Riven's POV
Riven was already seated at his desk when Sera entered his office.
She came in trying to look confident, head high, shoulders back. But he could smell her fear underneath the perfume. Good. She should be afraid. She'd cornered his mate in a hallway and filled her head with lies. That was a line that shouldn't have been crossed.
"Sit," he said.
She sat. Her hands were shaking slightly and she was trying to hide it by folding them in her lap.
"There is no understanding between us," Riven said without preamble. No point in pretending this was anything other than what it was. "There has never been an understanding. There will never be an understanding."
Sera's face flushed. "Your father and my father—"
"Are dead," Riven cut her off. "And their agreements died with them. I don't want you as a mate. I've never wanted you as a mate. I've been clear about that since I took leadership."
"You never said it directly," Sera said, her voice rising. "You never told me to stop hoping."
"I shouldn't have to," Riven said coldly. "My silence wasn't permission. It was disinterest."
She flinched like he'd hit her.
"Jade is under my personal protection," he continued. "Any harassment of her will be treated as a challenge to my authority. Any spreading of lies about her will be treated as pack betrayal. Do you understand?"
"She's a hybrid," Sera said desperately. "An abomination. The pack won't accept her. She'll never be Luna. She'll never belong here."
"The pack will accept who I tell them to accept," Riven said simply. His voice was completely flat. "That's how pack works. They follow my lead or they challenge me. And everyone knows what happens when they challenge me."
Sera's eyes filled with tears. "This isn't fair. I was supposed to be your mate. We were supposed to build something together."
She tried tears. Riven watched them fall and felt nothing. Tears didn't change facts. Tears didn't change that she'd approached his mate and filled her with poison. Tears didn't make her any less of a threat to what was his.
She leaned forward and placed her hand on his desk. "Give me a chance," she whispered. "I can be what you need. I can be strong for you. I can be—"
"You can be dismissed," Riven said.
He stood and turned his back to her. The conversation was over.
For a moment, Sera didn't move. He could hear her breathing shift, could sense her desperation reaching a breaking point. Then she tried something different. She stood and moved around the desk. He heard the rustle of fabric as she got closer.
Seduction. She thought she could seduce him into forgetting about his mate.
"Don't," he said without turning around.
"Riven, please—"
"Take another step and I'll have you escorted off pack lands today," he said quietly. "Leave my office now."
She left. He heard her move toward the door, heard it open, heard her pause like she was going to say something else. Then it closed.
For several minutes, Riven just stood at the window staring out at the gardens below. And there was Jade. She was walking along the stone path, clearly trying to calm herself after whatever Sera had said. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders. Her movements were tense but she was trying to hide it.
His mate.
The realization still hit him hard sometimes. A year ago he would have said he didn't need a mate. That bonds were weakness. That attachment was a liability. Now he was threatening to kill anyone who hurt her. Now he was willing to go to war over her safety.
A knock interrupted his thoughts.
Kael entered without waiting for permission. His Beta looked tired.
"That went about as well as I expected," Kael said dryly. "You threatened her with immediate exile if she touched your mate and then sent her out of the office looking like she'd been hit by a truck."
"She needed to understand the boundaries," Riven said.
"She understood them six months ago," Kael said. He moved to stand beside Riven at the window. "But you're playing with fire, Alpha. Sera's father was your father's Beta. She has allies in pack. Old wolves who remember her father. Wolves who might think she was treated unfairly."
"Then they can challenge me," Riven said simply. "I'll kill them too."
Kael was quiet for a moment.
"You know the pack will follow you," Kael said finally. "They always have. But this is different. This is about a female who's been here less than twenty-four hours. A hybrid that half the pack isn't even sure about yet. If you start executing wolves for questioning your decisions about her, you're going to create the very division you're trying to prevent."
Riven didn't respond. He was watching Jade sit on a stone bench in the garden, her head in her hands. She was overwhelmed. Sera had done exactly what she set out to do. She'd filled Jade's head with doubts.
"You need to tell her," Kael said quietly.
"Tell her what?"
"About the mate bond," Kael said. "That you both feel it. That it's real. That you're not keeping her for strategy or hybrid blood. You're keeping her because she's your mate."
Riven's jaw tightened.
"She already knows about the bond," Riven said.
"Knowing it exists and understanding what it means are two different things," Kael said. "She thinks you're using her. Sera just confirmed every fear she already had. If you told her the truth, if you showed her what the bond actually means, she'd stop doubting you."
"No," Riven said flatly.
"Riven—"
"I said no," he repeated. His voice dropped into something cold. "You won't tell her either. Not about the bond. Not about what I feel. Not about anything."
Kael studied his Alpha carefully. He was trying to figure out why Riven would refuse to claim his mate openly when it would solve half their problems.
"You're afraid," Kael said quietly.
The words hung in the air between them.
Riven didn't deny it. There was no point. His Beta could read him better than almost anyone.
"If she knows the bond is real," Riven said quietly, "if she understands that I feel it as strongly as she does, she'll know she has power over me. She'll know that my judgment is compromised. She'll know that I'm not thinking clearly when it comes to her."
"And that's a problem?" Kael asked.
"It's a weakness," Riven said. He turned away from the window. "An Alpha can't afford to be weak. Not when he has fifty wolves depending on him. Not when there are rival packs testing his borders. Not when Bloodmoon is hunting her."
Kael opened his mouth to argue but Riven cut him off with a look.
"You won't tell her," Riven said. It wasn't a request. "You won't hint at it. You won't suggest it. The mate bond exists between us and it stays between us until I decide she's ready to know what it means."
Kael was quiet for a long moment.
"That's not fair to her," he said finally.
"I don't care," Riven said simply. "My job is to keep her alive. Everything else is secondary."
But even as he said it, he was watching Jade in the garden below. Watching the way she moved. Watching the way her wolf pushed closer to the surface when she was upset. Watching the only female he'd ever wanted to claim.
Lying to her about the mate bond was necessary.
But it was also the first real secret he was keeping from his pack. The first thing that didn't serve pack strength.
The first sign that his mate was already compromising him in ways he couldn't control.