Arin's POV
Three days of being alone.
Arin hadn't left her chambers since breakfast with Kael. She told herself it was because she didn't know where to go. Didn't know the palace. Didn't want to be stared at by people who hated her.
The truth was worse.
She was afraid to see him again.
The servants brought her meals that she barely touched. Left fresh clothes that she ignored. Tried to teach her protocols and she couldn't concentrate on anything they said. All she could feel was the bond in her chest. All she could sense was the Alpha King moving through the palace somewhere. Cold and distant and so far away that it felt like drowning.
On the fourth evening, she was sitting by the window when a servant knocked.
A girl about her age with a grey uniform came in carrying a silver tray. On it was a crystal cup filled with red wine that gleamed in the candlelight.
"For you, my Luna," the servant said quietly. She set it on the table beside Arin. "The Alpha King sent it. He thought you might want something to help you sleep."
Arin stared at the cup.
Something was wrong.
Her healing senses tingled in a way that made her skin prickle. The same way they tingled when she sensed sickness or poison in a patient's body. The air around the wine felt thick. Sick. Wrong.
"Who prepared this?" Arin asked.
The servant was already backing toward the door. "The kitchens, my Luna. Will there be anything else?"
"Wait," Arin said. But the servant was already gone.
Arin stood up and moved toward the cup. The crystal was beautiful. Expensive. The kind of thing a Luna would drink from. She leaned down and smelled the wine.
Nothing obvious. But underneath the wine scent was something chemical. Something that burned her nose.
She picked up the cup slowly.
The liquid inside glowed faintly in the light. Just a hint of something that shouldn't be there. If she hadn't been a healer, if she hadn't spent her whole life sensing things wrong in people's bodies, she would have drunk it without thinking twice.
Her hand trembled.
The door crashed open so hard it slammed against the stone wall.
A young woman with warm brown skin and dark eyes rushed in. She moved with the kind of speed that meant she was a warrior. Trained. Dangerous.
Before Arin could even gasp, the woman's hand shot out and knocked the cup from her grip.
The crystal shattered on the stone floor.
The wine splashed across the ground and immediately began to sizzle and burn. Not like fire. Like acid. Within seconds, there was a black hole burned into the stone where the liquid had hit.
The woman stared at it for a moment. Then she looked at Arin.
"You didn't drink it," she said. Not a question.
"No," Arin whispered. "No I didn't."
The woman's shoulders dropped with relief. "Good. Because you'd be dead right now if you had."
Arin's legs gave out. She sat down hard on the edge of the bed.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Lyra Moonwhisper," the woman said. She was still staring at the burned stone like she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. "I was your closest friend in Silver Creek pack. Before all this."
Arin's mind raced. She did remember Lyra. A girl with quick dark eyes who had helped her gather herbs once. Who had smiled at her like she saw her when nobody else did.
"You came here?" Arin asked. "To the palace?"
Lyra looked at her directly. "You healed my sister three winters ago. She had a fever nobody else could break. You sat with her all night and held her hand and sang to her and she lived because of you. You never asked for anything. Never even asked her name. You just healed her because you could."
Arin remembered. A sick girl in the servant quarters. A mother desperate for help. Arin giving everything she had to keep the girl breathing.
"My mother wrote to me when you became Luna," Lyra continued. "She said the girl who saved my sister was in danger. So I came to the palace. I got hired as a supply servant and I've been watching. And I've been watching people try to kill you too."
"What?" Arin's voice cracked.
"Look," Lyra pointed at the burned stone. "That's not regular poison. That's dark magic poison. The kind that dissolves organs from the inside out. Someone sent it to you tonight. Someone who wanted you dead by morning."
Arin looked down at her hands. They were shaking so bad she couldn't make them stop.
"Why would anyone poison me?" she whispered. Even though she already knew the answer.
"Because you're the girl who took Mira Ashfall's place," Lyra said. "Because the whole kingdom thinks you trapped the Alpha King. Because there are people whose power depends on Mira being Luna and you being dead."
Lyra sat down beside her. For the first time, her hard expression softened slightly.
"I came here to protect you," Lyra said. "Because you're the only person who ever healed me without expecting payment. You're the only person who ever saw me when I was invisible. And now the whole kingdom is trying to murder you and you don't even understand why."
Arin couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything but stare at the black hole in the stone floor and understand that someone had actually tried to kill her.
"This won't be the last attempt," Lyra said quietly. "This is just the beginning."
There was a sound outside the chamber door. Footsteps. Running. Guards.
Kael appeared in the doorway with four guards behind him. His grey eyes took in everything at once. The broken cup. The burned stone. Lyra sitting on the bed beside Arin. Arin shaking and pale and barely holding it together.
His expression changed in an instant.
The coldness disappeared. The distance vanished. What took its place was fury. Pure protective rage that made the air in the chamber feel like it was about to explode.
"What happened?" he demanded.
Lyra stood up immediately. "Poisoned wine, my king. Dark magic poison. I arrived in time to stop her from drinking it."
Kael moved to the burned stone and stared at it. His jaw clenched. His hands balled into fists.
"How many attempts?" he asked without looking up.
"This is the first one we know about," Lyra said carefully.
Kael turned and looked at Arin directly. Really looked at her. She could feel the bond between them flare with his anger and his fear and something so intense that it made her gasp.
"Not anymore," he said quietly. "No one else is getting close to her. No one."
He walked to where Arin was sitting and held out his hand.
"Come with me," he said.
Arin took his hand and let him pull her up. The moment his skin touched hers, she felt it. The rage beneath his coldness. The protection underneath his distance. The fact that he had been keeping her at arm's length not because he didn't care but because he was terrified of what caring about her would cost.
"Stay in the palace," Kael said to Lyra without looking away from Arin. "You've just been promoted. You're now the Luna's personal guard. Your only job is to keep her alive. Can you do that?"
"Yes, my king," Lyra said. But she was looking at Arin with understanding. With the knowledge that things were about to get much worse before they got better.
Kael led Arin out of the chambers and through the palace corridors. Guards fell in step behind them. He didn't let go of her hand.
"How many?" Arin whispered. "How many people are trying to kill me?"
Kael's grip tightened on her hand.
"Everyone who thinks your death will make their lives better," he said quietly. "Which means we're about to find out how many people in this palace are willing to murder for power."
And as he said it, Arin understood that the real danger had just begun.
Because now Kael was going to start protecting her.
And that would make both of them targets.