Under His Roof

They gave her a room on the east side of the house, close enough to Kian's that she could hear him pacing through the wall at night, far enough that neither of them had to pretend that wasn't deliberate.

"You're not locking the door," she said, the first night, staring at the plain latch with no bolt on the outside.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because if you want to run, a locked door won't stop you," Kian said, leaning in the frame with his arms crossed, watching her the way he'd watched her in the study, patient and unreadable. "And if you don't want to run, I'd rather you stay because you chose to, not because I gave you no other option."

"That's a strange kind of trust for a man who caught me poisoning his wine six hours ago."

"It's not trust." His mouth twitched, almost a smile, gone before it landed. "It's strategy. A caged wolf bites the first hand that comes near the bars. An uncaged one might eventually decide the hand isn't the enemy."

She hated that it worked on her, a little. She hated more that she noticed the shape of his shoulders in the doorway, the low steady sound of his voice, the way some traitorous animal part of her had started, against every order Iris had ever given her, to relax slightly whenever he was in the room.

The days that followed fell into an uneasy rhythm. Emory kept a wary distance, watching her from across rooms like a man cataloguing an unexploded threat, but he stopped introducing her to the rest of the house as a stranger, which she understood, without either of them saying it out loud, as a kind of truce.

"You're doing the thing again," Kian said, four days in, finding her in the kitchen garden at dawn with a basket of mullein she'd been pretending to gather for an hour.

"What thing."

"Standing very still and staring at nothing while your mind runs somewhere I can't follow."

"I'm thinking."

"About killing me still, or about something else."

Wren set the basket down harder than she meant to. "You say things like that so easily. Like it's a joke to you."

"It's not a joke." His voice had gone quiet, serious in a way that made her chest tighten uncomfortably. "I think about it more than you'd guess. Whether you're still turning the idea over. Whether some morning I'll wake up and the bond will have lost the fight against fifteen years of training." He crouched down across from her, close enough that she could feel the warmth coming off him even in the cold morning air. "I'd rather you tell me the truth of it than have me guess wrong."

"I don't know the truth of it," Wren admitted, and it cost her something to say it out loud. "I came here to end your line. My whole life was built around that one night. I don't know how to just set that down because some bond decided we belong to each other."

"I'm not asking you to set it down," Kian said. "I'm asking you to let it sit next to the other thing instead of pretending one of them isn't real."

"That's not how hatred works."

"Maybe not the kind you're used to." He reached out, slow enough that she could have pulled away and didn't, and brushed a stray leaf off her sleeve, his fingers grazing her wrist for half a second before he withdrew. "But I don't think what you're carrying is only hatred anymore. I think it hasn't been, since the moment you looked up from that tray."

Wren's pulse betrayed her again, the way it kept doing whenever he stood too close, and she hated her own body a little for how easily it answered him.

"Say something back," Kian said softly. "Anything. I'd rather have your anger than your silence."

"I don't trust you."

"Good. You shouldn't, not yet. Trust isn't something I'm asking for tonight." He straightened, offering her a hand up she didn't take, though she noted, with some private frustration, that he didn't seem bothered by the refusal. "I'm only asking you to stay long enough to find out what actually happened to your family. I think you owe yourself that much, whatever you decide to do about me after."

She was still turning that over three hours later when Emory found her alone in the east hallway, a folded letter in his hand and an expression that told her, before he said a single word, that whatever news he carried wasn't good.

"The Marrow envoy just arrived early," he said. "Lady Selene's father wants the betrothal terms finalized within the week, ahead of schedule, and he's brought half his council with him to make sure it happens." His gaze flicked to Wren, sharp again, calculating. "Which means you have exactly a handful of days to disappear from this house convincingly, or Kian is going to have to explain to a room full of allied lords why his mate bond doesn't match the marriage contract everyone's been planning for two years."

Wren's stomach dropped. "He won't just marry her while I'm standing under his roof."

"He might not have a choice," Emory said grimly. "Not if it's the only thing standing between this pack and a war we cannot win right now. I've spent four days trying to figure out how to protect you both from the council. I haven't figured out how to protect this pack from the river alliance falling apart at the exact same time." He folded the letter back into his coat, jaw tight. "I suggest you use whatever time you have left before that envoy settles in to decide how much you're actually willing to fight for. Because I think you're about to find out whether that bond means anything at all when it's tested against something bigger than the two of you."

He walked away without waiting for her answer, and Wren stood alone in the hallway with her pulse hammering and no idea, for the first time since she'd arrived at Ashbourne territory, what she wanted the answer to actually be.

That night, past midnight, a soft knock landed on her door, and when she opened it, Kian stood there in the dim hallway light with an expression she hadn't seen on him yet: uncertain, almost afraid.

"Selene's father is here," he said. "Earlier than expected."

"I know. Emory told me."

"There's something else." Kian's hand tightened on the doorframe, knuckles pale. "He's brought someone with him I wasn't told to expect. An old advisor of his, retired from council business years ago, apparently called back for this specifically." He hesitated, and Wren felt her stomach twist at whatever was coming next. "Emory recognized him the second he stepped out of the carriage. Says he was part of the war council fifteen years ago. Present for every decision made about the Duskwood border that entire season."

Wren's blood went cold.

"You think he knows something."

"I think," Kian said quietly, "that we may be about to meet someone who was standing much closer to that fire than either of us realized. And I don't think it's a coincidence that he's arrived the same week you did."