Chapter Four

“I will ask you once more, Emerald,” he growled. “Where did a traitor’s daughter get the Royal Seal of the Kirby Lineage?”

My wolf screamed at me to pull away, to draw the silver blade in my sleeve and put it in his throat, but I forced my face still.

Panic would get me killed. I needed him to doubt me, not dismiss me.

“I stole it,” I said. I looked straight into his black eyes and didn’t blink.

Zion’s jaw tightened as his thumb pressed harder against the inner band of the ring. “You stole a royal house crest?”

“My father was a commander before you stripped his rank,” I said. “When the High Council ordered the Kirby house slaughtered and the estate burned twenty years ago, my father was in the vanguard. He dragged a chest of scavenged jewelry back to the northern border.”

I took a short breath and leaned into his space instead of pulling away.

“I took it from his private stash when I was twelve,” I said. “I kept it because silver buys food when an exiled family is starving. I didn’t know whose crest was etched inside. I didn’t care. It was dead metal to me.”

Zion didn’t blink. His gaze moved over my face, my eyes, my mouth, searching for the twitch that would give me away. He had spent his life in court, so he knew how to read a liar.

“You lie, Emerald,” he said quietly, his voice brushing against my lips. “A thief wears stolen jewels on her neck or waist. She doesn’t wear a dead royal’s signet on her thumb for ten years until the metal wears smooth against her skin.”

“Then execute me,” I said. I lifted my chin until it almost scraped his jaw. “Call the Council back into the hall. Tell them you found a dead house’s ring on your surrogate’s hand and chopped her head off. See if that gets you an heir before the ninety-day mandate runs out.”

Zion’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t release my hand. The air changed from dominance to calculation.

“You think your womb gives you immunity,” he said. His fingers slid off my thumb and wrapped around my throat, forcing my head back. “You think because I need an heir, I will tolerate a parasite in my keep.”

“I think you have enemies outside these walls, Alpha,” I said. “And instead of securing your border, you’re picking a fight with a girl whose only crime is keeping her father breathing.”

For three seconds, neither of us moved. Zion stared into my eyes as his thumb rested over my jugular to feel my pulse.

He didn’t believe me, but he couldn’t disprove it tonight, and he needed me alive more than he needed to solve an old mystery before dawn.

Slowly, he loosened his grip on my neck.

“I will have my archivists inspect the Kirby inventory ledgers from the purge,” he said flatly. “If your father’s name isn’t on the plunder manifest, I will personally strip that ring from your dead finger.”

“Inspect whatever you like,” I said, rubbing my throat as he released my wrist. “Just make sure you leave enough guards outside my door. Lady Sylvia looked ready to set fire to the tower on her way down.”

“Sylvia is my concern, not yours,” Zion said, as he turned his back on me and walked toward the arched stone window overlooking the courtyard. “Your only concern is surviving the night. The blood moon reaches its apex in two hours. When the moon strikes the horizon, the second phase of the binding ritual begins. You will share this bed, and you will submit your wolf to my power, or—”

The window cracked and exploded.

A heavy iron crossbolt tipped with glowing green silver tore through the pane and cut through the midnight air with a hiss.

It wasn’t aimed at the bed or at me. It flew straight for the back of Zion’s exposed neck.

“Zion!” I screamed.

My body moved before I thought. I threw my weight against his waist and drove him sideways.

The poisoned bolt whistled past the space where his head had been and slammed into the stone wall. It buried itself deep, green silver hissing against the rock.

Zion hit the floor with me on top of him. His hand caught my shoulder and rolled us before I could breathe. In one motion, he had me under him, one arm braced across my chest, his body between me and the window.

His eyes were already on the shattered pane. “Stay down,” he said.

I shoved his arm off my chest. “Get off me. The shot came from the east tower.”

Zion looked at me. For a half-second, he looked surprised, then it was gone.

“You saw the angle,” he said.

“I saw the glass,” I said. “It broke inward from the upper left east tower, the third or fourth floor is close enough to see you standing at the window.”

Another bolt cracked against the stone window frame. Zion pulled me flat against the floor as dust and glass rained over us.

“Guards!” Zion roared. His voice carried through the tower and down the stairwell. “East tower! Seal the stairs!”

Boots pounded in the corridor. Someone shouted and a horn sounded from the courtyard.

Zion looked down at me. His hand was still on my shoulder, pinning me to the floor. His face was close enough that I could see the faint amber ring around his pupils.

“You pushed me out of the way,” he said.

“You’re useless to me dead,” I said. “The contract dies with you. My father dies with you. Don’t read into it.”

“I don’t read into anything,” Zion said. “I calculate.”

He rose to one knee, pulled me up with him, and pushed me behind the heavy oak door. He didn’t look at me again as he crossed to the shattered window, pressed his back to the wall, and looked out at the east tower.

“Whoever fired that bolt knew which window you’d stand at,” I said. “They knew you’d inspect the binding marks yourself. They knew Silas would delay the doctors.”

Zion’s jaw tightened. “You’re saying someone in my own keep sent that bolt.”

“I’m saying you have a traitor,” I said. “And it isn’t my father, he’s been under your boot all night.”

Zion looked back at me with a cold expression, but he didn’t argue.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “you and I are going to have a conversation about that ring. Tonight, you stay where I can see you.”

“And my father?”

“He stays alive,” Zion said. “For now. But if you’re lying to me, Emerald, the border won’t save him, and it won’t save you.”

Shouts echoed from the east tower then another horn sounded.

Zion held out his hand.

“Get up,” he said. “You just saved my life. I won’t forget it. But don’t mistake that for trust.”

I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet, I didn’t let go until I was standing.

“I don’t want your trust, Alpha,” I said. “I want my father breathing and that ring back on my thumb.”

Zion looked at silver band on my hand, blood in the grooves of the forbidden crest.

“We’ll see,” he said.