Transcription
The moment Prince Tristan publicly cast her aside, Willa expected humiliation. She never expected the Alpha King to step out of the shadows and claim her in front of the entire court with four words. "She belongs to me." Or that this grey-eyed stranger had been dreaming of her for 12 years, waiting for the day she could finally choose him. But every choice comes with a price, and Willa already knows this ends with a dagger in her hands.
Willa didn't move. That was the thing people would talk about afterward, not the tears, because there were none. Not the trembling lip or the crumpled posture. They would talk about how still she stood. How her eyes swept the room once slowly. The way a woman takes inventory after a fire.
She was 23 years old. She had been promised to Tristan since she was 16. Seven years of learning his preferences, his moods. Seven years of her mother pressing her hands between both of hers each morning and whispering, "You are the luckiest girl in the kingdom." She had believed it once, maybe twice, but her mother was gone now. So was the luck, apparently.
"By what grounds?" Her words came out before she decided to speak them. Low, even. Nothing cracked in them. Tristan's jaw tightened. He hadn't expected that. None of them had. The room's silence shifted from stunned to hungry. She could feel it. 200 people leaning a half inch forward, sensing something.
"Incompatibility," he said. The word was practiced. Someone had coached him on it. Incompatibility. She almost laughed. Seven years. She had learned to arrange his hunting trophies by species, not because she cared for dead things, but because the order pleased him, and a pleased Tristan was the only safe Tristan. She had memorized the pressure points of his ego like a cartographer mapping dangerous terrain and navigated them without a single wrong step. She had been so careful.
She looked at him, really looked, the way she hadn't permitted herself to in years, and understood with dreadful clarity. He was afraid of her. "He knows," she thought. "Someone told him what I am."
She was still holding that thought, still standing perfectly, humiliatingly still in the center of the room when she felt it. The pressure at the back of her skull that meant the sight was stirring. "Not now," she told it. "Not here." She had learned to push it down the way you push down a scream, and she did it now, jaw set, eyes forward, which was why she was looking directly at the far end of the hall when the crowd parted.
He was taller than she'd expected, broader. The northern kings were said to be built like weather, like something that happened to you rather than someone you met. And standing there in plain dark wool with no crown and no ceremony, Wade Drav was exactly that. He moved through the crowd without touching anyone, and yet somehow they all moved for him, a tide pulling back from ashore.
Tristan went very still beside her. The two brothers looked at each other across the length of the hall. And in that look was a history Willa could feel, but not yet read. Old damage, old scorekeeping, something with roots deeper than either of them stood tall.
Then Wade looked at her. His eyes were gray. Not the flat gray of winter sky, but something alive, shifting like storm clouds over deep water. He looked at her the way few people ever had. Not at the face she'd learned to arrange, not at the disgraced girl standing in the ruins of her future. He looked at her like he had already known her for years.
"She belongs to me," he said. Four words, quiet enough that half the room had to piece them together from their neighbors' expressions, but sensational enough that they would be repeated in every corridor of Varnhold before the candles burned down tonight.
Willa's heart did something she had no word for. "I've seen you," she thought, looking back at him. "I've seen you since I was 12 years old, and I never told a single soul." She didn't say it. She didn't say anything. The air between them thickened, warm and charged. A slow current rolled through her chest, golden and insistent. She felt it in her fingertips, in the sudden shallowness of her breath, in the way her wolf, usually so quiet, so obedient, lifted its head and purred.
Wade crossed the marble without hurry, every step measured. When he reached her, he didn't speak to Tristan. He didn't glance at the stunned nobles. He simply lifted one hand, slow enough that she could have stepped back, and offered his arm. Willa stared at it for a heartbeat. The sleeve of his dark wool was simple, unadorned. His wrist was strong, corded with muscle, the faint white line of an old scar visible where it disappeared beneath the cuff. Something in her chest loosened just a fraction. She placed her fingers on his forearm. The contact was slight, only the barest brush of skin, but heat trickled up her arm, raced across her collarbone, and settled behind her ribs in a place she had never experienced before. Her pulse stuttered. Wade's gray eyes darkened for a beat, but he only inclined his head once and turned them both toward the arched doors.
Behind them, Tristan's voice rose, thick with fury. "How dare you?" Wade didn't stop, didn't even look back. The crowd parted again, whispers rising in their wake like startled birds, but Willa heard none of it. All she could feel was the steady warmth of his arm beneath her palm, and the way every inch of her body seemed suddenly, terrifyingly awake.
They stepped into the wide corridor beyond the grand hall. The doors closed behind them with a soft final thud, sealing away the spectacle. Only then did Wade slow. He released her arm, but did not move away. Instead, he turned to face her fully, close enough that she caught the clean scent of him, pine, winter air, and something darker, like storm-charged iron. For a long moment, he simply looked at her, not with triumph, not with possession, but with something quieter, almost pained. He lifted the heavy cloak from his own shoulders and settled it around hers. The fabric was still warm from his body, carrying his scent so strongly that her wolf practically sighed. The weight of it grounded her, anchored her to the floor when the world felt like it was tilting.
"You don't have to be small anymore," he said, voice low. "Not with me." The words landed softly, yet they struck deeper than any blow Tristan had ever dealt. Something cracked behind her ribs. Not painful, but aching in the way long frozen things ache when they finally begin to thaw.
"Thank you," she whispered, fingers curling into the wool. Wade's gaze dropped to where she gripped the cloak, then rose again to her face. Something flickered across his features, longing, restraint, an old ache. He reached out, slow and deliberate, and brushed a single stray lock of hair from her cheek. The touch was feather-light, yet it sent sparks racing across her skin.
