They rode before first light, cloaked in silence.
Mist curled low across the ground, brushing against their horses' legs like pale fingers trying to hold them back. Hooves thudded softly on the dirt path. No banners. No escort. No fanfare.
Just Fin, Aeron, Jax, Meredith —and the unconscious girl no one else was permitted to look at.
Shadowclaw officers rode in a staggered line behind them, a disciplined wall of black and red slipping like ghosts through the pre-dawn gloom.
When they crossed the veil of Ashbane's borders, Fin exhaled once —the kind of breath a man released only when stepping out of enemy territory.
It didn't ease him.
It just changed the shape of the tension curled in his chest.
He opened the mindlink.
Fin:
Aeron:
A pause, thoughtful and surgical.
Aeron:
Jax snorted into the mindlink, dry as sand.
Jax:
Aeron:
The mist thickened as they rode deeper into the forest, Ashbane fading behind them like a bruise disappearing under fresh light.
Nova rode in Jax's arms, a cloak wrapped around her. He looked at her like she was the most beautiful creature he had ever laid eyes on and couldn't stop.
And that was a problem.
Finric said nothing. He kept his expression impassive as his Gamma adjusted Nova's limp form in the saddle. She looked weightless there, head resting against Jax's chest, silver hair falling like silk over his arm.
It shouldn't bother him.
She's not your business.
You agreed to take Meredith.
She's nothing to you.
But the growl curling in his chest disagreed.
Finric clenched his jaw, doing his best to ignore Princess Meredith, who had insisted on riding with him and now sat stiffly in front of him. Her scent clung to the air — grass and leather — but it was wrong. His body recoiled from it, instinctively repulsed. Every time the breeze shifted, it carried something else beneath it… a ghost of vanilla and moonlight. Nova.
She glanced over her shoulder at him, her smile slow and practiced. "You're quiet, King Finric."
"Should I be entertaining you?" he asked, voice flat.
She laughed, soft and sweet. "No. But I've heard stories. I wanted to know if they were true."
"Which ones?"
"That you're cold," she said, "but easily warmed with the right touch."
She twisted slightly in the saddle, her leg brushing against his.
He didn't react. Not to her fingers on the edge of his cloak. Not to the way she leaned in just enough for her rose smelling perfume to smother the clean forest air.
She followed his gaze to where Jax just rode ahead of them, with Nova's unconscious body secured in front of him.
"Oh. You brought that." She said, similar to the way people mention mold.
Fin's grip on the reins tightened a fraction.
Meredith noticed. She continued, delighted with his attention.
"Shadowclaw must have different philosophies," she went on, voice smooth as glass and twice as cold. "Collecting strays. Broken things. Dangerous ones. I suppose someone like her requires careful containment."
A beat.
"Or removal, if she becomes inconvenient again."
Aeron's gaze flicked over, sharp, but Meredith didn't bother looking at him.
"And truly, what use is a thing that cannot serve a purpose?" she mused. "Some lives solve more problems by ending."
She said it with a quiet certainty that would have chilled anyone with a soul.
"Mother wanted her executed years ago," Meredith added lightly. "Right after Father died."
Her tone suggested she was discussing household maintenance.
"But Riven insisted on keeping her," she sighed, almost fond. "He has such a soft spot for defective things."
Fin's jaw worked once.
"And once someone proves unmanageable," Meredith continued, "it's better to remove her quietly. Riven couldn't stomach it, so she's been rotting in that tower seven, eight years now. Out of sight, out of mind."
She flashed Fin a bright, terribly helpful smile.
"If you insist on dragging her to Shadowclaw, truly — it would be kinder to send her back."
A soft laugh.
"Better that than letting her burden you."
Then, her voice dropped into its truest shape:
"She is a complication, Finric. Nothing more. A problem someone with a spine should have eliminated years ago."
She finished her monologue with a satisfied little breath.
Fin's voice cut through the air — quiet, surgical.
"Isn't she your sister?"
Meredith blinked, surprised he would ask something she considered so far beneath him. Then her smile reformed — thinner, sharper, venom in silk.
"Oh, hardly," she scoffed. "We don't claim her. Father's lapse doesn't make her my family."
She leaned in a fraction, as if sharing a charming secret.
