CHAPTER 7: THE RETURN

Five years passed.

I will only outline their form.

Across the three years stretching from the autumn of my second year in the Free Cities to the spring of my fifth, I expanded Voss Capital from a single-room office tucked inside a townhouse on Aldris Lane with one director and one caretaker into a sixteen-person investment firm operating out of a four-storey building on the principal financial avenue of the Second Free City. Our assets under management climbed to eighty-seven million in non-Sterling holdings. Twenty-three Northern pack families quietly placed their portfolios under our control, deciding the young Voss woman in the Second Free City had become the most dependable asset manager in all wolf-controlled financial territories.

In that same stretch of years, I discovered something else. The man who had been serving me Liraeth red wine every Tuesday evening since the spring of my second year was not a bartender at all.

He was King Lysander.

The Lycan King of the Five Free Cities.

The last living Lycan in existence.

The realization came on a Wednesday morning in autumn during my third year. His face stared back at me from the front page of the First Free City Morning Chronicle, positioned above a bold headline: LYCAN KING LYSANDER OPENS NEW FREE CITIES TRADE SUMMIT.

I lowered the newspaper slowly.

My gaze shifted to Helga standing across the kitchen.

Helga’s expression suggested she had been anticipating this exact moment for nearly a year.

“Yes, Lady Voss,” she said calmly before I could even speak.

“He is the Lycan King.”

“Yes, Lady Voss.”

“And he’s been pouring my wine on Tuesdays.”

“Yes, Lady Voss.”

Silence settled between us for a long moment.

“How long have you known, Helga?”

Helga placed her kitchen cloth neatly on the counter.

“From all available indicators, Lady Voss, since roughly the third Tuesday.”

King Lysander and I continued meeting every Tuesday evening for two years after that morning.

Not inside the modest Liraeth tavern.

In the private dining chamber of the Lycan King’s residence in the First Free City, an old limestone structure at the northern end of Aldris Lane, only four blocks from my own townhouse, though I had never once registered it as his home.

We spoke during those evenings. We kept speaking for two years without interruption.

On the evening marking the first anniversary of our initial meeting, he placed his mark on my left wrist.

He did not ask permission.

He looked across the table at me and spoke in a voice that carried the weight of every throne in the Five Free Cities.

“Ariadne.”

“Yes, Lysander.”

“Give me your wrist.”

I held his gaze for a long beat.

Then I placed my left wrist on the table between us.

His hand covered it with a quiet gentleness.

The mark formed without sound, without pain, only warmth spreading beneath his touch. A small silver crescent settled on the inner side of my wrist, invisible to anyone not bound to me.

I studied it.

“You should have asked me first.”

“I know.”

A pause lingered.

“I didn’t ask because, in the five years I’ve watched you build your empire within my Free Cities, I already knew you would refuse.”

Another pause followed.

“And I couldn’t allow that refusal.”

My eyes stayed on the faint silver crescent.

“You’re insufferable.”

A faint curve touched the corner of his mouth.

“Yes,” he replied quietly. “I am.”

I made the decision to return to the Northern Hollow on the first Monday of the spring of my fifth year in the Free Cities.

The reason required no embellishment.

The ninety-day default period I had granted the Sterling Pack in the autumn of my second year had expired three years earlier without a single payment. Every annual renewal default notice sent through Aldren & Partners since then had been ignored without response.

Under the Old Law governing the Northern packs, any creditor holding the majority of a pack’s outstanding debt, and who had been ignored through three consecutive annual renewal default notices, was entitled to appear in person at the next spring Alphas’ Council and present the debt before every assembled Northern Hollow Alpha family.

That next council was scheduled in four weeks.

It would be held in the Northern Hollow.

I informed Helga over breakfast.

She set her coffee down carefully.

Her eyes met mine.

“I will begin preparations, Lady Voss.”

“Yes, Helga. Pack the Voss Capital portfolio ledgers. Pack the Voss family pearls. Include the 1847 Voss wedding crown.”

A brief pause followed.

“Leave out the white silk wedding dress.”

A small, restrained smile appeared on Helga’s face.

“Yes, Lady Voss.”

Another silence settled.

“It is time.”