Chapter 9

Nadia

The formal terms were drawn up within the week, exactly as my father promised. What I hadn't expected was how quickly word spread once both packs signed them. By Monday, half the school already knew.

"You're a princess," Priya said, cornering me at my locker with wide eyes. "An actual, real Alpha princess. And you let me talk you into eating lunch with strangers for a month like you were just some random new kid."

"I couldn't tell you."

"I know, I know, secret identity, royal safety, all that." She waved a hand, though her grin didn't fade. "I'm still mad. A little. Mostly I'm just glad you're not actually mysterious and broody. That would've been exhausting to be friends with."

I laughed, relief loosening something in my chest. Not everyone in my life had run at the truth. "You're taking this better than I expected."

"Please. I already suspected something was up. You block way too well for someone with 'no training.'" She bumped her shoulder against mine. "Besides, best friend to a future Luna? I'm not mad about that part at all."

Not everyone reacted so easily. Marcus showed up at the Royal territory two days later, uninvited, his expression tight and unreadable when he found me in the garden behind the main house.

"So it's true," he said. "The Ashford alliance."

"It's true."

"My father's furious. He'd already started telling people the match was as good as settled."

"It was never settled," I said carefully. "It was proposed. There's a difference."

Marcus's jaw tightened, the polished charm from our first meeting slipping into something colder. "You have no idea what you've cost my family by choosing him. Row territory needed this alliance more than you realize."

"I'm sorry your father's disappointed. But I don't owe your pack my future because it would've been convenient for your border troubles."

"Convenient." He laughed, sharp and humorless. "You think this is about convenience? Our northern line has been quietly losing ground for a year. Skirmishes, testing, probing — someone's been circling us for months, and my father hoped an alliance with the crown would finally scare them off."

Something cold settled in my stomach. "Losing ground to who?"

"If we knew that," Marcus snapped, "we wouldn't need an alliance to survive it." He studied me a moment longer, some of the anger fading into something more calculating. "Careful, Nadia. The Ashford name might protect your southern comfort, but it won't fix what's coming from the north. And when it arrives, don't expect my father to rush to your door after this insult."

He left without waiting for a response, and I stood in the garden a long time afterward, turning his words over uneasily.

I told Kade everything that evening, meeting him at our usual spot near the tree line, the place that had somehow become ours without either of us deciding it officially.

"Row's territory has been under pressure for a year," Kade said slowly, once I finished. "That's longer than the rumors about you have been circulating. Which means whoever's testing borders started before the gathering, before anyone even suspected there was a hidden Royal heir to target."

"So it's not about me."

"Maybe not at first." He frowned, thinking it through. "But if someone's been quietly testing weaker packs along the north for a year, and now they hear rumors about a female Alpha heir and a new alliance forming between two strong territories, that changes the equation. We might not have caused the threat. But we might have just made ourselves the biggest prize on the board."

I hated how much sense that made. "My father needs to hear this."

"My father too," Kade said. "If Row's telling the truth about a full year of pressure, this is bigger than border testing. Someone's been building toward something."

Both our fathers met again within days, this time joined by Elder Row himself, who arrived tense and clearly still bitter about the broken match, but willing to share what his scouts had gathered. Maps were spread across the table in my father's study, marked with small red circles along the northern ridge.

"Six incidents in the last year," Row said, tapping the map. "Scouts crossing our borders, testing patrol schedules, disappearing before we can identify them. No claimed territory, no demands. Just probing."

"Building a picture of our weaknesses," Alpha Ashford said grimly. "Before making a real move."

"Any pattern to the timing?" my father asked.

Row hesitated, then nodded slowly. "The incidents increased sharply after the fall gathering. Before that, they were occasional. Since then, nearly weekly."

The room went quiet. I felt Kade's eyes flick toward me, the same cold realization settling over both of us.

"They heard the rumors," I said quietly. "About a hidden female Alpha. And they've been moving faster ever since."

"Which means," my father said, voice tight, "whoever this is either wants to eliminate a threat to their plans before it fully forms, or they want to capture that threat and use it themselves."

"Comforting," Kade muttered.

"None of this is comforting," Alpha Ashford said. "But it does mean the alliance we've formed isn't just useful. It may be the only thing standing between three vulnerable packs and whoever's circling them." He looked to Row. "Which is why I'm extending the same offer to your territory that I gave the Royal Pack. Formal defensive alliance. Whatever's coming for one of us, we face together."

Row's jaw tightened, pride visibly warring with practicality. Finally, he nodded once, stiffly. "Agreed."

Later, walking me to the gate, Kade stayed quiet longer than usual, thinking. "Three packs allied now," he finally said. "That should feel safer."

"But?"

"But if someone's been patient enough to test borders quietly for a year without revealing themselves, they're not going to panic just because we've drawn some new lines on a map." He looked at me, worry plain on his face for the first time since I'd known him. "Whoever this is, Nadia, I don't think they're finished. I think we just became the reason they finally show themselves."