Chapter 15: Hoodie of the Damned
The sterile white of the infirmary ceiling blurred above her, a smear of blinding light against the relentless, grinding ache in her ribs. Aria clenched her teeth, a whimper escaping through the cracks. The healers had done their work, the bone-knitting magic a cold fire under her skin, but the deep, throbbing remnant of the blow Kaelen had landed was a living thing. It clawed at her with every shallow breath.
“Easy, Ari,” Ithan murmured, his large hand a steady weight on her uninjured shoulder. His face, usually so controlled, was etched with a worry so profound it made her want to cry for a different reason. He looked older than his twenty-two years.
Dae hovered at the foot of the bed, a silent, towering statue of tension. His hazel eyes were fixed on her face, tracking every flinch. Since the moment she’d deflected the dagger in the banquet hall with a sword that shouldn’t exist, let alone obey her, his gaze hadn’t wavered. He hadn’t spoken much. None of them had. The questions about Firegard hung in the antiseptic air, thick and unasked.
A fresh, sharper pang shot through her side, a protest against a sudden, wrenching thought that had nothing to do with physical pain. Her eyes went wide.
“No,” she breathed, the word soft and broken. Then it gained volume, franticness, tumbling out in a desperate chant. “No no no no no no.”
Dae stiffened, taking a step forward. “The pain? I’ll get the healer back.” His voice was rough, concern stripping away the crown prince’s polish.
But Ithan was already shaking his head, his green eyes, so like her own, seeing deeper. He knew her grief, lived with its same shadows. He recognized this particular flavor of panic. It wasn't about the body.
Aria twisted her head towards him, tears welling and spilling over, carving hot paths down her temples into her hair. “Co-Conner’s hoodie,” she choked out, the words hiccuping between sobs. “It’s… it’s in my room. In the citadel. I-I… Ithan…”
She didn’t need to finish. Ithan knew. That faded gray hoodie was her most sacred relic. It had been Conner’s, worn thin at the elbows, smelling faintly of pine and their older brother long after he and Danika had died two years ago, after the entire Pack of Devils had been wiped from the earth. It was the last tangible piece of him. She slept with it. She breathed it in when the world became too much. Losing it… here, now, amidst the shocking revelation of the sword and the attempt on Dae’s life… it felt like losing Conner all over again.
Ithan’s jaw tightened, his own grief a reflexive punch to the gut. “Ari, it’s okay. We’ll send someone.”
But Dae was already moving. He leaned over the bed, his large frame blocking out the harsh light. His expression was unreadable, but his voice dropped to a whisper meant only for her. “I can get it, sweet girl.”
And then he was gone. Not a turn, not a stride towards the door. One second he was there, a solid presence, and the next the air where he’d stood rippled with a silent, vacuum pop.
Aria’s sob caught in her throat. Ithan jerked back, a low growl rumbling in his chest. Ruhn Dannon, who had been leaning against a far wall observing with his typical guarded calm, let out a soft, impressed curse. “He really can do that.”
Ten seconds. It was precisely ten seconds of dead, silent infirmary air, broken only by the hum of machinery and Aria’s hitching breaths. Then the air snapped again, and Dae reappeared in the exact same spot, slightly disheveled, a whisper of night-cool air clinging to him. In his hands was a bundle of soft, heather-gray fabric.
He didn’t hand it to Ithan. He didn’t make a show of it. He simply laid it gently on the bed beside Aria, his fingers brushing the worn material.
She didn’t thank him. Words were beyond her. One trembling hand fought free of the thin hospital blanket and closed around the fabric, pulling it to her face. She buried her nose in it, inhaling the scent of her own shampoo from the Citadel rooms, the faint, ghostly undernote of a memory of Conner, and something new—the crisp, clean scent of night-blooming flowers and cold starlight. Dae’s scent. It was all over the hoodie.
She curled around it, a fresh wave of sobs shaking her, but these were quieter. Deeper. The frantic edge was gone, replaced by a raw, fathomless hurt.
Ithan watched his sister, his heart a knot of anguish and fury. He looked from her curled form to Dae, who was staring down at her with an expression the wolf Prime had never seen on the fae prince’s face. It wasn’t triumph. It wasn’t calculation. It was something stark and utterly open. A reflection of her pain, and a terrible, dawning softness.
“You went into her room,” Ithan said, his voice low. It wasn’t an accusation, not quite. It was a demarcation of a line crossed.
