The wolfsbane veins were fading.
I sat beside Selah's bed and watched the dark purple lines recede from her throat, watched them pull back from her jaw like roots withering in reverse. Her fever broke sometime in the first hour — I felt the exact moment her skin cooled under my palm, the exact breath where her lungs stopped rattling. The wooden wolf lay tucked against her cheek. Her fingers curled around it even in sleep.
She was going to live.
I pressed my forehead to the edge of the mattress and tried to breathe through the relief. It hit like a wave, like drowning in reverse, pulling air back into lungs that had forgotten how. My hands shook. My whole body shook. I'd been holding her upright for so long I didn't know how to let go.
Behind me, the door opened quietly.
"Quinn."
Joaquin's voice. Low. Careful.
I tried to stand. My legs folded.
He caught me before I hit the stone floor. One arm around my waist, the other bracing my shoulder, and suddenly I was against his chest with my knees buckling and his scent — cedar, winter storm, undeniable and overwhelming — flooding my senses so hard I gasped.
"Easy," he murmured. "I've got you."
He lifted me like I weighed nothing. Carried me through a corridor I didn't see, into a chamber I didn't register, and set me down on something soft. A bed. Furs. I blinked up at stone walls, at firelight dancing across the ceiling, at Joaquin stepping back with his hands raised like he was afraid I'd bolt.
"Selah's in the next room," he said quietly. "The healer's watching her. She's stable."
I nodded. I couldn't speak yet.
He watched me for a long moment. Then he turned toward the door.
"Wait," I managed.
He stopped. Didn't turn around.
"Why?" My voice cracked. "Why did you come for me?"
His shoulders tensed. "You know why."
"Say it."
Silence. Long enough that I thought he wouldn't answer. Then:
"Because you're mine, Quinn. You always were."
He left. The door closed softly behind him.
I sat in the dark and breathed his scent until my hands stopped shaking.
---
When I woke, pale morning light filtered through a narrow window. Selah was curled beside me — someone must have carried her in while I slept — her breathing deep and even, the wolfsbane veins almost completely gone. I pressed my lips to her forehead. Normal temperature. No fever. No rattle.
My wolf stirred inside me. Not a slam this time. A slow, deliberate stretch, like she'd been asleep for years and was finally waking up.
I slipped out of bed carefully, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and stepped into the corridor.
The Lycan King's stronghold was massive. Stone walls, iron sconces, the kind of architecture that had stood for centuries and would stand for centuries more. I followed the scent — cedar, always cedar, a trail I couldn't ignore even if I wanted to — down a staircase and into a courtyard where the morning sun cut through the mist in golden shafts.
Joaquin stood at the far edge, his back to me, staring out at the forest.
I stopped a few feet behind him. "You knew."
He didn't turn. "Yes."
"At the mating ceremony. You knew I was your fated mate."
"Yes."
"And you tried to stop it."
"Yes." His voice was flat. Controlled. "Dalton had me banished for it."
I wrapped the blanket tighter. My wolf pressed against my ribs, not slamming, just *there,* awake and aware and reaching for him with a desperation that made my chest ache.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I whispered.
Finally, he turned. His gold eyes found mine, and the raw pain in them stole my breath.
"Because you couldn't smell it," he said quietly. "Dalton's mark suppressed your recognition. You looked at me like I was your foster brother and nothing more. If I'd told you, you would've thought I was lying. Or worse — trying to manipulate you." He exhaled slowly. "So I left. And I waited."
"For three years."
"For however long it took."
I stared at him. At this man who had been banished, exiled, stripped of his place in the only pack he'd ever known — and who had spent three years patrolling borders he wasn't allowed to cross, waiting for a woman who didn't even know he existed as anything more than a memory.
"You saved her," I said. My voice broke. "You saved Selah."
"I would've saved you both years ago if you'd let me."
"I didn't know —"
"I know." He stepped closer. Not touching. Just close enough that his scent wrapped around me like a living thing. "You couldn't have known. That's not your fault."
My wolf surged. The word pressed against my ribs again, louder this time, undeniable: *Mate.*
I looked up at him. At the foster brother who had never been just a brother. At the Lycan Prince who had waited in the shadows for three years. At the man whose scent I had been chasing through empty rooms without understanding why.
"Joaquin," I whispered.
He waited. Patient. Like he'd been waiting his whole life.
Before I could speak again, a Lycan guard appeared in the courtyard entrance. His aura was strong, controlled, but even he lowered his eyes when Joaquin turned.
"My lord," the guard said quietly. "A messenger from Shadowvale. The pack is under siege. Rogues breached the southern perimeter last night. Multiple casualties."
Joaquin's expression didn't change. "Let them handle it."
"There's more." The guard hesitated. "A Lycan Council summons has been delivered to Alpha Hamilton. Three capital charges. He's been ordered to appear before the King."
My heart kicked. Joaquin's eyes flicked to me, reading my face.
"When?" he asked.
"Three days."
Joaquin nodded once. The guard bowed and left.
I stood there, the blanket slipping from my shoulders, and felt the world tilt.
Dalton was coming here. To the stronghold. To face charges I didn't fully understand but could feel the weight of — capital offenses, the guard had said, the kind that carried irreversible consequences.
And I would have to see him again.
Joaquin stepped closer. His hand hovered near my shoulder, not quite touching. "You don't have to face him alone."
I looked up at him. At the man who had fought for me when I didn't even know I needed fighting for.
"I know," I whispered.
His hand settled on my shoulder. Warm. Steady. The cedar scent flooded my lungs, and my wolf finally, *finally* stopped reaching.
She'd found what she was looking for.
