She can hear my voice

CHAPTER 5

ISOLDE’S POV

"There’s something wrong with your medicine," I said, forcing my voice to stay steady despite the fear in my chest.

Rhaelen’s dark eyes narrowed instantly. He picked up the bottle from the tray and brought it close to his face, smelling the dark liquid inside. 

His jaw tightened into a hard line as he recognized the faint, metallic scent hidden beneath the thick herbs. "Silver," he muttered, his voice dropping into a deadly register.

His sharp gaze snapped back to me, cold and full of deep mistrust. He thought I was part of a plot against him.

"You brought this tray up here," Rhaelen said, taking a slow step toward me. "How did you know there was silver in it unless you put it there yourself?"

"I didn’t put anything in it," I said, taking a step back until my shoulders hit the cold stone wall behind me. "I only brought the tray from the kitchen because the butler told me to."

"Don’t move," Rhaelen commanded, his tone leaving no room for argument. "You’ll stay right here in this room until I find out who you really are and who sent you."

He walked to the heavy doors, opened them, and barked an order to the guards waiting outside. Within minutes, two guards dragged the kitchen servant responsible for preparing the tray into the study.

The servant dropped to his knees, shaking violently with terror. "My King, please. I only followed the healer's recipe. I swear I didn’t add anything to the bottle."

Rhaelen stood over the kneeling man. His breathing was fast and shallow, his dark eyes suddenly clouding over with a thick, violent haze. 

The silver he’d already consumed earlier in the day was reacting badly with his blood, driving his mind into a dark place.

Inside my head, the wild voice started to scream again, loud and frantic.

Enemies everywhere. He thinks the enemy from the southern border is here. Stop him. He can’t see clearly.

Rhaelen reached out and grabbed the terrified servant by the neck, lifting him off the floor with one hand. He wasn’t seeing the kitchen worker anymore. 

In his hallucinating mind, he was back on the bloody battlefield, face to face with an assassin who’d once tried to take his life.

The guards and other servants near the door backed away in absolute terror, trembling so hard they could barely hold their weapons. No one dared to step between the King and his target when the dark madness took over.

I couldn’t just stand there and watch an innocent man get strangled to death right in front of my eyes.

…Talk to him, the voice inside my mind instructed frantically. Use his border title. Call him the Lord of the Northern Shield. Approach him on his left side. His right side is where he was wounded, so his instinct will strike anything that moves there…

I swallowed the lump of fear in my throat and stepped away from the wall. I walked toward his left side, making sure my steps weren’t threatening.

"Lord of the Northern Shield," I called out, using the exact title the voice gave me.

Rhaelen didn’t drop the servant, but his head snapped toward my voice. His eyes were completely wild, golden, and vacant. He turned his body toward me, raising his free hand as if to strike me down too.

My heart hammered against my ribs, but I didn’t run. I took a dangerous risk and reached out, grabbing his large, trembling hand.

"Breathe," I murmured softly, guiding his hand down to my chest so he could feel the steady beat of my heart, just as the voice instructed. "In and out. Slowly."

The moment my fingers wrapped around his skin, the soft, clean scent of mountain rain and sweet herbs drifted off my body. Rhaelen gasped. His broad chest heaved as he inhaled my scent deep into his lungs.

The golden glare in his eyes slowly faded. The dark haze cleared, and his posture softened. He loosened his grip on the servant's neck, letting the gasping man fall safely to the floor.

When Rhaelen fully regained his senses, he looked down at his own hand resting in mine, then up at my face. The confusion on his features was clear. 

He realized that I knew his title, and that I somehow knew how to approach him without triggering his kill instinct.

He pulled his hand back, grabbed my wrist gently, and pushed me back against the wall, trapping me between his large body and the cold stone.

"Who are you?" Rhaelen demanded, his dark eyes searching every inch of my face. "Who sent you here? How do you know that name, and how did you know how to stop my attack?"

I kept my chin up, keeping the truth about the voice hidden. "I didn’t come here to hurt you. I only noticed that you were in pain and that something was wrong with your senses."

"That’s impossible," Rhaelen growled, not believing a word. "A normal person can’t read those signs."

He turned his head toward the door, where his Beta had just hurried into the room after hearing the commotion.

"Orren," Rhaelen said loudly. "Investigate this girl immediately. Find out where she came from and who her handlers are."

Orren walked closer, looking at my face under the candlelight. His eyes widened in complete shock as he recognized me.

"Rhaelen," Orren said slowly, placing a hand on his head. "There’s nothing to investigate. This is Lady Isolde. She’s the replacement bride sent by the Veyrden pack."

Rhaelen froze completely. His body went rigid against mine.

Only then did I realize he had finally recognized me. I was the girl he had casually sent to the cold servants' quarters the night before, the girl he had almost attacked moments ago, and I was his wife, the woman whose marriage contract hadn't yet been canceled.

He released my wrist and stepped back, his dark eyes sweeping over my plain gray tunic, then toward the servant coughing on the floor, and finally back to my face. His jaw tightened, and the confusion in his expression slowly hardened into suspicion.

"You are the replacement," he said, his voice low and rough.

I opened my mouth to answer, but I couldn't think clearly. The wolf's voice was filling my head again, louder and brighter than it had ever been, and it no longer sounded angry.

…She can hear me, the wolf roared inside my mind, filled with overwhelming joy and relief. She can hear my voice…

My heart hammered against my ribs as I pressed my back against the cold stone wall. Rhaelen kept his dark eyes fixed on my face, studying me as if I were a puzzle he couldn't solve. He had no idea what was happening inside my head. All he knew was that a nameless servant had walked into his study and stopped his madness with a single touch.

"What did you do to me?" he demanded quietly.

"Nothing," I said, forcing my voice to stay steady. "I only held your hand."

He looked down at his own hand, and I saw him realize that it had stopped trembling.

No one else in the room dared to speak. The guards stood frozen by the door, Orren stared at us in stunned silence, and the servant crawled toward the corner, afraid to even breathe. Rhaelen's gaze stayed on me, cold and wary, but beneath the suspicion there was a flicker of something that looked almost like fear.

Inside my head, his wolf was still talking, and I was the only one in the room who could hear him.