Kneeling to a Stranger

I stood at the border of Ravenhollow three days later, Skye's hand wrapped tight in mine.

"Mama," Skye said, tugging my hand. "Why does it feel scary here?"

"Because it belongs to someone new now, baby. But we don't get scared of new things. We get ready for them."

My mother's funeral was somber and sparse. I stood at her graveside with Skye pressed to my side, forcing myself to stay standing exactly the way four years of Odessa's training had prepared me to.

An old sentinel two rows back — one of my mother's contemporaries, a woman I only half remembered from childhood — went rigid when her gaze landed on Skye. She didn't say anything, not then, but I caught her elbowing the woman beside her, both of them staring at my daughter with an intensity that had nothing to do with grief. I told myself it was only curiosity about a child nobody recognized. I would learn later that it was something closer to disbelief — the specific disbelief of someone seeing a color they'd been taught belonged only to the dead.

I felt him before I saw him.

The whole clearing shifted, sentinels straightening, as a broad, dark-haired figure approached — a thin burn scar tracing his jaw, ice-pale eyes sweeping the crowd like he was already cataloguing every possible threat in it.

Roman Blackwood stopped a respectful distance from the grave, gaze settling on me with unexpected precision. "Della Ashby's daughter. I'm told you left Ravenhollow four years ago."

"I did," I said, meeting his eyes instead of lowering mine.

"Your mother held the eastern wall long enough for a dozen younger sentinels to retreat safely," he said. "I wanted you to know that, given how she died."

"Because of Callum Draystone's recklessness."

"Because of Callum Draystone's recklessness," he agreed, no attempt to soften or deny it.

"Where is he?" I asked. "I'd like to see the man responsible."

"Stripped of title. Confined to the western hold under guard," Roman said. "You're welcome to see him. Though I should warn you — Callum Draystone isn't handling his fall gracefully."

"Neither did he handle rejecting me gracefully," I said before I could stop myself. "Some men never learn to lose anything with dignity."

Something like dark amusement passed briefly across his face. "You knew him personally, then."

"I was supposed to be his mate," I said simply. "Before the Goddess decided otherwise, and before he decided, that meant he never owed me another ounce of respect."

His gaze flicked to Skye, small and golden-eyed, watching him with the same unflinching curiosity her mother apparently carried, too. Something sharpened behind his eyes, and this time, I caught it clearly enough to feel the first prickle of real unease — not curiosity. Recognition. As if he'd seen those eyes somewhere before and hadn't yet let himself believe it.

"Your daughter," he said slowly.

"My daughter," I confirmed, sharpening my voice with a warning I didn't bother to soften. "Mine. Not pack business, Alpha, unless I decide otherwise."

"Understood." His gaze lingered on Skye's eyes a beat too long. "You'll need somewhere to stay, now that you've returned. The pack hall has room if you're willing to live under new leadership."

"I'm not interested in kneeling to anyone, Alpha. New leadership or old."

"I didn't ask you to kneel," he said, the corner of his mouth curving into something that wasn't quite a smile. "I asked if you needed somewhere to stay. There's a difference, Wren Ashby — and I suspect you already knew that."

I stared at him, thrown off balance by a response I hadn't expected from a man whose reputation painted him as nothing but ruthless — and unsettled by something else entirely, a low hum under my skin I hadn't felt around anyone in four years and didn't yet have a name for.

"I'll consider it," I said.

"Good." He turned to address the mourners, tone shifting into commanding authority. "Take whatever time you need to grieve. Ravenhollow honors its dead. Whoever rules it now."

He walked away without waiting for a response, and I stood there with a strange, unfamiliar tightness in my chest that had nothing to do with grief — and everything, I would soon learn, to do with a truth neither of us had found yet.