Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8: THE KING WHO KNOCKS

|| Mason’s POV ||

I dismissed the attendants away from Ashvara’s room myself.

It was early, the sky was still gray over the eastern towers, and the corridor outside her chamber was silent except for the quiet shuffle of guards trying very hard not to look at me.

I took the tray from the maid’s hands before she got close to the room, and looked down at the meal.

Warm bread, a bowl of broth, a pot of mild tea, because I had asked the kitchen what a half-starved omega might be able to keep down and the cook had gone pale and then brought me three different options.

A king didn't carry trays…ever.

Every guard on that corridor knew it, and I could feel them knowing it, their eyes fixed on the far wall. I could sense the way their wolves were restrained, with extreme concentration of men trying not to laugh or gasp.

I carried it anyway, because Ashvara was my mate, and I didn't care, really.

At her door, I stopped. I could hear her inside. She wasn't talking or anything, just the faint creak of a mattress and then nothing, which meant she was awake and holding her breath. The smell of her fear came through the wood, sharp and sour and old.

I raised my hand and knocked. Three soft knocks. A king knocking on a door in his own palace.

My wolf growled low in my chest, not in anger but in confusion. He didn't understand it. He wanted me to open it and walk in, to see with my own eyes that she was breathing, that she was safe, that nothing had come for her in the night. He was a creature of instinct, and his instinct said mate, mine, protect.

But I had seen her flinch last night. I had seen her arms wrap around her own body when I reached out. I had seen what that small movement cost her.

So I knocked, and I would knock every time. She needed to know that I would ask before I entered her space, that her door was hers and her room was hers, and that nothing about this palace could take that from her.

There was a brief silence, then slow and careful footsteps. The door opened a few inches, just enough for one wary eye and a pale face. She looked at me, then at the tray, then back at me.

“I brought you breakfast, Ashvara,” I said quietly. “Can you let me in so I can put this inside?”

She didn’t answer, but she opened the door a little further.

I bent and set the tray down just inside the room, on the floor, so she wouldn’t have to take it from my hands. Then I straightened and stepped back, making sure I didn't cross the threshold.

She watched me the whole time, confused and still wary.

“I’d like to sit,” I said. “Over there by the window. I won’t speak unless you want me to. If you want me gone, say so, and I’ll go.”

Her eyes flicked to the chair, and a long moment passed. Then, very slightly, she shifted her weight and moved aside.

It was the smallest permission I had ever been given, but it felt like a crown.

I walked to the chair and sat. Across the room from her, a good ten paces away, my hands resting on my knees where she could see them. I didn't stare at her, or lean, or speak. I just wanted her to know she’d be safe, or at least believe that I wasn't going to hurt her.

I was the Alpha King. I had sat in war councils with men who would have gutted me for a better seat. I had stood on battlefields while arrows fell like rain. And I had never in my life worked so hard to do nothing.

I simply let myself be still, the way you stay still beside a wounded deer, the way you let a frightened creature learn the shape of you without ever reaching for it.

Minutes passed, but she didn't eat or even go near the food. She stood near the door with her arms pressed against her ribs, watching me the way prey watches something it has not yet classified as safe.

Her eyes tracked every small movement, every breath, every shift of my weight. I could hear her heartbeat, fast and light as a bird’s. I could smell the faint sting of the silver burn on her ankle under the herbs the healer had left.

And I could smell Astar on her.

His scent was long gone literally, but it was there in the way she stood, the way she braced her shoulders, the way she angled her body so I was never behind her. A man had taught her that. A man I would one day make pay for it.

My jaw tightened, but I forced it loose.

Not now, I told my wolf. Not in front of her.

I took a deep breath, and decided to at least try to say something.

“Ashvara…” I called into the emptiness.

She flinched slightly, her hands wrapping around herself a bit more tightly.

I exhaled. “I know it will take you some time to get used to me and…all of this. But if you could let me, I will prove that I am not going to harm you.”

Her eyes slid up to meet mine, and I could see the wariness and uncertainty in her brown eyes.

It made my chest ache.

"You don't have to decide anything today. You’ve had a hard life already, and I don't plan on making it any worse. Okay?” I said.

She bit her lower lip, and I noticed a shudder run through her body. But she nodded slightly, even though she didn't move from the spot.

Time slid by after, and the light through the window turned from gray to gold. A bird sang somewhere in the garden, absurdly cheerful.

When I finally judged that I had stayed long enough, I stood.

Slowly, so that she wouldn't think I was making any sudden movements. Even still, she flinched slightly.

I could only imagine the horrors this omega must have gone through.

“I’ll go now,” I said. “The tray is warm. Eat if you can. If you can’t, that’s all right too.”

I turned toward the door, and I caught her body relaxing.

I saw it in the reflection of the polished window, catching it from the corner of my eye. Her shoulders dropped. The tension in them poured out of her body all at once, like water from a cracked jug, the very second the weight of my presence lifted. Her whole body sagged with relief. Her hand pressed to her chest. She let out a breath she had been holding for what must have been an hour.

Relief that I was leaving.

It hit me somewhere low and unpleasant, a hard, cold punch beneath the ribs. I understood it. Gods help me, I understood it perfectly. She was a wolf who had survived by watching for danger, and I was the biggest danger in the room, whether I meant it or not.

And I hated that I understood.

I hated it with a quiet, simmering rage that had nowhere to go. I didn’t want to be the thing she braced against. I wanted to be the thing she leaned on. But wanting a thing did not make it so, and I had learned that the hard way too.

I walked out and closed the door behind me, very gently, the way you close a door on someone sleeping.

Then I stood in the corridor.

I stood there longer than I should have, staring at the grain of the wood. Something inside my chest didn't want to walk away from that door. It pulled at me, a thread caught on a nail, and my wolf pressed against my ribs, whining softly, begging me to turn around.

She’s safe, I told him. She’s breathing.

Mate, he answered, and nothing else. I wanted nothing more than to hold her close to me, because the pull of the bond was becoming unbearable.

“My King.”

Jax’s voice came from my left. I hadn’t heard him approach, which was either a testament to his skills or my distraction. He stood a few paces away with his arms folded, his face as blank as a closed shutter.

He saw whatever was on my face, and I knew it was not a face a king should wear. The raw, unfiltered want would have been quite hard to miss.

Jax simply nodded once, turned, and fell into step beside me as I started down the corridor.

It was good that he could tell that I wasn't in any mood for questions, which was exactly why he was my closest.