"Mate?"
The word left my mouth before I could stop it.
Adrian's guards were descending through the fog behind him, but he seemed to hear only me.
"Yes."
"That is impossible."
"So is a human stopping the Silver Rot with one touch."
"I am wolfless."
His gaze dropped to the blood on my hand. "You keep saying that as if your body believes it."
The world tilted before I could answer.
The last thing I felt was Adrian tightening his hold as darkness took me.
I woke beneath a stone ceiling.
My ribs were tightly bound. My shoulder sat in a sling. Someone had cleaned the claw marks across my back and stitched the worst of them. A narrow cot stood against one wall of a windowless chamber, and a single iron door guarded the other.
Dungeon was the first word that came to mind.
The second was captive.
I pushed myself upright as the lock turned.
Adrian entered in a black shirt and dark trousers, no chain on his ankle now. The change should have made him look less dangerous.
It did not.
"Where am I?"
"The lower royal wing."
"With an iron door."
"The upper wing has windows. You tried to crawl off a cliff yesterday. I considered the risk."
"I was pushed off it."
"Details."
I stared at him. "Open the door."
"Answer my questions."
"No."
"Then we may be here a while."
He leaned against the foot of the cot, watching me with the patience of a predator who knew there was nowhere for prey to run.
"Who sent you into the gorge?"
"No one."
"Why were Blood Moon rogues chasing you?"
"They were hungry."
"Why did you smell like coronation incense?"
I went still.
Adrian noticed.
Of course he did.
"You are a terrible liar," he said.
"I have had a difficult week."
"You have had a difficult life. Those are different things."
His eyes moved to the black crescent on my cheek, then to the bruises on my wrists from Lucas's guards.
I hated that he saw too much.
"I was banished," I said at last. "That is all you need to know."
"By Lucas Thorne."
My pulse jumped.
Adrian's mouth hardened. "There it is."
"You already knew."
"I knew his scent was on your dress. I wanted to know whether you would tell me."
"Why does it matter?"
"Because five years ago Lucas petitioned the crown for permission to absorb the southern woodlands if the general's line died out. The petition was rejected. Yesterday, the general's daughter fell into my prison bleeding."
Cold traveled down my spine.
"You knew my father?"
"By reputation. Elias was inconveniently honorable."
"That is the nicest insult anyone has ever given him."
"He refused two royal appointments because he said the south needed a commander more than the capital needed another uniform at dinner. Men like that become legends or corpses. Sometimes both."
The simple respect in Adrian's voice tightened my throat. Lucas had spent years reducing my father to a convenient dead soldier. Hearing someone remember the man rather than the assets he left behind made the room feel briefly less hostile.
Despite myself, I almost smiled.
"That sounds like him."
Adrian stepped closer. "Now tell me why Lucas wanted you dead."
I told him about the treaty. Not everything. Not the humiliations or Serena. Just the land, the broken agreement, and the banishment.
His expression did not change until I said Lucas had torn the document apart.
Then the air in the room became heavier.
"He destroyed a witnessed blood treaty?"
"In front of the pack."
"Idiot."
"Thief."
"Both can be true."
He reached for my wrist.
I pulled back. "Do not touch me without asking."
He stopped immediately.
That surprised me more than it should have.
"May I?" he asked.
I hesitated, then held out my hand.
His fingers closed lightly around my pulse.
Heat rushed between us again.
Adrian's shoulders loosened. A faint tremor I had not noticed in his hand disappeared.
He looked down at our joined skin.
"My blood is quiet."
"Your curse?"
"It never sleeps. Not until you touch me."
I tried to pull away. His fingers tightened just enough to keep contact, then released when I glared at him.
"High mages have died trying to do what you do by accident," he said. "Do you understand why I cannot simply let you walk out?"
"Because you want medicine."
"Because someone tried to kill the one person who can stand beside me without dying."
The distinction unsettled me.
A knock sounded at the door.
"Your Majesty," a man's voice called. "Captain Marcus Ward. We found Blood Moon tracks above the gorge. Fresh."
Adrian's face went still.
"How many?"
"At least twelve scouts. They are searching the ridge."
Lucas was looking for my body.
Or making sure there was one.
Adrian turned toward the door. "Seal the lower wing. No servant speaks of her. If anyone asks whether a woman came out of the gorge, the answer is no."
"Understood."
I threw the blanket aside. "You cannot keep me here."
"You cannot cross a room without reopening your stitches."
"Then give me a healer and let me leave when I can."
"No healer touches you until I know what your blood does to magic."
"That is not your decision."
His black eyes met mine.
"Then make it a negotiation."
I stilled.
Adrian folded his arms. "You need somewhere Lucas cannot reach. I need a way to control the Rot while I find out why you can stop it."
The bargain formed before pride could kill it.
"Protection," I said. "For as long as his trackers hunt me. Access to your archives about the southern woodlands. And freedom to leave once I am healed."
"In return?"
"I help anchor your shifts. Voluntarily. You ask before you touch me."
His mouth twitched. "You negotiate well for a woman in a dungeon."
"I learned from thieves."
"Careful."
"Do we have a deal?"
He reached into his pocket and produced the brass key.
For one tense second I expected him to lock the door from the outside again.
Instead, he turned the key, opened the iron door wide, and stepped aside.
"Deal," Adrian said. "But you are not in my dungeon anymore, Elena."
I paused at the threshold.
"Then where am I?"
His gaze settled on me with unnerving certainty.
"Under the protection of the Lycan crown."