Footsteps echoed from the hall behind them. Courtiers, no doubt, hungry for the next act of the scandal. Wade's expression hardened. Without another word, he offered his arm again. This time she took it more readily. He led her through quiet passages she had never been allowed to walk, up a wide stone staircase lit by wall sconces that cast golden light across his sharp profile. She kept stealing glances at him, trying to match the fragments from her dreams to this man. The gray eyes, yes, the line of his jaw in firelight, perhaps, but the full picture refused to resolve. It was maddening, like trying to remember a melody she had only ever heard in pieces.
They reached a set of heavy oak doors carved with northern runes. Wade pushed one open and gestured her inside. The rooms were simpler than she expected for a king, spacious, warm, dominated by a massive hearth already crackling with fresh logs. A fur-draped chair sat near the fire. Beyond an archway, she glimpsed a bedchamber. The covers turned down as though someone had been expecting her.
Wade closed the door behind them, shutting out the rest of the world. "You'll stay here tonight," he said. "My wing. No one will reach you. And tomorrow, tomorrow we decide what comes next. Together." His voice dropped, intimate in the firelit quiet. "You are not a prize to be claimed or discarded, Willa. Not anymore."
Before she could answer, the sight surged. It hit harder this time, a brutal pressure cracking against the back of her skull like ice under a boot. The fragments came too fast, blood spreading across white marble. Tristan's satisfied smile, a gray-eyed man crumpling to his knees. Her stomach lurched. The shame that always followed the visions flooded her, chest hot and suffocating. She had hidden this curse for years, had bitten it back until her tongue bled. Because the one time she'd let it show as a girl, her own father had looked at her like she was something diseased. And now it was happening in front of him, the man who had just publicly claimed her. She was going to ruin it. He would see the monster Tristan had clearly already been warned about and withdraw his offer. Another rejection, another door closing.
Willa swayed violently. Wade moved before she even registered the fall. One powerful arm banded around her waist, the other cradling the back of her head as her knees buckled. He lifted her against his chest as if she were made of glass. The contact was overwhelming. His heartbeat thudded steady and strong beneath her cheek. Pine and winter air and warm skin flooded her senses. For one terrified heartbeat, she waited for the flinch. The recoil, the moment he realized what he was holding. But it never came.
"I've got you," he murmured into her hair, voice low and rough with something that sounded alarmingly like worry. "Breathe, Willa."
"Gods," she tried, but the vision crashed over her anyway, merciless, vivid. White marble turned slick and crimson. Tristan smiling like a man who had just removed the final obstacle in his path. And far away, a woman screaming, "High, broken, endless."
Willa gasped, fingers twisting violently into the front of his shirt as if he were the only solid thing left in the world. When the images finally fractured and bled away, she was left shaking. Wade carried her to the chair by the fire without a word. He lowered her onto the furs with care, but he didn't step back. Instead, he knelt beside her, one large hand gently cupping the side of her face, thumb brushing slow, soothing strokes across her cheekbone, his gray eyes held only quiet concern.
"Tell me what you saw," he said softly.
Willa stared at him, chest heaving, shame still burning hot behind her ribs. This king had just watched her unravel in his arms, had felt her tremble, had heard the choked sound she made when the sight took her, and he hadn't recoiled. Instead, he looked, worried for her. The kindness hurt almost as much as the vision itself, because the images were still there, clinging to the edges of her mind like frost. She had lived with the sight long enough to know its cruelty. Some visions were warnings, some were inevitable. She had never been able to tell the difference until it was too late.
"Would this one come true?" The question lodged in her throat like a shard of glass. "I don't know you," she whispered.
Wade's smile was small. "You will." His thumb swept another slow pass across her cheek. "And when you do, I hope you'll still let me keep you."
The fire crackled softly. Beyond the heavy doors, the palace buzzed and whispered with fresh scandal, but in this room there was only the lingering warmth of his cloak around her shoulders, the steady gray of his eyes, and the golden thread of the mate bond humming between them. Willa closed her eyes and for the first time since her mother's death, allowed herself to lean just slightly into someone else's strength.
The next morning, sunlight spilled across the fur rugs like melted gold, but Willa awoke with the metallic taste of fear still coating her tongue. She lay motionless in a wide bed that was not hers, staring at the heavy beams overhead. The cloak Wade had given her rested at the foot of the mattress, neatly folded. His scent clung to the linens, to her hair, to the thin shift she wore. She pressed her face into the pillow before she could stop herself, breathing him in like a secret. Then came the flush of embarrassment, hot and sudden. She had no memory of falling asleep. One moment she had been trembling in his arms on the chair, the vision still clawing at the edges of her mind, and the next, nothing. Had he carried her here, undressed her down to her shift, tucked the blankets around her? The thought sent heat rushing to her cheeks. She had shattered in front of a king, clung to him like a child, and then simply disappeared into unconsciousness.
A soft knock sounded at the connecting door. Willa sat up too quickly. The room tilted. Before she could call out, the door opened and Wade stepped through, carrying a tray as though kings did such things every day. He had changed into a simple black tunic and breeches, sleeves rolled to the elbows. Morning light traced the faint scars that laced his forearms, old, precise blade work. His eyes found hers immediately, steady and warm, with no trace of judgment.
"I wasn't sure what you liked," he said, voice still rough with sleep, "so I brought everything." He set the tray on the low table near the hearth, fresh bread still warm from the oven, honeycomb glistening in a small clay dish, sliced apples dusted with cinnamon, and two cups of spiced tea sending delicate curls of steam into the air. Simple things, thoughtful things, nothing like the calculated, watchful meals she had endured at Tristan's table for seven years.
