A splash of dark ale hit the guard's iron breastplate, dripping down onto his leather breeches. The immediate area went dead silent. The guard looked down at his ruined clothes, and then slowly up at Rowan. His eyes flashed gold. The wolf rising.
"I—" Rowan started, her voice raspy from disuse. "Forgive me."
Before she could step back, the guard's hand shot out, grabbing her by the throat. He didn't squeeze hard enough to kill, but the force lifted her toes off the floor.
"Clumsy bitch," he growled.
The commotion caught the attention of the high table. Cedric stood up so fast his chair scraped violently against the stone.
"Release her, Commander," Cedric yelled, though there was a tremor in his voice. "She is a halfwit, an omega scrub. I will have her punished."
Rowan hung in the guard's grip, struggling to breathe. She didn't thrash. Fighting made it worse. She just stared blankly at the stone pillar behind the guard, waiting for the blow.
"Put her down, Thorne."
The voice wasn't loud. It didn't boom over the hall. It was low, gravelly, and laced with absolute authority. The guard instantly let go.
Rowan hit the ground, gasping for air, clutching her bruised throat. She stayed on her hands and knees, staring at the floor. Footsteps, slow, deliberate, heavy boots on the stone. The entire hall fell into a suffocating silence. Even the roaring fires seemed to quiet.
King Cassian was walking down from the dais. Cedric scurried around the table, rushing to intercept him.
"My king, I apologize. The servants in this keep are barely trained. I will have her thrown into the cold—"
"Shut up." Cassian didn't even look at Cedric.
He stopped a few feet in front of Rowan. Rowan saw the scuffed toes of his dark leather boots. She smelled him now. Not just the crushing dominance, but something under it. Pine needles, cold iron, rain on stone. It made the broken, starved wolf inside her stir, lifting its head from the darkness.
"Look at me," Cassian commanded.
Rowan squeezed her eyes shut. If she looked at him, Cedric would blind her later.
"I said, look at me."
The command wasn't a request. It was an alpha pulse that slammed into her spine, forcing her muscles to obey. Rowan slowly lifted her head. She met the king's eyes. They were a startling, piercing amber. He stared down at her bruised face, her split lip, the dirt smeared on her cheeks. He didn't look disgusted. He looked confused.
Then his nostrils flared.
Cassian stepped closer. The absolute silence in the room was deafening. The only sound was the crackle of burning logs and Rowan's own ragged breathing. The king crouched down, his leather armor creaking. He was now eye level with her.
Rowan instinctively flinched, pulling her shoulders up to protect her neck, waiting for the strike. Cassian's eyes flickered to the movement. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He reached out slowly, telegraphing the movement so she could see it coming.
He didn't grab her throat. He grasped her wrist. His hand was warm, calloused. He turned her hand over, looking at the raw red burns from the lye, the split knuckles, the filth. Then he leaned in and took a breath.
He froze.
Cassian's amber eyes widened a fraction of an inch. His gaze snapped back to her face, searching her features with a frantic, sudden intensity. He looked at the shape of her jaw, the curve of her brow, the dull, lifeless gray of her eyes.
"What is your name?" Cassian asked. His voice was barely a whisper, but in the quiet hall it carried.
Rowan swallowed the lump in her bruised throat. "I don't have one, sire."
"Everyone has a name."
"They call me girl. Or scrub."
Cassian stood up slowly. He didn't let go of her wrist. In fact, his grip tightened, not painfully, but like a man holding onto a lifeline over a cliff. He turned to look at Alpha Cedric.
Cedric was pale. The sweat on his forehead was gleaming in the torchlight. "My king," Cedric stammered. "She is a stray, taken in out of pity. Her mind is gone. Please, return to the table and let us clear this trash."
"A stray." Cassian's voice was dangerously flat.
"Yes. A nobody."
Cassian yanked Rowan to her feet. She stumbled, crashing lightly against his chest. He didn't push her away. Instead, his other hand went to the collar of her coarse tunic.
Rowan panicked. She clamped both hands over his wrist. "No, please." She begged, the fear finally breaking through her numb facade.
Cassian looked down at her. The lethal coldness in his eyes softened for a fraction of a second. "I will not hurt you," he murmured, the words meant only for her. "Trust me."
He pulled the rough fabric of her collar down slightly, exposing the base of her neck on the right side. There, etched into the pale skin, was a birthmark. It was pale pink, shaped like a crescent moon cradling a jagged peak. The old crest of Frost Peak. The mark of the original bloodline, the one Cedric had slaughtered to take the seat of power.
Someone in the crowd gasped. Beta Holden stepped forward, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword. "King Cassian, I must insist—"
Cassian moved faster than the eye could track. He let go of Rowan, drew the heavy broadsword from his hip, and leveled the tip of it directly at Cedric's throat. The royal guard instantly drew their weapons. The metallic ring of steel echoed off the stone walls. The Frost Peak warriors froze, utterly outmatched.
"Ten years ago," Cassian spoke, his voice vibrating with a monstrous, barely contained fury, "I received word that the royal family of the north had perished in a tragic fire. Mother, father, and their young daughter, burnt to ash in the archives."
Cedric was trembling, staring cross-eyed at the blade pressed against his Adam's apple. "A tragedy, my king. A terrible tragedy."
"Yes," Cassian said, stepping closer, pushing the point of the sword just enough to draw a bead of blood. "Imagine my surprise when I come to collect my northern taxes, and I find the dead princess of the blood scrubbing your floors in rags."
Rowan stared at the back of Cassian's armor. Her mind was spinning violently, rejecting the words. Princess. It was a word that belonged in stories. She was Rowan. She was the dirt on the floor.
"It's a mistake," Cedric choked out. "A trick. She is a bastard. A child bearing a coincidental mark."
Cassian let out a dark, humorless laugh. He didn't sheathe his sword. He turned his head slightly, looking back at Rowan.
"Wolves can fake a mark, Cedric. They can fake documents. They can even fake a bloodline if they try hard enough." The king turned fully back to the alpha. "But they cannot fake the scent of a true northern sovereign. Her blood smells like winter and old iron. Yours just smells like a usurper's fear."
Cassian lowered his sword, but the danger in the room did not decrease. He stepped back, reaching out a hand to Rowan.
She stared at it. It was thick with calluses from a lifetime of war. It was offering her something she hadn't had in a decade. A choice.
Rowan looked at Cedric. For ten years, that man had been a god in her eyes, a cruel, invincible god who decided if she ate, if she froze, if she bled. Right now, he just looked like a pathetic, terrified man.
Slowly, her hand trembling, Rowan reached out and placed her palm in the king's. Cassian's fingers wrapped around hers, warm and solid. He pulled her slightly behind him, shielding her from the room.
"Lock down the keep," Cassian ordered his men, his voice ringing with the finality of an executioner's axe. "No one leaves. Tomorrow we hold a tribunal for treason. And tonight, the princess eats at the high table."