Todos los capítulos de The Professor's Mate Clause : Capítulo 141 - Capítulo 150

AURORA'S POVAshveil territory doesn't look like I expected.I'd pictured something bleak, given everything I'd read in the briefing files... a court built on refusal, on twenty years of turning down every hand my parents ever offered. Instead the road winds through forest so dense the canopy blots out the sky, and when it finally opens, the fortress rising on the far ridge looks less like a stronghold and more like something grown out of the mountain itself, all dark stone and sharp lines softened by moss and ivy."It's beautiful," I say, before I can stop myself."Don't let the King hear you say that," Kai murmurs. "Might ruin his whole reputation."The summit hall is smaller than I expected too... a long room with a carved table running its length, windows open to the mountain air instead of sealed behind glass like every Council chamber I've ever sat in. Elder Miriam's assistant briefs us one final time in the corridor outside, reminding me of protocol, of the delicate history be

AURORA'S POVThe dinner is worse than I expected, and I'd expected it to be bad.The great hall is packed with Ashveil nobility, long tables lit by torches instead of the sterile lighting I'm used to in Council chambers, and every single person in the room watches me the way you'd watch something that wandered in off the road and might be dangerous."You're doing great," Kai murmurs beside me, not remotely convincingly."I can feel them staring.""They're definitely staring.""That's not helpful.""I'm not here to be helpful. I'm here for moral support and free food." He steals a roll off my plate, entirely unbothered by the hostile atmosphere in a way I deeply envy. "Also that guy at the end of the table has been glaring at you since we sat down. Might want to address that before he starts something."I follow his gaze to a broad-shouldered Lycan noble near the head of the table, arms crossed, expression somewhere between contempt and open challenge. When he catches me looking, he d

AURORA'S POV"You must be the ambassador everyone's talking about."I look up from my documents to find a man I haven't met yet standing at the edge of the garden, dark-haired, sharply dressed, with an easy smile that doesn't quite match the calculating look underneath it. He carries himself like someone used to being watched and enjoying it."That depends what they're saying," I reply."Mostly that you held your ground against half the court at dinner without breaking a sweat. That's rare, for a Council delegate." He crosses the garden and takes the seat Kade vacated less than an hour ago, uninvited but not unwelcome, exactly. "Draven Ashveil. Kade's cousin."Something in my chest goes carefully alert. I remember the name from my briefing files — a noble with a claim to the throne that never materialized, close enough to Kade's inner circle to matter, distant enough to be worth watching."Aurora Reed-Metcalfe.""I know who you are." His smile widens slightly. "Everyone in this fortr

Chapter 10 AURORA'S POV"Border patrol," I repeat, staring at Kade like he's just suggested something insane. "You want me to join a border patrol.""It's tradition," he says, entirely too pleased with himself. "Any Council representative negotiating treaty terms observes our territory firsthand. Can't very well argue about border security if you've never actually seen our borders.""That sounds like something you invented five minutes ago.""It's in the treaty precedent from the original Council formation. Look it up." His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. "Unless you're afraid, Ambassador.""I am not afraid of a patrol.""Then get dressed. We leave in an hour."I do look it up, out of pure spite, and to my genuine irritation, he's actually right — there's a clause buried in decades-old Council precedent about joint territorial observation during treaty negotiations. I spend the ride out to the border trying to figure out if he actually knew that off the top of his head or just go

Chapter 12 FREYA'S POV"Absolutely not," Elder Miriam says, for the second time in ten minutes."We're not asking to interfere with the negotiations," I say, keeping my voice level even though I want to shake her. "We're asking to relocate to the outpost nearest the Ashveil border. As Council liaisons. That's it.""That's exactly the kind of thing that undermines Aurora's authority, and you know it." Miriam folds her hands on the desk between us. "The moment her parents show up within striking distance of the negotiation, every noble in that court stops seeing her as a legitimate ambassador and starts seeing her as a mouthpiece. You'd be handing Draven Ashveil a weapon."Adrian, seated beside me, hasn't said much, which usually means he's building an argument he thinks will actually land instead of wasting the effort on the first one."With respect, Elder Miriam," he says now, "we're not proposing this out of parental anxiety. We have intelligence suggesting the border incidents are