Willa pulled the blanket higher, suddenly acutely aware that she wore only the thin shift, and that he had almost certainly been the one to put her to bed. The embarrassment deepened, but beneath it stirred something warmer, more dangerous, an undeniable curiosity about what else she had missed while unconscious in his arms.
Willa pulled the blanket higher, suddenly aware she wore only the thin shift she had fallen asleep in. "You didn't have to."
"I know." He straightened, rubbing the back of his neck in a gesture that looked almost boyish. "But I wanted to."
Their eyes held. The mate bond stirred between them. A low golden hum that made the air feel thicker, sweeter. Willa's fingers tightened on the blanket. Wade didn't approach the bed. He simply gestured to the chair opposite the tray. "Will, you eat with me?"
She nodded before she could overthink it. But as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, the question slipped out, quiet and unsteady. "What happened last night?"
Wade paused. For a moment, he simply looked at her, gray eyes soft in the morning light. Then he crossed to the bed and offered his hand to help her up. She took it. The moment their palms met, warmth bloomed up her arm.
"You started shaking," he said, voice low. "You gasped, clutched my shirt like you were drowning, and then you went limp. I carried you to the bed, removed only your gown and boots, nothing more. You were cold, so I wrapped you in the extra furs and sat with you until your breathing evened out." He brushed his thumb once across her knuckles before releasing her hand. "You whispered something before you slipped away. My name, just once."
Heat flooded her face. She remembered none of it. Yet the image of him carrying her, undressing her with careful hands, watching over her while she lay unconscious sent a rush of embarrassment through her chest. "I'm sorry," she murmured, unable to meet his eyes. "For burdening you like that."
"You didn't burden me, Willa." His voice dropped, gentle but firm. "You trusted me enough to let go. That's not a burden. That's a gift." She risked a glance up and found him watching her with that same quiet intensity, as though she were something rare and worth protecting.
When she finally rose, the shift slipped off one shoulder. Wade's gaze flicked to the exposed skin, then away just as quickly, jaw tightening with visible restraint. They ate in silence at first, the kind that should have felt awkward, but somehow didn't. He watched her without staring, noting the way she broke the bread into small, precise pieces, the way she licked honey from her thumb. When she reached for the tea, his fingers brushed hers as he passed the cup. The contact lingered half a second longer than necessary.
"I take it you slept poorly," he said quietly.
Willa traced the rim of her cup. "What happened to me?"
"It doesn't usually leave so quickly."
"Tell me about it," he said, not with command, but quiet invitation. She looked down at the honey glistening on her bread. The words felt dangerous, but the bond tugged at her ribs, urging her forward.
"I saw blood on white marble, Tristan smiling, a man with gray eyes falling." Her voice dropped. "I think it might have been you."
Wade set his cup down and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, close enough that she could see the faint silver threads in his storm-gray irises. "Visions aren't destiny," he said finally. "They're possibilities. Threads. Some we can cut before they tighten."
"You speak as if you've seen them before."
A shadow crossed his face. "There and gone. I've seen enough of fate to know it can be fought." He reached across the small table and turned her hand palm up, tracing one slow circle over the sensitive skin of her wrist with his thumb, as if drawing a new path over an old, predetermined line. The touch was barely there, yet it sent sparks racing up her arm and straight to her core. Willa's lips parted. She didn't pull away.
"You're trembling again," he murmured, the corner of his mouth lifting in that small, almost smile. "I'm not afraid of you."
"No," he agreed, voice dropping lower. "But you're afraid that wanting me will only lead you back to the fate you saw last night." The truth of it stole her breath. She looked at their joined hands, his large, scarred, steady, hers smaller, still faintly shaking, and felt the bond pulse warmly between them, urging, coaxing, promising.
Wade released her slowly, as if it pained him, and stood. "The palace is restless today. There will be questions, demands, whispers. I have to meet with the council this morning." He paused at the door, looking back at her. "But this afternoon, walk with me in the northern garden. I have something to tell you." He left before she could answer, but the invitation lingered in the air.
Willa spent the morning alone, pacing the sunlit rooms. Servants came and went with fresh clothes, soft wool in deep forest green, perfectly fitted, far finer than anything Tristan had ever allowed her. She ran her fingers over the fabric and felt the ache of it. Kindness without condition still felt too good to be true. When the servants finally left, she slipped into the corridor to clear her head. Two court ladies in jewel-toned silks were lingering near the landing, voices low but carrying in the way only practiced gossip could.
"Really? The king scraping the bottom of the barrel," one murmured with a delicate sniff. "The prince rejects her publicly and his brother simply picks up the leftovers."
The second woman gave a soft laugh. "They're saying she must have done something truly unforgivable in the south. Why else would Prince Tristan cast her aside after seven years?"
The words landed like tiny, precise blades. Willa stood frozen just out of sight. Leftovers. The word echoed in her mind, sharp and humiliating. She turned away before they could see her and retreated to her rooms, the forest green wool suddenly feeling heavier on her skin.
Yet when the afternoon sun dipped lower, painting the sky in bruised rose and gold, she still found herself walking toward the garden entrance. The northern garden was wilder than the manicured southern courts she knew. Ancient pines towered overhead, their needles scenting the cold air. Snow still clung to the shaded hollows. Wade waited at the bend in the path, hands clasped behind his back. When he saw her, something in his shoulders eased, as though the sight of her alone lightened some invisible burden.
They walked in silence at first, boots crunching softly on the gravel. Every few steps, their arms brushed. Each time, the mate bond answered with a warm ripple that made her aware of every inch where they touched. Shoulder, forearm, the occasional graze of fingers.
