All Chapters of Reborn Before the Mark: I Married His Wolfless Uncle: Chapter 141 - Chapter 150

Caelan found Lorelai before the reception began.She stood near the edge of the room with one hand wrapped in a clean strip of cloth, reading a list of names beside the remaining delegates. Karl was close enough to hear her if she called, far enough away that no one could mistake his presence for an answer on her behalf.Caelan stopped several paces away. The scorched page pressed against the inside of his coat, where he had kept it through the journey from Whitecliff. He had not shown it to anyone. Every mile had given him another reason to wait for the perfect moment."Lorelai," he said. "I need to speak to you privately."Her gaze moved from his face to the hand he kept over his coat. "You may speak.""Not here.""Then you may wait."The refusal was calm enough to make the old instinct rise in him: the belief that if he explained the danger correctly, she would understand why he needed her to move when he asked. He had built too mu

The latch clicked behind Eve with the neat sound of a lock that had been oiled recently.She turned at once. The door had no handle on the inside, only a square of dark wood where the brass should have been. Whitecliff's stone walls pressed close on either side of the narrow room. Someone had set a water pitcher on the table, as if that made the room a place for guests.The order Aria had left with her in Greyhaven was folded inside Eve's sleeve. Its edge scratched her wrist whenever she moved. The little seal rested against her palm, warm from being held too tightly during the night ride."Try it," said the man standing beside the door.Eve looked at him. He wore her family's colors without the house pin, which made the choice feel worse, not better. A servant could have been frightened. This man had been selected."Open it."He smiled without showing his teeth. "Every passage outside this room leads to guards. Every guard has the names of

Whitecliff looked less like a welcome than a held breath.The Citadel gates admitted the diplomatic column beneath banners that barely stirred in the evening wind. Lorelai didn’t go to the reception first. She carried the copied authorization beneath her mantle and led Karl past the public courtyard to the service corridor the official plans had erased.The first door stood behind a row of supply crates. Its hinges were clean, recently worked. Lorelai ran her bandaged palm near the frame without touching the splintered wood. A fresh scrape marked the threshold where the corridor had been opened after being hidden for years."Door one," she said, marking it on the copy. "Visible from the courtyard, but not from the receiving hall."Karl stayed beside her, close enough to be felt and far enough that the passage remained hers to assess. "The stair turns twice," he said. "Anyone coming down will lose sight of the lower landing."Lorelai walked it herself. The corridor narrowed between plai

The infirmary had been opened before the sun reached Whitecliff's upper windows. Lorelai chose the analysis bench beside the central lamps, where no one could claim the ribbon had passed through a private room.Three healers stood across from her: one from the Citadel, one from the Veyr delegation, and one from the assembled pack houses. None touched the pale blue ribbon until Lorelai read its entry from the corridor ledger and placed it on the clean tile between them."It was tied to Eve during the assembly," she said. "It was removed in my presence. The gray mark was found in the fold, not added after."The Citadel healer lowered a glass lens over the stain. The Veyr healer warmed a shallow dish above the lamp. The third held the register open so each observation could be written before another began.Karl stayed at the edge of the room, not near enough to crowd the bench. Lorelai knew he was watching the door, the windows, and the hands that moved towa

Lorelai held her injured hand over the basin while Karl unwound the old bandage. The water had cooled in the blue ceramic bowl, but it still carried the sharp soap smell from the infirmary. Her palm was split along the heel, shallow enough that the healer had dismissed it and deep enough to remind her of every door she had touched at Whitecliff."Does it hurt?" Karl asked."It hurts less when you stop looking as if you intend to put the whole fortress on trial."His mouth moved, not quite a smile. "I can start with the corridor.""No. Start with my hand."He did. He used the clean cloth she had chosen from the table and tipped the water carefully over her skin. Karl had washed blood from armor after battles; she knew that from the economy of his hands. Tonight he worked more slowly, waiting whenever she shifted her fingers. The lamp between them gave his sleeves a dull bronze edge. Her gown lay folded over the chair, and the sealed evidence box sat