Dae didn’t look at him. His eyes remained on Aria. “She needed it.”
“She needs a lot of things,” Ithan countered, the protectiveness surging like a tide. “That doesn’t mean you get to be the one to provide them.”
Finally, Dae lifted his gaze. The softness vanished, shuttered behind a familiar, cool mask. But Ithan had seen it. So had Ruhn, who was now watching the exchange with keen interest.
“She stopped a dagger meant for my spine,” Dae said, the words precise and cold. “She called a mythical sword to her hand in a hall full of people who would kill for it. She is lying here in pain because of me.” He took a slow breath, the mask cracking just enough to show the turmoil beneath. “Fetching a piece of cloth is the least I can do.”
Aria’s crying had subsided into shaky breaths. She still held the hoodie like a lifeline, her eyes closed. The connection between them—the mate bond still so new and fragile—thrummed in the quiet room. It was a live wire, humming with her sorrow and his turbulent, reluctant gratitude.
Ithan saw it. He felt the shift in the room’s energy. He wanted to fight it, to drag his sister back to their own territory, away from this fae prince with his cruel upbringing and dangerous crown. But he also saw the way Aria’s fist loosened slightly around the fabric, the way her breathing evened out just a fraction with Dae standing near.
He was losing her to more than just grief.
Ruhn pushed off the wall, his movement breaking the tense silence. “The political storm is already brewing,” he said, his voice pragmatic. “Oren looked like he’d seen a ghost. That sword… they’ll come for answers, Dae. They’ll come for her.”
Dae’s hand, which had been hovering near the bed, slowly curled into a fist at his side. He looked from Aria’s peaceful, exhausted face to his cousin, and the last trace of softness burned away, replaced by something ancient and fierce.
“Let them try,” he said, the words dropping into the room like stones. “They will find her under my protection. They will find Firegard has chosen its wielder.” He finally turned his head fully towards Ithan, a prince facing a Prime. “And they will find the Vanir Wolves standing with her. Won’t they?”
It wasn’t a request. It was a challenge, and a recognition. Ithan held his stare for a long, heavy moment, then gave a single, curt nod. The alliance, born of necessity and now bound by a sword and a girl’s grief, was sealed.
On the bed, Aria slept, the gray hoodie a stark patch of comfort against the clinical white, the scent of her dead brother and her living mate tangled together in the threads. The real battle, all of them knew, was only just beginning.
The real battle, all of them knew, was only just beginning.
Aria surfaced from a shallow, pained sleep, disoriented by the medicinal smell and the persistent ache deep in her side. The comforting weight of Conner’s hoodie was there, pressed under her cheek, but the silence in the room now felt heavy, charged. She heard the low, tense murmur of Ithan and Ruhn by the door, discussing security, threats, allegiances.
Dae stood closer, his back to her, a rigid line of tension watching them debate. Her hand moved before her mind caught up, fingers fumbling out from under the blanket to curl weakly in the fabric of his trousers, just below his knee.
He startled, looking down. Her green eyes were clouded with pain and sleep and a vulnerability that carved straight through him. “Hey,” he whispered, his voice rough.
“Hurts,” she breathed out, the admission costing her. She wasn’t talking about the ribs. The sob was building again, a pressure behind her eyes and in her throat. She tugged feebly at his pants leg. “Come here.”
It wasn’t a request. It was a desperate, quiet demand. Dae glanced at Ithan, who had gone silent, his gaze sharp and apprehensive. This was unfamiliar ground for all of them. Dae, raised in cold rooms and cruel lessons, had no protocol for this.
But his body moved anyway. He sat on the edge of the narrow infirmary cot, the frame groaning under his weight. Aria didn’t wait. Her hand released his leg and slid to his wrist, pulling with a surprising, needy strength. “Lay down. Please.”
“Aria, the cot’s too small, I’ll hurt you—”
“You won’t.” Her voice broke. “I need… just stay.”
He gave in, a slow surrender. He toed off his shoes and swung his legs up, careful of her injured side, his large frame forcing her to turn partially towards him. It was awkward, precarious. He ended up half-propped against the raised bed head, one arm under her shoulders, the other tentatively resting over her waist, avoiding the bandages.
She immediately burrowed into him, her face pressing into the space between his neck and shoulder, Conner’s hoodie clutched in her fist against his chest. A full-body shudder wracked her, and a hot, silent tear soaked into his shirt. He froze for a second, utterly still, then his arms closed around her.
He held her. Just held her. His chin came to rest on the top of her head.