"You keep looking at me like you're trying to solve a puzzle," he said eventually, voice low and teasing.
Willa felt heat rise in her cheeks. She hesitated. The court ladies' whispers still sharp in her mind. "I overheard some people talking this morning," she said quietly, not quite meeting his eyes. "I don't want to make you look foolish, Wade. You're the Alpha King. You could have anyone. A proper match, someone who wouldn't come to you already used and rejected."
Wade stopped beneath a towering pine. Sunlight filtered through the branches, painting gold across his cheekbones. For a long moment, he simply looked at her, gray eyes steady and unreadable. Then he turned to face her fully.
"You've seen pieces of me," he said quietly. "Haven't you?"
Her heart stumbled at the gentle deflection. He lifted one hand, slow enough for her to retreat, and cupped the side of her face. His thumb brushed her lower lip. "Since I was 18, I've dreamed of you every night. Clearly, completely. Your laugh. The way you tilt your head when you're thinking. How your hair looks loose around your shoulders in firelight." His voice roughened. "I believe you've only seen fragments of me. A hand, a shoulder, maybe gray eyes in the dark."
Willa's breath left her in a rush. The fragments she had carried for 11 years suddenly sharpened, clicking into place like scattered pieces of a mirror. The scarred hand braiding hair. The broad shoulders dusted with snow. The low rumble of laughter she sometimes heard in her sleep.
"You stayed away," she whispered.
"I did." Pain flickered across his face. "The dreams showed me what would happen if I claimed you too soon. Tristan would have had you killed before your 18th winter. So, I protected you the only way I could, from a distance. Quiet pressure on the court. Southern court. Anonymous gifts to your mother's house."
Willa's heart stuttered. She remembered them clearly now. "The small wooden boxes that always arrived without note or sender. A silver hair comb shaped like falling stars the year she turned 18. A slim volume of northern poetry when she was 19. A delicate glass vial of snowdrop perfume the winter she turned 20." Little treasures that had made her feel seen when the rest of the world treated her like an afterthought. All this time she had thought some distant relative sent them.
"You?" Her voice came out small. "Those were from you."
Wade's throat worked. "I told myself it was enough. It wasn't. You paid for my caution in ways I can never repay." The confession hung between them, raw and honest. Willa felt the walls she had rebuilt that morning crack again, wider this time. She stepped closer, close enough to feel the heat of his body cutting through the cold air.
"So why now?"
Wade's thumb stroked once more across her lip before he spoke, voice low and fierce with conviction. "Now the dreams have changed. They show you choosing me, and I am selfish enough to hope they're right." His gaze held hers unwavering. "As for the rest, let them whisper. I have waited 12 years for the woman who was always meant to be mine. Their opinions mean nothing. You are not a discarded bride, Willa. You are the only one I have ever wanted."
The bond flared so brightly she felt it in her bones. For the first time in years, her wolf lifted its head with a rumbling purr that vibrated through her chest. The voice that had been silent for so long suddenly brushed against her mind, husky and impatient. "Bite him. He is so kind and most importantly delicious."
The words shocked a breathless laugh out of her. Heat flooded her face, but the wolf's demand only made the pull stronger, more insistent. Willa rose onto her toes, one hand sliding up his chest to curl around the back of his neck, and kissed him. Wade made a low sound in his throat, half growl, half groan, and his arms came around her instantly, pulling her flesh against him. One large hand slid into her hair, tilting her head as he deepened the kiss, slow and thorough and starving. Heat exploded between them. Her fingers curled into his tunic, bunching the fabric, kneading him closer. She tasted winter air, honey, and raw male hunger. His body was hard against hers, every muscle taut with the effort of holding back. When his tongue brushed hers, a soft whimper escaped her. He answered with a shudder that ran through them both.
They broke apart, gasping, foreheads pressed together, breath mingling in the cold garden air. Wade's voice was wrecked. "Willa."
"I know," she breathed. Her hands were still fisted in his shirt. "I've been dreaming of pieces of you for so long. I don't know how to want anything else."
His laugh was rough. "You're going to undo me." He kissed her again, slower this time, savoring like a man memorizing something he had waited a lifetime to taste. One hand trailed down her spine, pressing her closer until there was no space left between them. The bond sang bright and golden and insistent, urging them toward the final claiming. Willa felt the sharp edge of his teeth graze her lower lip and moaned softly.
Wade pulled back with visible effort, chest heaving. His eyes had gone dark, pupils blown wide. Her wolf spoke again, louder this time, wicked and impatient in her mind. "We are ready. Stop being noble, and bite us back."
Willa's face burned. A startled, slightly mortified laugh bubbled out of her before she could stop it. Wade's brow lifted, a slow, devastating smirk tugging at his lips. "When I mark you," he said, thumb tracing her swollen lip, "it will be because you look at me and say you choose me, not for fate or safety. Not because the bond demands it, just me."
The restraint should have frustrated her. Instead, it made her ache in an entirely new way. He was giving her power she had never been allowed to hold. She nodded, breathless. "Then court me properly, Wade, as my lady commands."
High above them, hidden among the thick branches of the ancient pine, a dark-cloaked figure remained perfectly still. Cold eyes watched the embrace, noting every touch, every whispered word, every flash of raw hunger. A thin smile curved beneath the hood. The figure slipped silently from branch to branch and vanished into the shadows, carrying the dangerous new secret back to ears that had been waiting years for exactly this moment.
