CHAPTER FOUR

Ronan’s words still hung in the air like a drawn blade.

“My wolf just recognized her.”

No one moved. The torches along the walls crackled, but even that small sound felt too loud. I stood frozen with the silver pitcher in my hands, wine trembling at the rim, every eye in the great hall fixed on my face. The bond between Ronan and me pulled tight and bright, a living thing that refused to be ignored. My sealed wolf strained against the invisible walls that had held it quiet for years, answering him even while the rest of me stayed locked in place by fear.

Kael rose from his chair with slow, deliberate power. The legs of the heavy seat scraped against stone. Golden eyes burned with a cold that had nothing to do with temperature. He looked at Ronan first, then at me, and the weight of that gaze made my knees want to give out.

“You will not speak those words in my hall,” Kael said. His voice was quiet, yet it carried to every corner. “She is a servant. A contract obligation. Nothing more.”

Ronan did not step back. His blue-gray eyes stayed on me even as he answered the Crimson Moon King. “My wolf does not make mistakes. The moment I walked through those doors, it recognized her as mate. That is not politics. That is the bond.”

A low murmur moved through the visiting Alpha Kings. Selene’s face had gone pale, then tightened into something sharp and controlled. She placed one hand on Kael’s arm, but he shook it off without looking at her.

I wanted to sink into the floor. Every degrading word Kael had ever spoken to me rose at once and wrapped around my throat. Worthless. Burden. Pet. Broken omega. And now an Alpha King stood in front of the entire summit and claimed the opposite, while the man who owned my life looked ready to destroy the claim before it could take root.

Kael descended the steps of the high table. Each footstep echoed. He stopped a few paces from Ronan, close enough that their power collided in the air between them. I felt it against my skin like pressure before a storm.

“She is already bound to the Crimson Moon by treaty,” Kael said. “A weak omega who exists only because killing her would break the peace I signed. Whatever you think you feel ends here.”

Ronan’s voice remained steady, but there was iron underneath. “Contracts do not erase the will of the Moon Goddess. She felt the bond. I saw it in her eyes.”

Kael’s golden stare shifted to me. The full force of his Alpha dominance slammed into my chest. “Answer him, servant. Tell the Silver Fang King you feel nothing. Tell him you are exactly what I say you are.”

The bond pulsed again, warm and insistent. My sealed wolf pushed harder. I opened my mouth, ready to speak the lie that had kept me alive until now.

The words would not come.

Silence stretched. My hands shook so badly that wine spilled over the rim of the pitcher and ran down my wrist in a thin red line. I could not look at Ronan. I could not look at Kael. I stared at the dark stain spreading across the white tablecloth and felt the last pieces of the girl who had once hoped for a future crumble into dust.

Kael’s mouth curved into something that was not a smile. “Even she cannot bring herself to claim it. Look at her. She knows what she is.”

Ronan took one more step forward. “Then let her leave with me. If she is truly nothing to you, release her.”

The hall went completely still.

Kael laughed once, short and cold. The sound scraped across my skin. He turned his head just enough to look at me again, and the disgust in his eyes was worse than any shout.

“Take her if you want her,” he said, voice carrying clearly to every listening wolf. “She is not worth anything. A burden I was forced to keep. A broken omega who crawls when she is told and still somehow manages to be a disappointment. If your wolf is foolish enough to want her, she is yours.”

The words landed like open-handed blows. I felt them in my ribs, in my throat, in the hollow place where pride used to live. Heat rushed to my face, then drained away until I felt cold all over. The pitcher grew heavy in my hands. I wanted to drop it. I wanted to run. I wanted to disappear so completely that no one would ever look at me again.

Ronan’s expression hardened. “You would speak of her that way while she stands here listening?”

“I speak the truth,” Kael answered. “She has always known her place. The only reason she still breathes inside these walls is the treaty. If you want the treaty’s leftover burden, take her. I will not stop you.”

He paused, and the next words came slower, sharper, meant to cut.

“But she remains my servant until the political debt is fully paid. I will not release her from service. You may claim whatever bond you like. You may even take her to your bed if that is what your wolf demands. She will still return to my kitchens and my floors when I require it. She belongs to the Crimson Moon as property of the treaty. That does not change.”

The cruelty of it settled over me like a second skin. He had just offered me to another Alpha like a discarded object, then made certain I could never actually leave. I was to be claimed and still owned. Wanted by one man and kept worthless by the other.

Ronan’s hands curled into fists at his sides. Power rolled off him in a steady wave, but he did not attack. His eyes found mine again over Kael’s shoulder. There was anger there, and something fiercer, something that looked like protectiveness I did not know how to accept.

“She is not property,” Ronan said quietly.

Kael shrugged, the gesture lazy and final. “In this kingdom she is. Take her if you want her. Just remember she will still answer when I call.”

He turned away as if the conversation had already bored him and walked back to his chair. Selene watched me with open satisfaction. Several of the visiting Kings looked between Ronan and me with new interest, calculating, measuring the value of a servant who had suddenly become the center of an Alpha claim.

I stood in the middle of the hall with wine still dripping down my wrist and the bond burning in my chest like a brand. Every wolf present had just heard their King declare that I was worth nothing and could still be taken. The humiliation was complete. It lived in my bones now.

Ronan remained where he was. He did not move toward me. He did not speak again. But the look he gave me across the space between us carried a silent promise I was too broken to believe.

Kael sat down, lifted his goblet, and drank as if nothing of importance had occurred.

I forced my feet to move. I set the pitcher on the nearest table because my hands could no longer hold it steady. Then I turned and walked toward the side doors on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else. No one stopped me. No one offered help. The eyes of the hall followed my back until the doors closed behind me.

In the empty corridor, I pressed both palms flat against the cold stone wall and tried to breathe. The bond still pulled, warm and insistent, reaching for the Alpha who had just been told he could take me and still never fully have me. My sealed wolf whined softly inside my mind, confused and aching.

Footsteps approached from the direction of the hall. I did not turn. I already knew the scent.

Ronan stopped a few paces away. He did not touch me. He simply stood there, solid and quiet, while I kept my forehead against the stone and tried not to shatter completely.

“I will not leave you in this,” he said, voice low.

I closed my eyes. The tears I had refused to let fall in the hall finally slipped free.

Behind us, inside the great hall, Kael’s cold laughter rose once more, followed by the sound of goblets being refilled and conversation slowly returning. As if the girl he had just offered away like refuse had never been standing there at all.

I stayed against the wall, the mate bond burning in my chest, and understood with perfect clarity that the worst night of my life was only beginning.