Ithan watched, a complicated knot of relief and resentment tightening in his gut. He saw his sister, who had barely let anyone touch her since Conner died, seeking sanctuary in the arms of the most dangerous male in the Citadel. He saw the rigid line of Dae’s shoulders slowly soften, the prince’s hand beginning to move in a slow, uncertain circle on her back.
Then Dae did something Ithan never would have predicted. He dipped his head, his lips brushing the crown of her messy light brown hair. It was a ghost of a touch. Then another, firmer, against her temple where a vein pulsed softly. A third kiss landed on her damp eyelid, tasting salt.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured into her skin, the words muffled and private. “It’s here. You’re safe.”
Each touch was a silent apology, a thank you, a promise. They were clumsy, unpracticed gestures, so far removed from the calculated cruelty of his upbringing they felt like a new language. Aria’s trembling began to subside, her breathing deepening, syncing with the steady rise and fall of his chest.
Ruhn cleared his throat softly, nudging Ithan with an elbow. “We should… give them a minute. Check the perimeter.”
Ithan didn’t want to leave. Every protective instinct screamed against it. But he saw the way Aria’s body had gone pliant, the white-knuckled grip on the hoodie finally loosening. She was finding an anchor, and for now, against all odds, it was holding.
“Five minutes,” Ithan said, the words gritted out. He pointed a finger at Dae, who met his gaze over Aria’s head. “You move, you jostle her ribs, I will end you.”
Dae gave a single, slow nod, his hand still moving on Aria’s back. Ithan and Ruhn slipped out, the door sighing shut behind them, leaving only the hum of the machines.
In the quiet, Dae let his head fall back against the wall. He kept peppering those soft, exploratory kisses against her hairline, her forehead, the shell of her ear. Each one was a confession he couldn’t yet voice. She was warmth and weight and shattered trust in his arms, and the legendary sword that had answered her call was the least miraculous thing about her.
“You scared the hell out of me today,” he whispered, his lips moving against her skin.
Aria nuzzled closer, her voice a muffled rasp against his collarbone. “You scare me every day.”
He smiled, a real one, faint and surprised. It felt alien on his face. “Fair.”
She was drifting again, the pain meds and exhaustion pulling her under. Her hand splayed open on his chest, the gray hoodie a wad of fabric between them. “Don’t go,” she slurred.
His arms tightened. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
As her breathing evened out into true sleep, he stared at the stark ceiling. The infirmary door was just wood and metal, but beyond it, the entire Citadel was stirring. King Oren’s shock, Kaelen’s fate, the seismic fact of Firegard—it all waited, a storm gathering at the threshold.
For this moment, he ignored it. He committed the feel of her to memory, the scent of her hair mixed with grief and fabric softener, the absolute trust in her yielding form. He would need to remember this later, when the walls closed in and the old, cold instincts demanded he become someone harder. Someone cruel.
She’d asked him to stay. So he would. Everything else could wait.
The steady rhythm of Aria’s breathing against his neck, the warm weight of her in his arms, was a sedative more potent than any fae magic. Dae’s eyes felt heavy, gritty from the adrenaline crash and the strange, quiet peace of holding her. He fought it, the ingrained instinct to stay alert, to never show vulnerability. But her scent—a mix of vanilla, grief, and his own damn nightflowers now—filled his lungs, and his pulse slowed to match hers.
His last conscious thought was a vague awareness of the infirmary lights dimming automatically, casting them in a soft blue gloom. The last thing he felt was the faint, protective curl of his fingers into the fabric of her hoodie.
The hand on his shoulder was firm but not rough. Dae surfaced from the deep, dreamless void violently, a snarl dying in his throat as his eyes flew open. His arms instinctively tightened around Aria, who made a soft, pained sound in her sleep.
“Hey,” Ithan’s voice was low, close. “We’re home.”
Dae blinked, the world resolving from a blur of sleep. They weren’t in the sterile infirmary. The walls were familiar dark wood, the lighting warm and soft from wrought-iron sconces. They were in Aria’s room at Starfall Hall, on her wide bed with its rumpled blue duvet. She was still curled against him, Conner’s hoodie trapped between them.
He looked up at Ithan, who stood beside the bed. The wolf Prime’s expression was unreadable, but the usual suspicion was dialed down. Not absent, just banked.
“You passed out hard,” Ithan said, a statement, not a criticism. He nodded toward Aria. “Healers came, discharged her. You didn’t even twitch when we moved you both.” He almost smirked. “Figured it was safer to port you here than try and pry her loose.”