"She was never raised as one of us. Not educated. Not trained. Not suitable. You cannot make a sister out of a creature that doesn't belong in a royal bloodline."
Her eyes slid to Nova, cold and dismissive.
"I prefer accuracy. She is not my sister, King Finric. She is a stain someone forgot to scrub out."
Another beat.
"And stains are meant to be removed."
Fin turned his head just enough to look at her, his expression unreadable stone.
"No," he said calmly. "Complications should be managed."
A beat.
"Cruelty, however… that's what gets removed."
Meredith froze.
Her smile faltered—just a flicker—but enough that even the horse beneath her seemed to shift uneasily.
Fin faced forward again, reins steady in his hands, as if he hadn't just dismantled her entire worldview with a single sentence.
Behind his ribs, Xeon growled approval.
Finric mindlinked Jax and Aeron.
Fin:
The mage trotted up beside them, robes wrapped tightly against the wind.
Fin:
Jax laughed from the back.
Jax:
Meredith's smile faltered. "What?"
Before she could blink, Aeron reached forward and pressed two fingers to her forehead.
The spell was near-invisible. A whisper of golden light. Her eyes fluttered, and her body went slack in the saddle.
Finric sighed.
"Let's blindfold her. I don't want to take any chances."
Jax tossed him a strip of black cloth, amused. "At least she's quiet now. Honestly, Alpha, you could have led with that spell at dinner."
Fin ignored him and tied the cloth over Meredith's eyes with efficient, unbothered precision. Her breathing deepened under the enchantment—silent at last.
"Fascinating. Turns out the solution to her personality was unconsciousness." Aeron said under his breath.
Jax snorted.
Fin didn't disagree.
Aeron reached into his satchel and removed a small obsidian disk, etched with unfamiliar runes. He whispered something low, and the air in front of them trembled.
A ripple. A shimmer.
Then it split.
A glowing portal yawned open in the air — a window to a different land. The path beyond was silver-edged and endless.
Jax whistled low under his breath. "I'll never get used to that."
"You're not supposed to," Aeron muttered.
Fin didn't answer. He tightened his grip on the reins, then nudged the horse forward.
One by one, they passed through.
They emerged in a private courtyard of Shadowclaw Castle. Mist curled along the flagstones like old ghosts. A quiet hum of protection spells shimmered faintly along the walls.
Finric dismounted, handing Meredith's unconscious form to a waiting Omega — a woman in her forties with calm eyes and a healer's steadiness.
"Put her in a guest suite in the main castle. Away from my private wing." he said.
"Yes, Alpha."
He turned to speak to Jax—and froze.
Jax was still holding Nova.
Not like a soldier carrying a prisoner. Like a man who had forgotten what he was holding.
She was pressed close to his chest, silver hair falling over his shoulder, her face tucked against the crook of his neck. He looked at her with concern.
Something ugly twisted in Finric's gut.
Possessiveness. Or fear. Or both.
This is what it will be.
Watching her like this. Seeing others hold her. Wanting her.
She doesn't even know she's yours.
He cleared his throat.
"Take her to the infirmary. Have the healers look at her. Then…"
Finric paused.
The words stuck in his throat like they knew they didn't belong there.
"…assign her omega quarters. Lowest rank. That is the agreement."
A beat.
"She is to tend to Meredith."
Jax's frown cut sharp. He glanced down at the unconscious girl, expression tightening.
"She's not—"
"She's an omega," Finric said.
Sharper than he meant to.
Too sharp.
The kind of sharp that was meant for himself, not for Jax.
He didn't correct it.
Didn't soften it.
Didn't let the truth under his ribs rise any higher.
Jax studied him for a long second—long enough to confirm he didn't believe a word Fin had just said—then nodded once and fell silent.
Jax forced a breath.
"Understood, Alpha," he said. "That's the agreement."
Fin stared ahead, jaw locked, pretending the words hadn't burned on the way out. He turned away before he watched her disappear.
She needs to be far away from me. Omega quarters it is.
Because if she stayed close, if she looked at him long enough…
He might break the world to keep her.
The silence hit first.
Regret followed, swift and merciless.
He should have taken her to the infirmary himself.
He should never have let her out of his sight.
Fin took a slow, steadying breath, fingers flexing once at his side.
And for the first time since leaving Ashbane, the great Alpha's composure wavered.