In the evenings that followed, Wade began to court her the way winter courts spring, patiently, inevitably, beautifully. One night, after the fire had burned low and most of the palace had gone quiet, he found her curled in the wide window seat of her sitting room, knees drawn up, staring at the stars beyond the glass. Without a word, he crossed the room and placed a heavy leather-bound book in her lap. Willa opened it. The pages were filled with intricate star charts and handwritten notes in faded ink. Her breath caught when she recognized the constellations she had once traced with her fingertip on frosted window panes as a girl. The ones she had never told anyone about.
"You remembered," she whispered.
"I never forgot anything the dreams showed me." Wade lowered himself to the seat beside her, close enough that their thighs brushed. "You used to trace them when you thought no one was watching."
She turned the page with trembling fingers. For a long time, they sat in silence, shoulders touching. The only sound the soft crackle of the fire and the turning of pages. Eventually, Willa leaned her head against his shoulder. He didn't move, didn't speak, just let her settle there as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Wade's voice was low when he finally spoke, barely more than a murmur against her hair. "You don't have to earn this, Willa. Not with me."
She closed her eyes, letting the weight of his words settle over her like the warmest cloak. For the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt chosen.
Their touches grew bolder, a brush of fingers while passing wine, his hand at the small of her back as they walked the garden paths. One night, after a particularly grueling council meeting, he returned tense and quiet. Willa arose without thinking and began working the knots from his shoulders with careful fingers. He groaned low in his throat, head falling forward, and the sound sent liquid heat pooling low in her belly.
"You're dangerous," he muttered, voice muffled against his crossed arms.
"You like it," she whispered, emboldened. He turned, caught her wrist, and pressed a slow, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of it. "I crave it."
The bond between them grew louder, hotter, harder to ignore. Every night they ended up tangled together on the chair or his bed, breathing each other's air, hands roaming with increasing hunger. He would kiss her until she was dizzy and trembling.
"I want you so badly I can't think straight," he admitted one night. "But I need you to be sure. I need you to choose me when the fear isn't louder than the wanting."
Willa traced the line of his jaw with trembling fingers. "You're making it very difficult to remain afraid."
Yet the visions refused to leave her in peace. They came harder now, sharper. Always the same fragments. Blood on marble. Tristan's triumphant smile. Wade falling, each time she woke gasping. Wade was there, pulling her against his chest, whispering into her hair until the terror receded. He never pressed for details. He simply held her like she was precious, not cursed.
On the fifth night, the vision changed. She saw Tristan in shadowed chambers speaking with hooded figures whose faces she couldn't make out. She heard the words fracture, "northern crown," and "the witch must be removed." When she jolted awake, heart pounding, Wade was already sitting up, gray eyes alert in the darkness.
"Willa." She pressed her face into his bare chest, breathing him in, trying to steady her racing heart. "He's planning something. Something bigger than me. I think... I think he wants the throne back."
Wade's arms tightened around her, but this time she felt the tension coil through his body like a drawn bow. For a long moment, he was silent, jaw clenched so tightly she could see the muscle jump. "He's wanted it back since the day our father died," Wade said quietly, voice rough. "Tristan was always the favored son. Charming, ruthless, everything our father thought a king should be. I was the spare who refused to play the game. When civil war was brewing three years ago, the council begged me to take the crown instead of him. I accepted, but only long enough to stop the bloodshed. Tristan has never forgiven me for it. In his mind, I stole the throne he was promised."
Wade exhaled slowly, his hand stroking down her spine in a gesture that felt more protective than soothing. "Now he'll come for you because he knows the truth. You're not just my mate. You're the one thing that makes me stronger than he'll ever be." He tilted her chin up and kissed her. Slow, deep, the kind of kiss that felt like a vow. When he pulled back, his eyes burned with quiet ferocity. "I have waited 12 years to stand beside you, Willa. I'm not losing you now."
She believed him. But deep in her chest, a shard of fear remained. The vision of his blood on white marble. The terrible question she still couldn't answer.
Two nights later, she had slipped away from Wade's side after dinner to walk the moonlight garden alone, needing air, needing space to think. The bond pulled at her constantly now, a sweet ache that made her both restless and content. She was tracing her fingers over a frost-covered rose when the shadows moved. Tristan stepped into the path. Tall, golden-haired, and coldly beautiful, he looked every inch the favored son, except for the sharp, predatory glint in his eyes. Two silent guards flanked him, their cloaks blending into the night.
"Hello, little witch," he said softly. His smile was the same one that had haunted her visions. Satisfied, victorious. "I gave you a chance to remain useful. You chose poorly."
Willa's heart slammed against her ribs. She took one careful step back, the gravel crunching sharply under her boot. Tristan lifted a slender dagger into the moonlight. The blade was thin, almost delicate, but the edge gleamed with an unnatural, oily sheen. A single drop of liquid slid slowly down the steel like a tear.
"This is coated with something quite special," he said softly. "One cut and the king's new pet will fall into a sleep she never wakes from. Or," he extended the hilt toward her, the gesture almost courteous, "you could use it on him instead tonight while he sleeps so trustingly beside you. Do that and I'll let you live. Refuse and I will expose exactly what you are to every noble in this palace. A cursed seer, a threat to the realm. They'll burn you themselves. And I'll be watching from the front row."
Willa stared at the dagger. Her hand shook as she reached for it. Not to take it, but to buy seconds to think, to breathe. The moment her fingers brushed the hilt, the vision slammed into her with brutal force. White marble slick with blood. Wade on his knees, one hand pressed to the gaping wound in his chest. His gray eyes, the same eyes that had looked at her with such patience and want, were wide with shock and fading light. Her own hands were wrapped around the dagger buried in his heart. Warm blood pulsed over her fingers as he whispered her name one last time. Broken and disbelieving.