Dae processed this, the fuzz of sleep retreating. Ithan’s tone wasn’t kind, exactly, but it lacked its usual sharp edge. Dae figured it was a temporary truce, bought with the bloody currency of his own actions. He’d gone berserk on his own mother in that banquet hall, his rage a publicly witnessed inferno, all because she’d sanctioned the move that hurt Aria. That was a line even Ithan had to respect.
“She okay?” Dae’s voice was sleep-roughened. He carefully extracted his arm from under Aria, feeling the prickling rush of blood returning.
“Healers said the binding’s solid. She’ll be sore. Needs rest.” Ithan watched as Dae slowly sat up, running a hand through his disheveled sandy hair. “You look like shit.”
“Feel like it,” Dae grunted, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The polished wooden floor was cool under his socks. He stood, his tall frame feeling stiff, and looked down at Aria. She’d shifted in her sleep, her face smoothing out, one hand still fisted in the gray fabric.
Ithan followed his gaze. “She hasn’t slept that deep since Conner died,” he said, the words quiet, almost grudging. “Not without nightmares.”
Something tight in Dae’s chest loosened, just a fraction. He gave a single, slow nod. The silence between them stretched, less hostile now, filled with the things they wouldn’t say.
“Your father’s people are downstairs,” Ithan finally said, folding his arms. “A whole delegation. They want answers about the sword. They want to see her.”
The peace shattered. Dae’s posture changed instantly, shoulders squaring, the drowsiness burning away to reveal cold, sharp readiness. The prince was back. “They can want.”
“They’re not going to wait,” Ithan pressed. “Ruhn’s stalling them. It won’t hold.”
Dae looked at Aria, sleeping unprotected, and then at the door. A low, visceral impulse rose in him, all snarling possession and territorial fury. It wasn’t just political anymore. She was his to shield. “Where’s Firegard?”
“In the next room. On a table. It… doesn’t like anyone else touching it.” Ithan’s lips thinned. “Tried to move it. Got a shock that singed my damn fingerprints.”
Good, Dae thought savagely. He moved toward the bedroom door, then paused, looking back at Ithan. “Stay with her.”
“Where are you going?”
“To remind them what they’re dealing with.” Dae’s hazel eyes were flint. “My mate. My problem.”
Ithan didn’t argue. As Dae left, closing the door softly behind him, Ithan moved to the chair by the window. He sat, watching his sister sleep, listening to the heavy, determined footsteps fading down the hall. For the first time, the idea of Dae Donnall as his sister’s mate didn’t feel like a death sentence. It felt, oddly, like the only thing standing between her and the storm.
Downstairs, the storm was waiting.
Downstairs, the storm was waiting. The air in the sprawling great room of Bryce and Hunt’s Lunathian penthouse tasted like ozone and expensive whiskey. It snapped with a familiar static—the scent of fae-light panic mixed with wolfish agitation and a distinct, balmy undercurrent of atonal flame-cooked air. Jarod Thearian lounged in a wingback chair by the darkened fireplace, a barely-smoked cigarette forgotten between his fingers as he studied the agitated group with heavy-lidded amusement. The presence of three princes in one room usually meant trouble. Here, it felt like a pressure seal about to blow.
King Oren’s envoys—two grim-faced, high-court Sidhe in iridescent gray tunics—stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, gaunt and stiff as stilettos. They had spent the last ten minutes delivering a formal, veiled rebuke that they had now run out of words to make.
“What you seem unable to grasp,” Hunt’s deep voice cut through the silence from where he stood leaning on the kitchen island, nursing a beer, “is that nobody here gives a single fuck about protocol right now.” The fading sunset gilded the dark feathers of his wings, which were slightly mantled in annoyance.
“Prince Daemian’s display of raw force was… unprecedented and destabilizing,” said the older envoy, a male with silver hair drawn tight. “Ripping a hole through the grand hall’s defensive wards? Flattening fourteen of the royal guard in an uncontrolled psychic detonation?”
“His Highness Ascended to protect my client from an attempted filicide,” said a crisp female voice. The third speaker stood by the dining table, a sheaf of golden-scribed parchment in hand. Juno was Bryce’s personal intelli officer, all sharp suits and sharper brains. She tapped the legal pad. “Precedent exists under both Avallen and Lunathian accords for the use of escalated power in the face of imminent, lethal threat against a recognized consort. Which, by royal proclamation he made five days ago, she is.”
