The dining hall was already loud.
Voices crashed against stone walls, laughter rose and fell like waves, and the thick scent of rank hung in the air as if it owned the room. Sable stepped inside with a tray balanced in her hands and her shoulders held tight, because carrying food through a room full of wolves was never just work. It was exposure, and today exposure felt sharper than it usually did.
She moved quickly along the outer edge of the long tables, setting bowls down without meeting anyone's eyes. Her bruised cheek drew attention anyway, and she caught more than one glance linger just a second too long before snapping away. It wasn't sympathy. It wasn't concern. It was curiosity, and curiosity was the beginning of a hunt.
A warrior's hand brushed her wrist as she reached forward to place a bowl.
The touch was casual, almost absent-minded, but Sable's muscles tensed instantly. She didn't flinch. She didn't yank her arm away. She simply continued as if she hadn't felt it, because reacting would turn it into a game and games always ended with her losing.
The warrior leaned toward his packmate, voice low but not low enough. "She's got teeth now," he muttered.
Someone else snorted. "Not enough."
Sable's grip tightened on the tray, and she kept moving.
The closer she got to the head of the hall, the heavier the air became, and she knew why without needing to look. Even when Cassian didn't speak, even when he didn't move, the pack bent around him like trees around a storm.
Sable kept her gaze down as she passed the Alpha's table. She didn't want to know if he was looking at her. She didn't want to feel that weight again. She didn't want her body to betray her with that strange prickle beneath her skin, the wrong kind of awareness that felt like danger and gravity tangled together.
Still, she felt eyes on her anyway.
Not the scattered attention of the pack, but something steadier.
Something precise.
Sable set the last bowl down, then turned away without lifting her head. Her pulse beat unevenly as she walked back toward the kitchens with her empty tray, forcing her steps to remain even. She told herself she was imagining it. She told herself she was not important enough for the Alpha to notice twice.
She almost made it through the doorway.
A figure stepped into her path just outside the hall, and Sable halted so abruptly that the tray bumped lightly against her hip.
Adrian.
He looked like he belonged everywhere he stood, clean and composed, pack crest pinned neatly at his throat. His presence in the servant corridor was unusual, and that alone made Sable's stomach tighten. Wolves like him didn't drift into places like this without a reason, and reasons were never harmless.
Adrian's gaze flicked to her cheek, then to her shoulder, and his jaw tightened.
"You're hurt," he said quietly.
Sable shifted the tray. "I'm working," she replied flatly.
Adrian didn't move aside. "I know," he said. "That's the problem."
Sable's eyes narrowed. "Get out of my way."
Something flickered in Adrian's expression, not anger exactly, but restraint. "You can barely lift your arm," he murmured. "If you drop a tray in there today, they'll punish you for the mess, and you'll be dragged right back into the center of their attention."
Sable swallowed. "That's not your concern."
Adrian's gaze held hers, steady and deliberate. "It is if it becomes everyone's entertainment," he said. "People are already talking, Sable."
Sable felt her stomach tighten. "Let them."
Adrian glanced past her shoulder, toward the dining hall door, then back again as his voice lowered further. "They're talking about last night," he murmured, "and they're talking about why you're still walking around with your door intact."
Sable's pulse jumped.
She forced her face blank. "Servants fix doors."
Adrian's gaze sharpened, and she knew he didn't believe her. He didn't call her out, but something in his posture shifted, like he was making a decision while she watched him do it.
"You need to disappear for a while," he said quietly. "Just for today."
Sable's laugh came out bitter. "Disappear where?"
Adrian hesitated, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a narrow strip of parchment, the kind used for temporary work reassignment. He held it out without drama, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
Sable stared at it without taking it. "What is that?"
"A task order," Adrian replied, voice calm. "Signed by the quartermaster."
Sable's gaze narrowed. "How did you—"
"I asked," Adrian interrupted, his eyes holding hers steadily. "And because you're injured, and because you're still useful even when the pack enjoys calling you worthless, it was approved."
Sable didn't like the way that sounded, but she liked even less the idea of returning to the dining hall where hands could reach her again. She took the parchment, unfolding it with stiff fingers.
Inventory assistance. East storage. A quiet job.
A job away from the warriors. A job that didn't put her in the center of the room while wolves watched and waited for her to slip.
Sable's throat tightened as she stared at the ink.
"You didn't do this for free," she said, because she refused to believe in charity.
Adrian didn't smile. "No," he replied quietly. "I did it because if something happens to you again today, it won't stay small, and Grimridge doesn't survive when cruelty turns into spectacle."
Sable's eyes narrowed further. "So this is about the pack."
"It's about you," Adrian said, and his voice was controlled but honest enough to make her chest tighten. "And it's about the fact that you are being watched in a way you don't understand yet."
Sable's stomach twisted. "Stop saying that."
Adrian held her gaze for a long beat. "You felt it too," he murmured. "In the hall, just now."
Sable's fingers curled around the parchment until it crinkled slightly. She hated that he was right. She hated that her body had noticed the Alpha's attention even when she had refused to look for it.
Adrian stepped aside finally, making room for her to pass, but his voice stopped her again as she moved.
"Don't go back to your room alone tonight," he said quietly.
Sable froze for a fraction of a second. "Why?"
Adrian's gaze hardened, and for the first time the calm mask slipped enough to show something darker underneath. "Because wolves like that don't stop when they lose once," he murmured. "They come back to make sure you remember who wins in the end."
Sable's throat went dry.
She forced herself to keep walking, because staying still would make her shake, and shaking would make her weak. Still, the warning wrapped around her like cold wire as she headed for the east storage rooms with the reassignment sheet clutched in her fist.
The pack was watching. Not in the usual way. Not in the bored, familiar way of wolves stepping on something beneath them without thinking.
This was sharper. Hungry.
And as Sable walked deeper into the quieter halls, she realized with a sinking feeling that Adrian wasn't the only one who had noticed her last night.
She had survived.
That was enough to make Grimridge curious.
And curiosity, in a pack like this, was always the first bite.