She gasped, staggering sideways. The garden spun when the image finally shattered and released her. Tristan was watching her with cold, triumphant amusement. "Tick tock, Willa," his smile widened, sharp as the blade. "The choice is yours, but choose quickly. Some visions, after all, always come true." He melted back into the shadows between the pines, taking his guards with him. The garden fell silent once more, as if he had never been there.
Willa stood frozen beneath the ancient trees, the poisoned blade heavy and cold in her palm. Terror clawed its way up her throat. The mate bond sang desperately toward the man sleeping only corridors away. The man who had held her through every nightmare, who had kissed her as though she were the first real thing he had touched in years. The blade trembled violently in her grip, and for the first time since the rejection, she felt truly, perfectly small again.
Willa stood frozen beneath the ancient pines until the cold seeped into her bones and the moon slipped lower in the sky. Every instinct screamed at her to run back to Wade, to wake him, to warn him. But the vision still burned behind her eyes, her own hands buried in his chest, his blood warm on her skin, his eyes wide with betrayal. If she went to him now, would she become the instrument of his death? She slipped the poison dagger into the folds of her cloak and walked back to the royal wing on legs that felt borrowed. The corridors were silent except for the distant crackle of torches. When she reached the door to Wade's chambers, she paused, forehead pressed to the wood, breathing hard. Inside, he slept. She could feel him through the bond, steady, warm, trusting. She did not go in. Instead, she sat on the cold stone floor outside his door until dawn bled across the sky, the dagger a lead weight against her thigh.
When the first servants began to stir, she rose on numb legs and returned to her own rooms, hollow-eyed and sick with fear. She spent the day avoiding Wade. Every time she heard his footsteps or caught the low rumble of his voice in the distance, she found a reason to slip away. The bond pulled at her relentlessly, confused and aching, but she could not face him. Not with Tristan's ultimatum ringing in her ears and the vision still painted in fresh blood behind her eyelids.
By evening, Wade found her anyway. She was standing at the window in the northern sitting room, staring at nothing when the door opened. He stepped inside without knocking, the firelight catching on the sharp lines of his face. He looked exhausted, shadows under his eyes, tension carved deep into his shoulders. But the moment his gaze landed on her, something raw and desperate flickered across his features.
"Willa," just her name. Soft and worried. It nearly broke her. He crossed the room in three strides and stopped an arm's length away as though afraid she might bolt. His hands flexed at his sides, wanting to reach for her and clearly forcing himself not to.
"You've been avoiding me all day," the words were quiet, but the worry beneath them was unmistakable. "I felt it through the bond every time you pulled away. I thought..." He swallowed hard. "I thought I'd done something to frighten you, that I'd moved too fast, asked for too much." He took one careful step closer, searching her face with those eyes that had once felt like safety and now looked haunted. "Talk to me," he whispered. "Please."
She turned to face him fully. The words rose and died on her tongue three times before she finally forced them out. "Tristan came to me last night."
Wade went very still. The color drained from his face. For a heartbeat, he looked like the man in her vision, frozen, wounded, on the edge of something irreversible. Then the stillness cracked. His breath hitched once and his hand lifted halfway toward her before he caught himself and let it fall.
She told him everything. The dagger, the threat, the vision of her own hands killing him. With every sentence, his expression darkened, but he did not interrupt. When she finished, silence stretched between them, thick and terrible.
Then Wade did the last thing she expected. He closed the remaining distance in one stride and pulled her into his arms. Not with anger, not with fear, just with the same quiet strength he had shown since the moment he claimed her in the hall. One hand cradled the back of her head. The other pressed firmly against her lower back, anchoring her to him.
"I should have been there. I should have." He cut himself off, pressing his lips to the top of her head instead. When he spoke again, the words were barely more than a broken murmur. "You are not a weapon. You are not his to use, and you are not going to lose me. Do you understand?"
Her fingers curled into his shirt. "Visions are warnings, not commandments." His voice was low, steady, but she felt the faint tremor beneath it. "Tristan has always been clever. He knows the one thing that could make me hesitate is the fear of hurting you. So, he's trying to turn you into the weapon."
Willa pulled back just enough to look at him. "He said, 'If I refuse, he'll expose me as a cursed seer. They'll burn me, Wade. They will.'"
His gray eyes burned with quiet fury. "Tomorrow night, we stop waiting. We take the fight to him. I've already spoken with the captains I trust. At midnight, we move on the eastern wing where his supporters are gathered. We end this before he can twist the council against us."
The plan had been simple, decisive. They had spent the last hour going over every detail. Roots, loyal guards, how to isolate Tristan without sparking open civil war. For the first time since the garden, Willa had felt something close to hope. But hope was fragile.
He kissed her then, not the hungry, starving kisses of the garden, but something deeper, slower. A kiss that tasted like promise, curbing back fear. When he drew back, he rested his forehead against hers. "Stay with me tonight," he whispered. "Whatever comes, we face it together."
She nodded, throat too tight to speak.
"They never meant to fall asleep. They had intended to stay awake, to review the maps one last time, to keep their wolves alert and ready. But the poison had already been drifting through the vents for hours, slow, odorless, insidious. It had slipped into their lungs with every shared breath, every kiss, every quiet moment they had stolen in each other's arms. They lay tangled together in his bed, the poison dagger hidden beneath the mattress like a sleeping serpent. Wade held her as though she might vanish, one arm locked around her waist, his breath warm against her neck.
An hour before dawn, the doors to the royal wing exploded inward with a thunderous crack. Shouts. Steel on steel. Willa jolted awake, heart slamming against her ribs, but her body felt heavy. Wrong. The room tilted when she tried to sit up. Wade was already moving, or trying to. He pushed himself upright, bare-chested, reaching for the long sword propped beside the bed. His movements were sluggish, uncoordinated. The sword slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.