“Made before the discovery of her lineage and her… connection to an Asteri-killing artifact,” the younger envoy hissed, her gray eyes darting toward the hallway, as if Firegard itself might slither out. “The political calculus has shifted seismically. The king requires—”
“The king requires a report on the structural damage. The monarchy weeps for the fallen marble,” Bryce Quinlan said from the sofa, interrupting with a bored drawl. Her star-bright hair was piled in a messy bun, one leg tucked under her. She was strategically positioned on the large, comfortable sofa, directly between the envoys and the hallway leading to the private quarters where Aria slept. She polished a slender athame against her leggings, the movement casual, the intent clear. A nonchalant blockade of blood-red fleece. “I’ll get my admirer in the 33rd to send an invoice.”
Ruhn, leaning against the wall by the bar, snorted into his glass of amber liquor. “Trust me, the marble was the least interesting thing to get destroyed today. Dae blew out the entire western transept of stained glass. His mother’s still in containment, last I heard, power-dampening cuffs and everything.” He took a sip, meeting Dae’s eyes as the prince entered the room. “Family reunions. Can’t recommend them.”
All heads turned. Dae walked into the penthouse, looking—as Ithan had observed—like shit. His shirt was rumpled from sleeping upright in an infirmary and then on a bed without moving, his hair stuck out in uncharacteristic disarray, and a shadow of darker gold stubble shaded his jaw. The exhaustion didn’t matter. The raw, banked fury radiating from him was a physical presence, thicker than the pending legal arguments. He hadn't bothered with a royal mask.
He went straight to the large steel-clad kitchen island, didn’t greet anyone, and poured a heavy measure of amber whiskey into a short glass. He didn’t sip. He let the silence hang, enduring the envoys’ appraising stares, letting them catalog his dishevelment and the absolute stillness of his rage. He took his time. He wanted them uncomfortable. He wanted them to remember the screaming chasm of power he’d torn through his father's palace, a direct result of their scheming. His right hand had minor, shiny burns across the knuckles—touch marks from holding Aria’s living skin.
Finally, he turned, lifted the glass a fraction in a mock toast, and spoke, his voice raspy and flat. “You can tell my father you have my report. Here it is. My mate is upstairs, asleep, in a borrowed room, clutching the only thing she has left of the brother she watched burn to death. He got no burial. He left no body.” He took a single swallow, the alcohol burning a clean trail down his throat. “She used a sword she shouldn't be able to touch to save my life from my family. Your problem is the cracked masonry? Negotiate with the stonecrafter’s guild. Mine is the heart of the girl your own queen tried to shatter. We’ll talk when mine is fixed.”
He put the glass down on the quartz countertop with a quiet, definitive clink.
The older male envoy looked vaguely ill. “Your Highness… the sword—”
“Is a sword,” Bryce interjected smoothly, still polishing her blade. “A pointy metal thing. Trust me, this city is lousy with them. Hers happens to have a bit of a pedigree. The important bit is that it didn’t choose me. Didn’t choose Ruhn here.” She tilted her head toward Hunt. “Didn’t choose even that unfairly gorgeous specimen. It woke up for her. Because she’s Aria.”
“She is Rigelus’s daughter!” the younger envoy burst out, her formal demeanor cracking. “An Asteri-Sidhe hybrid who somehow bred true. This isn’t about swords, it’s about bloodlines that could—”
Hunt’s wing gave a single, sharp snap, a sound like a sail cracking. “Finish that sentence with anything that sounds like a justification for moving against her, and this stops being a diplomatic discussion.”
“He’s got a delivery-guy-turned-bureaucracy-hater mind. Very process-oriented,” Ruhn added, giving a thin, humorless smile. “He tends to accelerate processes, though. Usually involving his lightning.”
Dae folded his arms, his eyes like the dulled edge of a glacier. “My father’s concern,” he said, each word measured, each syllable cold, “should be for the reason my power was unlocked. The emotional tether to the ship at Eight—that was sustained anger. Childhood resentment perfected into a blade.” He finally fixed his stare on the older envoy, pinning him. “What happened in the Hall was rage fused with terror. My mate lay on the ground bleeding out, a hole in her chest from an ancestor’s blade, and the absolute conviction that she was about to vanish from this world was a key turned in a lock I didn’t know I had.” He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the island behind him, a predator resting. “My parents were my anchors. They were the resentment that powered me. My mother digging that blade in shoved that entire foundation off a cliff. My mateship… to Aria… is the new anchor. My power reacts to her now. Tied to her state. You want to manage my explosions? Then the management of her safety and well-being, and the well-being of my sister Ariadne, is all of yours. It’s your only lever.”
