She wakes to the taste of metal and the sound of hurried feet.
Her throat still burns from forcing the poison out. Her hands shake. The room spins. For a long second she only knows that she did not die. That is small and ridiculous and it keeps her alive.
Guards slam the door open and Kael stands in the doorway like a shadow that ate the light. He does not look surprised to see her up. He looks angry. Anger sits on him like armor.
"What happened?" he asks, voice low.
"Someone laced the wine," she says. Her voice is dry. "I felt it. I threw up."
A guard picks up the glass left on the table and sniffs. He swears under his breath. "Poison. Bitter root. Fast acting."
Kael crouches and his hand finds her jaw for a second, checking for signs like a healer. His thumb presses near the bite mark on her neck without meaning to. The movement is quick and not gentle. Her skin flares.
"You staged it," he says before he thinks it. The words are sharp. He pulls his hand back like it burned him.
She stares at him. Every muscle in her wants to deny it so hard she could break something. Instead she says, "Why would I poison myself?"
He turns away. For the next hour the estate is a hive. Servants are questioned. Meals are tasted. Guards are rotated. Kael watches every movement like he expects a blade to spring from a tray.
But when the steward brings a small crowd together in the courtyard, Kael picks his words careful and loud.
"She tried to win sympathy," he tells the pack. "A staged attempt. We will not reward thieves of loyalty."
The sentence lands like a blow. Faces crease. Some nod, like that explains everything. Others look at Lyria and the hard line of the pack seems to set deeper. She feels naked under their eyes.
He could have said nothing. He could have shown the guards where the poison came from and who made it. He could have hurt the ones who put her drink there. Instead he leveled her with a public pronouncement and walked away.
He says it is for politics. He says she cannot be seen as his Luna because other packs would make claims. He says that accepting her would stir old grief.
She hears the words and tastes bile. "You marked me," she says to him later, when they are alone and the rain drums on the roof. "You bit me like an animal and told everyone I was property."
Kael stands at the window, watching the trees lean in the wind. He does not turn to face her. "I marked you because you were offered as restitution," he says. "Because I needed to prove a point to those who would take advantage. You were the debt."
She feels something break inside. "You made my body sing to yours and then called it a debt," she says. "You took a sacred thing and turned it into a chain."
He finally looks at her. His face is not soft. It is pained. Old hurt shows in the line of his mouth. "You stood at Selene's fall," he spits. "You escaped while she died."
Her ribs tighten like someone has their hands around them. "I was running," she says. "I was trying to get my brother out. I did not know she was there."
"You were there," he says. "You were seen. You were close enough to have reached her if you had wanted to."
She shakes her head. "I did not see her. I could not carry two people. I could barely carry one."
The air between them vibrates. Something old and brutal wakes. Their wolves answer with a noise in the back of their throats. Instinct says protect. Pride says destroy. Both run hot and wrong.
He moves toward her and then away. He touches her shoulder by accident and the world narrows. The bond pulls tighter. She feels him like a pressure at the base of her skull. It says things she does not want to hear. It says he smells like rain and smoke and iron. It says he is the man who can take the world apart with his fists and put it back together in pieces.
"That bite was for power," she says quietly. "Not because you wanted me. Because you wanted to show the pack you could take anything."
His jaw clenches. "Do not pretend you understand power."
They argue until the moon falls and the hall grows empty. He keeps the door open a crack, like a promise of watchers. He orders her to attend council meetings. He says she will sit at the table but not speak unless asked. That is an odd mercy and an odd humiliation.
Forced proximity becomes a new shape of torture. She sits at the edge of the table with maps spread in front of her and men who have knives in their boots and stories in their eyes. Kael presides. Every now and then his gaze flicks to her and he does not look away quickly enough. The bond hums. It complicates everything.
On the third day after the attempt on her life, a slender youth in leathers bursts into the war chamber. He drags mud with him and the smell of damp earth and a worry that looks older than him.
"Border patrol returned early," he says, breathless. "They found signs. Recent campfires. Tracks. The same pack that hit Silver Crest was seen to the east of Shadow Fang land."
The room goes cold.
Kael stands like he has been shoved. His face hardens, every line a blade. The men lean forward. A map is slammed to the table. Fingers point. Voices spike.
Lyria's heart hammers so loud she doubts anyone else can hear their words. The name of the rogue pack lands in her chest like a splinter of wood. Someone is setting a course straight for them. Maybe for her.
"This was not random," Kael says, voice flat. "They came for us then. They come now."
Someone scrapes a chair back. Guards pivot to the doors. The pack snaps into motion.
She wants to move too. Her hands are steady now. She has not had time to grieve or to think about what she lost. She is being used and watched and set like bait. But she also knows old tactics. Her brother taught her how to read trails. He taught her how to smell lies like smoke on a stranger's coat.
Kael looks at her across the map in a way that makes the bond throb. He does not say it, but the thing inside the room shifts; they will be forced to fight together. The politics will demand they act as leader and as weapon. For the first time since he bought her at the auction, he looks like a man who might order her into battle.
He meets her gaze and the look between them changes. It is not welcome. It is not soft. It is necessary.
Outside, the rain begins to fall harder. Inside, the warriors ready themselves. Lyria feels the world tilt toward war. The thread between her and Kael tightens and pulls them closer whether they want to be. The pack breathes like a single animal waiting to spring.
And someone in the room, careful and small, says the thing that makes it impossible to pretend this is only about property.
"If they came to burn Silver Crest and cut Selene down, they will come to finish what they started here."
Kael's hand clenches on the map until his knuckles whiten.
He looks at Lyria like she is either the key or the tinder. He does not tell her which. He only says, "Prepare the scouts."
She does.
Her heart is loud in her ears. She does not know how to trust him. She does not know how to trust anything. But she knows running is not an option. The pack will either crush her or forge her into something else.
The door opens and a young scout pushes in, mud spattering his boots. His face is pale and his voice is thin.
"Alpha," he says. "We found more tracks. Fresh. They are closing in from the east."
Every head in the hall turns. Kael's face becomes iron.
Lyria swallows. The bond burns like a match. She looks at him and the world narrows to a single sharp point.
War is coming, and with it, answers.