fist around the vial and pressed it against my forehead and stood there in the

dark, breathing, for a long time.

Then I slipped it into the pocket of my apron and went to work.

* * *

The great hall of Thornvale was loud, warm and smoky. Long tables were crowded with

warriors still in their riding leathers, laughing and shouting, tearing into haunches of venison

and loaves of dark bread. Hounds wove between the benches, snapping up scraps. Torches

blazed in iron brackets on every pillar.

At the high table, on a raised stone platform, sat the Alpha.

He'd changed out of his armour into a plain black shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow. His

dark hair was still damp. He wasn't laughing with the others. He sat back in his chair with one

hand on the arm, watching the room, and every few seconds his eyes found me.

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Every single time, I felt it like a hand on the back of my neck.

The red-haired Beta, Rhys, sat at his right. At his left, where a Luna would have sat, was

the warrior woman. Mara, they called her. She'd swapped her leathers for a dark red dress that

left her shoulders bare, and she leaned toward the Alpha whenever she spoke, her hand resting

on his forearm.

He didn't shake her off. He didn't look at her either.

I climbed the steps to the platform with the heavy silver jug in both hands. My heart was

beating so hard I could feel it in my teeth.

"Wine, Alpha?" I said.

The table went quiet. Even Rhys stopped mid-sentence.

The Alpha looked at me. Then he held out his cup without a word. It was a heavy thing,

black iron rimmed with silver.

I poured. Red wine, dark as blood, splashing up the sides. My hand was steady. Years of

Celeste's tea had made sure of that.

"Well," Mara said loudly. "Look at that. Silvercrest's finest." A few warriors at the nearest

table laughed. "Tell me, girl, do they teach you to pour on your knees in the south? Or only in

the Luna's bedroom?"

More laughter. Rhys frowned. The Alpha said nothing at all.

"Only on my knees when I'm scrubbing floors, my lady," I said quietly. "Which I imagine

you've never had to do."

The laughter died.

Mara's eyes narrowed to slits. Somewhere at the back of the hall, someone whistled low.

I regretted it instantly. In Silvercrest, a remark like that would have earned me a beating. I

braced myself for the Alpha's anger.

But when I dared to look at him, he wasn't angry. The corner of his mouth had moved. Not

a smile. Not quite. Just the ghost of one, there and gone.

"Leave the jug," he said. "And stand there."

He pointed at the space behind his chair, to his right.

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I set the jug down and stood where he'd pointed. Close enough that I could smell him.

Smoke and cedar and something dark and wild underneath. Lark sighed inside me, a long

contented sound, and I wanted to scream at her.

The feast went on. I filled his cup twice more. Each time, the vial weighed heavier in my

apron pocket. Each time, my fingers brushed it, and each time I pulled them away.

Do it, said a voice in my head. Not Lark's. My own. Do it, or Finn dies. You know Celeste.

You know she means it.

The hall grew louder. The warriors grew drunker. A pair of them started arm-wrestling on

a table down below, and everyone turned to watch, roaring and stamping their feet.

The Alpha had turned too, half rising from his chair to see. Rhys was cheering. Mara was

leaning out over the table, laughing.

Nobody was looking at the cup.

Now. It had to be now.

I reached for the jug with one hand. With the other, I slipped the vial out of my pocket and

thumbed out the tiny cork. I tipped it over the black iron rim.

Every drop.

It vanished into the red wine without a ripple, without a sound. I slid the empty vial back

into my pocket and filled the cup to the brim, and my hand did not shake.

It didn't shake at all.

I stepped back to my place behind his chair and stood very still, and inside me, Lark had

gone completely silent.

Down in the hall, one of the arm-wrestlers slammed his opponent's hand to the table. A

roar went up. The Alpha sat back down, shaking his head, the ghost of that almost-smile on his

face again.

He reached for his cup.

I watched his hand close around the black iron. I watched him lift it from the table. Time

seemed to stretch out, long and slow, like honey dripping from a spoon.

He was going to drink it. In an hour, he'd be dead. And Finn would live.

That was the bargain. That was the only bargain I had.

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The cup rose to his lips.

And I thought of the treasury fire. A young Alpha standing alone in the middle of his own

crowning, with the woman he loved laughing at him from a carriage window. Five years of

building something out of ashes, alone.

And I thought, very clearly: Celeste took everything from him once. I won't help her do it

again.

I moved before I knew I was moving.

My hand shot out and struck the cup.

It flew from his fingers, spun once in the air, and hit the stone floor of the platform with a

clang that cut through every voice in the hall. The wine splashed out in a long red arc across

the flagstones.

Silence.

Total, ringing silence. A hundred wolves turned to stare.

The Alpha was on his feet. His chair had crashed over backward. He was staring at me, and his eyes were turning gold.

"What," he said, very softly, "did you just do?"

I couldn't answer. I couldn't breathe. My knees were shaking so hard I thought they'd give

way.

But I didn't need to answer.

Because on the floor between us, where the red wine had splashed across the grey stone,

something was happening. A thin hiss, like water on a hot stove. A curl of white smoke rising

from the puddle. Then another. And another.

The smell hit the room a heartbeat later. Bitter and metallic and wrong, the stench of

something that had never been meant to touch living flesh.

Before every wolf in Thornvale, the Alpha's wine was eating into the stone.

And Mara Quinn, standing very slowly, pointed one red-tipped finger at me.

"Poison," she breathed. "The Silvercrest whore tried to poison the Alpha."