Up in the tower, Fiona heard the heavy scrape of the iron bolt. Bran pulled the door open, stepping aside. Conrad walked in.
He looked exhausted. The iron crown was gone, leaving a red indentation across his forehead. He stripped off his heavy leather surcoat, throwing it over a wooden chair.
"You left the feast." Fiona stated. It wasn't a question.
"I left the farce," he corrected.
He walked toward her. Fiona backed up until her shoulders hit the cold stone wall. She crossed her arms, a defensive barrier.
"You shouldn't be here. You should be in her bed. If you don't secure the bond, she will know something is wrong."
Conrad stopped a foot away. He reached out, gently wrapping his fingers around her wrists and pulling her arms down, breaking her defensive posture.
"I will never touch her. My soul is bound to yours. If I lay with another woman, my wolf would tear me apart from the inside out."
"Your wolf is a beast. You are a king." Fiona argued, her voice trembling. She hated how good his hands felt. She hated the instant, soothing warmth that washed over her skin. "I lived in a slaver's cage for three years, Conrad. I learned how the world works. Love doesn't hold borders. Infantrymen hold borders. You need the north."
"I need you."
He stepped into her space, crowding her against the wall. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling deeply. The rough stubble of his jaw scraped against her collarbone.
"I spent six years numb. I am not going back to the dark. I will find a way."
"There is no way," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut as tears leaked out.
She let her head fall back against the stone, finally allowing herself to touch him. Her scarred hands came up, tentatively resting against his broad chest.
"If Cedric finds out I am alive, he will finish the job he started six years ago. I am a threat to his perfectly crafted kingdom."
Conrad lifted his head. His eyes were no longer human. They were entirely amber, glowing in the dim firelight.
"Let him try." Conrad snarled softly. "I am waiting for him to try."
The lower levels of the keep were a hive of frantic whispers by midnight. In the heavy wood-paneled war room, Cedric poured himself a cup of spiced brandy. His hands were steady, but his mind raced. The king's sudden departure from the high table, the public humiliation of the new queen, the complete lockdown of the king's tower, it didn't add up.
A sharp knock broke the silence. A young man barely out of his armor training slipped into the room. It was the kitchen boy who had dropped the pitcher earlier that evening.
"Speak," Cedric commanded, not turning around.
"My lord," the boy stammered, bowing deeply. "Hetty sent me. You asked to be informed of any irregularities among the castle staff. The scullery maid, Fiona, the one with the bad leg, she took the reserve wine up to the high table. She never came back down. Hetty thinks she stole silver and ran."
Cedric stopped pouring. The brandy decanter hovered in the air.
Fiona. The name was a ghost, a highly inconvenient ghost. He remembered the infantry girl from six years ago, the brazen, foul-mouthed fighter who had somehow managed to sink her claws into the bastard prince.
When the ambush at Crimson Ridge happened, Cedric hadn't ordered her killed. He hadn't needed to. He had simply ordered the search parties to avoid the riverbanks where she had fallen. When slavers dragged her off, he considered the problem solved. Nature had done his political dirty work for him.
But Conrad's reaction tonight, the spilled wine, the sudden, violent rage, the immediate retreat to his heavily guarded tower.
Cedric slowly set the decanter down. The glass clinked sharply against the wood.
"She didn't run," Cedric whispered to himself.
He turned to the boy, tossing him a silver coin. "Forget this conversation. Speak of it to no one."
The boy scrambled out of the room. Cedric stood alone in the dying firelight. If the girl was alive, the entire alliance with the north was a burning fuse. Conrad was a volatile, feral creature barely held in check by duty. If he had his true mate back, he would burn the treaties. He would execute the council for lying to him.
Cedric needed to act. Tonight. Before the sun rose and the king decided to make his ghost public.
He didn't go to his own guards. That was too traceable. Instead, he walked through the quiet corridors to the guest wing where the northern entourage was housed. He bypassed the guards with a heavy purse of gold and stepped into the chambers of Captain Vane, the commander of Isolde's personal guard.
"We have a complication," Cedric said as Vane sat up in his bed, reaching for his dagger. "The king has a stray dog hidden in his tower. If she survives the night, your queen will be sent back to the north in disgrace and her father's alliance will shatter."
Vane's eyes narrowed. He was a practical man, bred in the harsh northern snows. "Where is she?"
"The antechamber. Only one guard at the door. Bran. He is fiercely loyal to the king, but he is slow." Cedric walked to the table, pulling a small black glass vial from his tunic. "The king drinks a tea of valerian root after feasts to calm his wolf. Have a servant spike the pot. When he is deeply asleep, you go up the tower."
Two hours later, the castle was dead silent. In the antechamber, Fiona lay awake on the small cot. Conrad had retreated to his own massive bedchamber through the adjoining door. He had insisted she sleep there with him, but she had refused. She needed space to breathe. She needed to think like a soldier again, not a pampered pet.
She heard the faint, muffled sound of a body hitting the stone floor outside the heavy oak door.
Fiona's eyes snapped open. Her infantry training, dormant for years but never dead, flooded her veins with ice-water clarity. She rolled off the cot, ignoring the sharp protest of her bad leg. She didn't call out for Conrad. If it was an assassin, screaming would draw them straight to her, or worse, straight to him if he rushed in unarmed.
She needed a weapon. She scrambled to the hearth, wrapping her calloused hands around the heavy wrought-iron fire poker. The tip was glowing cherry red from the coals.
The heavy iron bolt on the door slowly, silently slid back. Someone had a master key.
The heavy oak door swung open, revealing the dark stairwell. A figure stepped into the room, dressed in the dark, unmarked leather of a mercenary. He held a curved dagger. He didn't look towards the adjoining door where the king slept. His eyes immediately tracked to the small cot in the corner. Seeing it empty, the assassin paused.
That was his fatal mistake.
Fiona didn't hide. She stepped out from the shadows beside the hearth, lunging forward with her good leg. She swung the heavy, red-hot iron poker like a broadsword. It caught the assassin squarely across the jaw with a sickening crunch. The searing heat burned through leather and skin, the smell of burning flesh instantly filling the room.
The man choked on a scream, stumbling backward, but there was a second man behind him. Vane. The northern captain stepped over his falling comrade, his broadsword drawn. He was fast, much faster than a scullery maid with a ruined leg. He lunged, the heavy blade sweeping in a low, deadly arc toward her ribs.
Fiona threw herself backward, but she was too slow. The tip of the blade caught the coarse linen of her apron, slicing through the fabric and biting into the old, twisted scar tissue on her side. Pain exploded in her chest. She hit the stone floor hard, dropping the poker.
Vane stood over her, raising his sword for the killing blow. "Nothing personal, stray," he sneered.
He drove the blade down.
The wooden door connecting to the king's bedchamber didn't open. It exploded. Wood splintered like shrapnel as a massive, dark blur tore through the heavy oak. A guttural, demonic roar shook the very foundation of the tower.
Conrad didn't use a sword. He didn't use a dagger. He hit Vane with the sheer, unadulterated velocity of an apex predator. His massive hands clamped onto the northern captain's armor. Vane was lifted entirely off his feet and hurled across the room. He smashed into the stone wall with a bone-shattering crack, sliding to the floor in a lifeless, crumpled heap.
Conrad spun around, chest heaving, his eyes glowing a terrifying, luminescent amber. He looked down at Fiona. He saw the blood pooling on her torn apron.
The final thread of his humanity snapped. The alpha king was gone. The beast was awake, and it was demanding blood.