"Willa!" His voice was rough, strained. "Stay!" He staggered two steps toward the door before the first real wave of pain hit him. A guttural sound tore from his throat. His knees buckled. One hand flew to his chest as dark veins surged up his neck and along his arms like spreading poison ivy. Sweat broke across his skin in seconds. The bond between them flickered wildly, erratic and fraying at the edges.
"Poison?" he gasped, dropping to one knee. "In the air? Tristan must have laced the vents." His gray eyes found hers, already glazing with pain. "He knew I would keep you close. He knew I would breathe you in all night." The cleverness of it struck her like a blow. Tristan hadn't needed her to use the dagger. He had turned their growing intimacy into the weapon itself. Every kiss, every night spent wrapped around each other had delivered the toxins straight into her and Wade's lungs.
Boots thundered in the outer chamber. Tristan's voice rang out, calm and triumphant, as though he were merely late for dinner. "Brother, are you feeling unwell?"
Will's wolf surged forward with a snarl that vibrated through her bones. She lunged for Wade, catching his shoulders as he started to collapse. His skin was burning hot beneath her hands. She could feel the bond straining, flickering like a candle in a storm.
"Run!" he rasped, trying weakly to push her behind him, even as his body failed. "Willa, please."
"I'm not leaving you."
The doors burst open. Tristan stepped through, flanked by six armed men. He looked every inch the king he believed he should be. Golden hair gleaming, expression serene. His gaze flicked from Wade's collapsing form to Willa's trembling grip on the sword. Behind him, more shadows moved, reinforcements already pouring into the outer chamber.
"How touching," he said softly. "The discarded bride defending her new master. I gave you a simple choice, Willa. You chose poorly, yet again." He gestured. Two guards moved forward. Wade tried to rise, but the poison buckled his legs. A broken sound tore from his throat as he dropped hard to one knee. Dark veins pulsed violently up his neck and across his chest. Sweat poured down his temples. The bond between them spasmed wildly, fraying at the edges like a rope burning through. Willa felt every inch of his pain as her own, a white-hot knife twisting behind her ribs. She stepped in front of him anyway, raising the heavy long sword with both shaking hands. The poison dagger remained hidden at the small of her back, cold against her spine. Her voice shook but did not break. "You will not touch him."
Tristan laughed, low and pitying. "Still playing the hero. Cute." He tilted his head. "Kill her slowly. Let my brother watch."
The guards lunged. Willa swung wildly, desperately. Her blade caught one man across the thigh. He screamed and went down. Another grabbed her from behind, arm locking around her throat. She slammed her head backward and felt his nose crunch. Hot blood spraying across her neck. Pain exploded through her skull, but she kept moving, kept fighting, kept breathing. Through the chaos, she felt Wade behind her. Slower, weaker, but still trying. Every time the bond flickered, she tasted his agony like copper on her tongue. He was losing the fight against the toxin. She was losing the fight against the guards.
A booted foot slammed into her ribs. She staggered, gasping. The sword flew from her numb fingers and skittered across the stone. Before she could recover, Tristan stepped forward with calm as ever and plucked the poison dagger from the back of her belt. "Time to end this little farce," he murmured. He raised the blade toward Wade's exposed throat.
Willa's vision tunneled. The sight slammed into her. Not a wave this time, but a brutal, merciless flood. She saw the fraying golden thread of their bond. Seconds from snapping. She saw Wade's eyes dimming. She saw herself kneeling in his blood, screaming a name no one would ever answer again. She would lose him forever.
Something ancient and desperate roared up from the deepest part of her. She lunged. Not for the dagger. Not for Tristan. She threw herself at Wade, slamming her palm over his heart and pouring every scrap of strength she had left into the bond, not to magically heal him, but to hold the thread together by sheer will.
At the same moment, the outer doors crashed open again. Captains loyal to Wade, grizzled men who had fought beside him in the last war, who remembered how he had renounced the throne to stop the slaughter Tristan had been willing to unleash, stormed into the room. They had heard the commotion and come running, weapons already drawn.
"Protect the king!" One of them bellowed. Steel clashed, new shouts turned to screams. One of Tristan's guards went down hard. Another fell trying to reach Willa. Wade's body shuddered violently beneath her hand. The toxin fought back, trying to sever the bond completely. But the sudden
The arrival of his loyal captains, men who had chosen him over Tristan, because they remembered a king who valued peace over power, gave him the fraction of a second he needed. His eyes snapped open, blazing with a roar that shook the stones. Wade surged upward. The poison still raged through his veins, weakening him, slowing him, but it no longer owned him. He caught Tristan's wrist mid-strike, twisting until the poison dagger clattered to the floor.
"You always did underestimate what loyalty can do," Wade growled, voice raw and lethal. "These men chose me because I stopped the war you were so eager to start. They will never choose you."
Tristan's serene mask cracked for a brief second, replaced by a flash of real fear in his eyes. The fight turned savage. Wade, still poisoned and bleeding from a fresh cut across his ribs, fought like a man possessed. He disarmed one guard with a brutal twist and used the man's own sword to drive another back. Willis stayed close, poisoned dagger now in her hand, slashing at anyone who tried to flank him. Her wolf howled inside her chest, lending what little strength it could through the fraying bond.
A guard's blade grazed Wade's shoulder. He staggered. Will cried out and drove her dagger into the attacker's side. Blood sprayed hot across her arm. Tristan saw his opening. He lunged for Willow with a hidden knife. Wade moved faster than he should have been able to. He slammed into Tristan with his full weight, driving him back against the stone wall. The impact cracked something. Tristan's head snapped back. The knife fell from his fingers. WDE's hand closed around his brother's throat.