The room fell dead silent, the air so still they could hear the electric hum of the penthouse’s advanced climate systems.
The implications unfolded starkly. He wasn’t just protective; his magic, his now-untethered, unprecedented power, was fundamentally synced to her. Threatening her wasn’t just political—it was catastrophically volatile. Oren wasn’t just dealing with a renegade heir anymore. He was dealing with an unstable, city-leveling power source whose trigger sat upstairs in a borrowed hoodie.
Juno Thearian tapped her data-pad, looking vaguely satisfied. “That’s a noteworthy clause. The potential for collateral due to inherited trauma and a sudden magically bonded stress-response system. I’ll catalogue it under legal precedent for preventing systemic destabilization through emotional harassment of protected persons.”
Ruhn grinned. “And hey. His mom stabbed her. That tends to make things emotionally charged.”
Before the envoys could gather a retort, a door clicked softly down the hall.
All eyes turned. Aria stood just inside the boundary of the living room, dwarfed by a sweater Hunt had loaned her that swam over her hands and pooled around her knees. She held Conner’s hoodie in a tight bundle against her sternum. Her light brown hair was a wild nest, her face creased from sleep and pain, her eyes still drugged and soft, roaming the large gathering until they landed on Dae and flared, wide-awake and a little fearful. She’d walked into the eye of the storm.
Ithan materialized behind her, his broad shoulders nearly filling the doorway, a solid wall of green-eyed vigilance. He stayed a step back, letting her have the space, letting her stand on her own trembling feet. It cost him.
Bryce put her athame down, her voice shifting immediately, all lazy protectiveness. “Hey, sweetie. You hungry? Saved you a pizza slice. Sausage. It’s practically cold now, the way it should be.”
Aria blinked, processing this unexpected slice of domestic lunacy in a room full of thunderous politics. Her gaze flicked to the envoys. She knew she was on display, a prize, a threat. She saw them staring, not at her, but at Dae’s reaction, measuring the leash of his terrifying new power that was roiling in his aura.
“Hi,” she managed, a small word swallowed by the oversize sweater. She looked at Dae, ignoring the envoys completely. “My mouth is really dry.”
Relief moved through him so fast he could taste it, metallic and sweet on the back of his tongue. It was such a normal, essential, painfully helpless complaint. The heavy, perilous atmosphere of the confrontation cracked open a fraction.
“Of course it is,” Dae said, his cold voice thawing only for her. It was that violent contradiction. Inhospitable monarch here, singular caretaker there. He pushed off from the island and went to her, hands empty, open. He took the hoodie from her arms without a word—she released it with a faint exhale—and then guided her by her fragile elbow toward the kitchen, past Bryce, who unwrapped the pizza box. The subtle dance of forming a physical barricade around her happened without a single word being spoken.
The envoys watched, their formal platitudes gutted, their demands scattered, witnessing a recategorization in real-time. This girl wasn't a political puzzle piece. They saw the Prince of Blood terror flatten himself to calm efficiency at her genuine need for water, and a realization dawned worse than any legendary sword: her sorrow, her ease, her unmet needs were all triggers of a different kind. The fate of the Avallen crown had just become contingent on keeping one heartbroken teenaged wolf comfortable and safe.
He handed her a glass of cold water, his fingers steady now. She drank, peering over the rim at everyone watching her.
A shard of her old, quiet fear broke through, tinging her mate-scent. All the talk—the envoys, the power—slipped around her like a too-big skin. She pressed her cold glass against the dull throb in her chest. “Did I cause a mess again?” Her voice was a near whisper for Dae.
He reached out, brushing the wild hair from her damp temple. An intimate touch in a room full of professional witnesses. Each of his scars from Firegard’s scales still slightly visible against her petal-soft skin.
“You were the only one not trying to start a war today,” he told her. His thumb stroked her cheekbone once, wiping away a phantom mark. A manifesto in a gesture.
Bryce slid the lukewarm pizza slice onto a plate with a crunch of crust and pushed it across the island to Aria with a soft, open smile. “Eat. Messes are Hunt’s job to clean up.”
“True story,” Hunt muttered from the far side of the kitchen, giving the older envoy a pointed, final look.