Irina’s POV

Katerina’s words were still hanging in the air between us. *The alpha king won’t protect you.* Her hand had dropped from my arm. She was looking at me with that careful, decided expression—the one that said she’d already made peace with whatever happened next.

I didn’t move.

My mouth opened. Closed. No sound came out.

She waited for a second. Like she thought I might say something. Might argue. Might do anything other than stand there like my entire chest cavity had been scooped out and replaced with nothing.

I didn’t.

She nodded. Once. Small.

Then she turned around.

And walked away.

I watched her go. Watched her back disappear around the hedge. Watched the gray coat blend into the garden shadows until there was nothing left but roses and overgrown grass and that stupid bird still doing its thing somewhere in the bushes.

She didn’t look back.

Not once.

My legs felt like they were made of something that wasn’t quite solid anymore. I sat down on the bench behind me. Not because I decided to sit. Just because standing had stopped being an option.

The vial was still in my pocket.

I pressed my hand against it through the fabric. Felt the small, hard shape of it.

*The alpha king won’t protect you.*

No.

That wasn’t—

That couldn’t be right.

He’d promised me. Last night. In the dark. His arm around my waist and his voice low and certain: *I can promise you no more wars.*

He’d said it just like that. Easy. Simple. Like it wasn’t even hard.

He wouldn’t—

He couldn’t—

My throat felt tight.

I thought about breakfast. The way he’d looked at me over his coffee cup. That half-smile that had disappeared before it became anything real. The way his eyes had tracked across my face like he was trying to read something there.

*What do you think?*

He’d asked me that. Asked me like my opinion mattered. Like I was someone whose thoughts were worth hearing.

That didn’t sound like someone who was planning to hand me back to Maxim.

That didn’t sound like—

*He approved the visit. He could have said no. He didn’t.*

Katerina’s voice in my head. Quiet. Certain.

I pressed my hand harder against my pocket.

No.

She was wrong. She had to be wrong. She’d been hiding in this palace for over a year, watching from the shadows, building a version of Nicolas in her head that made sense with whatever story she’d been telling herself. She didn’t know him. Not really. Not the way I was starting to—

Starting to what?

Know him?

I’d been here three weeks. Three weeks of walking on eggshells and trying not to flinch every time he walked into a room. Three weeks of sleeping in his bed and eating at his table and feeling that stupid mate bond pulse in my chest like it had opinions about things.

That wasn’t knowing someone.

That was surviving someone.

Wasn’t it?

I stood up.

My legs were shaking but they held.

I needed to find him. Needed to look him in the face and ask him directly. No Katerina. No secondhand information. No assumptions.

Just—him and me and the truth, whatever it was.

I started walking.

The garden path blurred slightly. I blinked. Kept moving. One foot in front of the other. The palace was somewhere ahead. I just needed to get there. Just needed to get inside and find his office and—

And what?

What was I going to say?

*Did you approve a visit from my old pack? The one where Maxim is alpha now? The one where my father watched me get destroyed for a year and did nothing?*

*Are you going to let them take me back?*

My chest pulled.

I walked faster.

The side door appeared. The one I’d come through earlier. I pushed it open. The hallway inside was dim after the brightness of the garden. I blinked again. Let my eyes adjust.

Empty.

Just the long stretch of carpet and the pale walls and the distant sound of—something. Voices. Movement. The palace doing its palace thing.

I turned left.

Started down the corridor.

My hand was pressed against my pocket. Against the vial. I didn’t remember putting it there but it was there now and I couldn’t seem to make myself let go.

*One cup of coffee.*

Sofia’s voice. Quiet. Certain.

*And it would be over.*

I shook my head.

No.

That wasn’t—I wasn’t going to—

I rounded a corner.

And ran straight into someone.

Hard.

The impact knocked the air out of my lungs. I stumbled backward. Would have gone down if hands hadn’t caught my shoulders.

"Whoa—"

A voice. Young. Male. Slightly panicked.

I looked up.

A servant. Maybe eighteen. Skinny. His uniform was slightly askew like he’d been moving too fast to care about how it sat. His eyes were wide.

"Sorry," I said automatically. "I’m sorry, I wasn’t—"

"No, no, it’s my fault." He was already stepping back. Letting go of my shoulders. "I was running. Shouldn’t have been running. Are you okay?"

"I’m fine."

He looked relieved. Started to move past me.

I caught his sleeve.

He stopped. Looked back.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"The east wing." He was already pulling away slightly. Like he was trying to be polite but also really needed to not be standing here. "We’re setting up for—"

He stopped.

Looked at me.

Something shifted in his expression. Like he’d just realized who I was. Or like he’d just remembered he wasn’t supposed to say certain things to certain people.

"Setting up for what?" I said.

"I—" He glanced down the hallway. Back at me. "The formal visit. The delegation from Iron Thorn. They’re—they’re arriving tomorrow."

The world stopped.

Just—stopped.

Everything went very quiet. The hallway. The distant voices. The sound of my own breathing.

*Tomorrow.*

The word sat in my chest like something dropped from a height.

"Iron Thorn," I said.

My voice came out strange. Flat.

"Yes, miss." He was looking at me carefully now. Like I might do something unpredictable. "The new alpha and his beta. Standard protocol for—for the acknowledgment ceremony. We just got word an hour ago that they’d be arriving early so we’re rushing to—" He gestured vaguely toward the east wing. "There’s a lot to prepare."

I let go of his sleeve.

He took another step back.

"I really need to go," he said. "If I don’t finish the setup before—"

"Go," I said.

He went.

Fast. Like he’d been released from something. His footsteps disappeared around the corner and I was alone again in the hallway with the pale walls and the distant sounds and the word *tomorrow* sitting in my chest like a stone.

*Tomorrow.*

Maxim was coming tomorrow.

My father was coming tomorrow.

They were going to walk into this palace—into *this building*—and I was going to have to—

What?

What was I going to have to do?

Stand there while Maxim bowed to Nicolas? Watch my father’s face while he pretended he didn’t see me? Wait for someone to decide what happened next—whether I stayed or whether I was handed back like a borrowed coat someone had finished using?

My hand found the wall.

I pressed against it. Hard. Felt the solid reality of it under my palm.

*He approved the visit.*

Katerina’s voice again. Quiet. Certain. Devastating.

*He could have said no. He didn’t.*

My throat closed.

No.

No, that wasn’t—

There had to be an explanation. There had to be some reason he’d approved it that wasn’t what Katerina said it was. Some political thing I didn’t understand. Some rule about alpha protocol that meant he *had* to say yes.

There had to be.

Because the alternative was—

The alternative was that she was right.

That he’d known. That he’d approved it. That he’d been sitting across from me at breakfast this morning with that almost-smile and he’d already decided I wasn’t worth the complication.

That when Maxim and my father walked through those doors tomorrow, Nicolas was going to—

What?

Let them take me?

*Yes.*

The thought arrived fully formed. Clear. Certain.

He was going to let them take me.

Because that was easier. Because keeping me meant starting a war with Iron Thorn and he’d just promised me no more wars and the easiest way to keep that promise was to—

To give me back.

My sister had been right.

She’d been right about all of it.