"You poison the air I breathe with the woman I love," Wade growled. "You tried to turn her into my executioner. For that alone, I should tear your heart out."
Tristan laughed, blood on his teeth. "You still don't see it, do you? The council will never accept her. They'll call her a witch. They'll call you weak for choosing a leftover woman. I've planted the seeds. You've already lost."
WDE's grip tightened. Then Willa's hand settled on his arm. She was bleeding from a cut above her eye, hair wild, dress torn, but her voice was steady. "Let the council see the truth," she said softly. "Let them see us together. Not as king and discarded bride, as mates who chose each other despite everything."
WDE looked at her. The fury in his eyes softened into something raw and aching. Tristan was dragged away in chains, still smiling, that cold, satisfied smile, as though he believed the game was not yet over. Willa didn't care.
Wade turned to Willa. He looked half dead, pale, sweating, veins still dark beneath his skin, but he reached for her anyway. His bloodied hand cupped her cheek with gentleness. "You stayed," he whispered, voice cracking. "Even when you thought it would kill me."
"You stayed," Will leaned into his bloodied palm, tears slipping silently down her cheeks. Her voice was barely more than a breath, but it carried every fragile piece of her heart. "How could I run from the only man I've ever seen clearly in the dark?"
She felt the shudder that ran through him, his forehead dropped to hers, their breath mingling in the ruined room, and for a moment the chaos around them faded. "I saw fragments of you for 11 years," she whispered against his lips. "A scarred hand braiding my hair, shoulders dusted with snow, gray eyes watching me like I was already home. And now I have the whole of you." Her fingers traced the wound on his ribs with trembling care. "I will always stay, Wade."
In every dream, in every nightmare, in every life after this one, he made a low, broken sound and kissed her. When they parted, his gray eyes were wet, burning with a love so vast it felt like the northern sky itself. "Then let the rest of our dreams begin here," he murmured. The bond between them flickered, damaged, exhausted, but unbroken, glowing softly like the first star after the longest night.
Three nights later, under a sky heavy with stars, they completed the bond. There was no grand ceremony with banners or cheering crowds. Only the two of them in the northern garden where everything had begun. Snow dusted the pines. The air smelled of frost and pine resin and the faint trace of winter roses that had somehow survived the cold. Wade knelt before her on the frozen ground, bare-chested despite the chill. His gray eyes held hers with the same quiet reverence he had shown the night he first offered her his arm in the grand hall.
"I have dreamed of this moment for 12 years," he said, voice low and steady. "Not as king and mate, just as the man who saw you in fragments and fell in love with every piece before he ever touched you." He reached up, brushing a snowflake from her cheek with his thumb. "Willa, do you choose me? Not because the bond demands it. Not because the kingdom needs it, only because I am the one you want."
Tears slipped down her face, but they were warm this time. She sank to her knees in front of him and took his face between her hands the way he had once taken hers. "I choose you," she whispered. "The man who waited in the dark so I could have the chance to walk toward him freely. The man who taught me. I don't have to be small." Her wolf stirred again, warm and playful in her mind. "Bite him properly this time. Make it count." A soft, watery laugh escaped her. She leaned in and sank her teeth into the junction of his neck and shoulder, claiming him fully, deliberately, with every ounce of love and courage she had found because of him.
WDE groaned a deep sound and returned the bite with equal care. Slow, tender, and absolute. The mate bond ignited like sunrise breaking over snow-covered peaks. Golden light poured through them both, mending the frayed threads, knitting together every fragmented dream they had ever shared. When it was done, they stayed on their knees in the snow, foreheads pressed together, breathing the same air. WDE's arms wrapped around her as though he would never let go. "Welcome home," he whispered against her lips. "My mate, my queen, my everything."
A year later, the kingdom no longer whispered about the discarded bride. They spoke of the seer queen. At first, there had been fear. When the council learned of her sight, some had recoiled, murmuring old superstitions about curses and omens. But Willa had stood before them in the same grand hall where her world had once shattered, spine straight, voice calm. She had shown them then, not with spectacle or performance, but with quiet, undeniable truth, a vision of a coming flood that gave three villages time to reach higher ground. A glimpse of a poisoned well that saved dozens of lives before the first cup was drawn. Slowly, the fear in the council's eyes turned to awe. And awe in time became respect. Now those with latent sight, quiet omegas, overlooked daughters, even a few young alphas who had hidden their gifts out of shame, began to step forward. Willow welcomed them. She created a small circle within the palace where they could learn to understand their visions instead of fearing them. For the first time in generations, the sight was no longer a curse to be buried. It was a tool, a gift, a part of the kingdom's strength.
Willis stood on the balcony of their chambers one crisp spring morning. Below in the courtyard, Wade was teaching their firstborn, a bright-eyed girl with her mother's quiet smile and her father's storm gray eyes, how to trace constellations in the air with small, chubby fingers. The little girl giggled as Wade lifted her onto his shoulders, the sound bright and clear. Willis's wolf gave a soft, contented rumble in her chest, then added, "Chey as ever. He looks good with a pup on his shoulders. We should give him another soon, preferably after he finishes what he started in the bath last night."
Will laughed under her breath, cheeks warming. WDE looked up at the sound. Their eyes met across the distance, and the golden thread between them glowed warm and steady. No longer afraid, no longer hidden. He smiled that small private smile that had once belonged only to her in dreams and pressed a kiss to their daughter's temple before mouthing three silent words up at her. "I love you." Will pressed her hand to her heart and mouthed them back.