Chapter 7
ALEXANDER
Alexander hadn’t expected the repair on the granary roof to take two days—two days that could’ve been spent riding to meet Princess Jing Yi himself. How the beams had rotted, and so close to his wedding day, he couldn’t tell. Only that it needed to be fixed, and fixed well, before winter.
He’d been directing the last of the repairs when the scout arrived. One look at the man’s face and his stomach roiled. Bandits in the southern reaches, too close to Darion’s route. Too close to his betrothed.
He was on his way before the scout finished speaking. “Saddle my horse. Gather a dozen armed men. Now.”
The road should’ve been safe. They’d crushed dens and hung traders a few years ago, scouring the land clean. But those carrion feeders had found a way back, seeking prey of a certain kind: young, unmated, Omega.
Princess JingYi was all three.
When he’d arrived and scanned the battlefield, he spotted her straightaway. Veiled, slight, and about to be carted off.
Every sound drained from the world, leaving one crystalline thought: She did not belong in a bloody skirmish.
He didn’t remember spurring his horse. Only the axe flying, the bandit dropping, and then—her gaze finding his, as if he were the only solid thing in a crumbling world.
The fighting guttered out around them. Alexander dismounted, exhaled, and stopped in front of her sprawled body.
His eyes strayed to the closed carriage doors, then back to his betrothed.
Why in the blazes was she outside the carriage?
Had she tried to fight? The thought made him want to drag his hand through his hair. Brave, but entirely too reckless.
Reckless or not, she was his responsibility now.
He crouched beside her. The dead bandit’s fingers were still locked around her wrist. He pried them loose, not flinching when bones cracked. When he pulled her hand free, reddened marks ringed her delicate skin.
She’d bruise by morning. His jaw went rigid.
She was trembling—small, fine tremors she fought to stop with nothing but will.
His body screamed to act, to gather her close and block out the chaos still thick in the air, but he held himself back.
She was a princess, a stranger, a woman whose face he couldn’t even see.
Would she welcome his touch? Fear it? The veil hid everything—her expression, her eyes, any clue to what she felt behind that wall of fabric.
He didn’t even know if she could see him through it.
“Princess,” he said in Isseric. “Are you hurt?”
She didn’t answer. Did she understand him? Perhaps she spoke only X?enguā.
His jaw ticked. What was he thinking? He’d agreed to marry a woman who didn’t speak his language, didn’t know his lands, had no knowledge of his ways.
Madness.
Then, in accented yet smooth Tremesi, she replied, “I am well, my lord. Thank you.”
His brows lifted, not just at her command of his language, but at the voice itself. Low. Husky. The kind of voice that left a hum in the air, something felt more than heard. A strange thrill curled low in his stomach, but he pushed it down.
He offered his hand and gently pulled her upright, mindful of her slight frame.
Standing upright, the top of her head barely reached his chin.
Her hand was small, her fingers slender, but he could feel their strength even through his gloves.
The air was thick with the copper tang of blood, the stench of sweat and fear.
His instinct strained, searching for her natural fragrance—the sharp, sweet signature of an Omega.
He found nothing. No trace of her, a hollow absence in the air where her scent should’ve been.
He glanced over her, looking for injuries, but the bloodstains on her silks weren’t hers. They belonged to the corpse at their feet.
Damn them all.
“What a welcome we’ve given you, Princess,” he said grimly. “I assure you, I had better intentions than this.”
A beat of silence. Then, she said—soft, slightly unsteady, but with a voice laced with humour, “I could hardly accuse you of planning this attack, my lord.”
His gaze flicked toward her in mild surprise. “Indeed. My scout spotted them in the woods earlier. Omega traders. They might’ve watched your arrival in Terresard and planned the ambush.”
“Are there many Omega traders in Tremore?”
“More so in Niewberg and the larger port cities. Blackwood-Veyrde is remote. We haven’t had trouble with them for years.”
Why now? That question sat uncomfortably in his gut.
“Many Omega traders come to X?en-Sarai as well,” she said. “Mostly to Changzihuā, the capital. They take their chances, kidnapping Omegas in the night.”
A pause. Then, her voice turned colder. “Their punishment is death.”
He glanced at her. “As it should be, for all human traffickers.”
Alexander sensed she wanted to say more. He wished she would, but silence stretched between them. Then, finally—
“Once the Omegas are retrieved, they are sent to the Imperial Palace of Thousand Suns and added to my father’s harem.”
The admission landed like a boulder between them. The implication was clear: rescued only to be claimed, their freedom merely an illusion.
An urgent voice shattered the moment. “Alexander!”
He turned sharply. Darion rushed over, expression grim. “It’s Conrad.”
The air between them went taut.
“What about Conrad?” Alexander demanded.
He kept his voice even, but his heartbeat was anything but.
Conrad wasn’t just his ward. He was the youngest son of Krystoff Reave—the man who had practically raised Alexander.
Who had taught him to hold a sword, track a deer, take a beating and rise again.
Alexander had fought and bled beside him, sworn an oath to him.
Now he had promised to shape the boy into a warrior. Promised his mother to keep him safe.
Darion’s gaze landed on the princess briefly before he answered, “One of the bastards got him in the chest.”
Alexander took off at a sprint, boots hammering against the earth, his breath tight in his chest. The battle had ended, leaving only the muted groans of the wounded, the rustle of men moving through the aftermath. But Conrad’s pained moans cut through it all.
The boy lay on the ground, his chest plate removed, the blood-soaked shirt sticking to his skin. His face had lost all colour; lips tinged an alarming shade of blue.
Alexander dropped to his knees, scanning the wound. The smell of iron filled the air but beneath it, something sickly sweet. Poison.
A dark, coiling dread settled in his gut.
“Set up camp,” he ordered his men. The soldiers scattered, moving to secure the area. Alexander’s focus remained fixed on Conrad. The boy’s fevered eyes fluttered open, struggling for clarity.
“My lord . . .” His voice was hoarse, breath shallow. “I’m sorry. They came . . . out of nowhere.”
“Hush, pup.” Alexander pressed a hand to his shoulder. “I can hardly accuse you of planning to get attacked, can I?”
The words had left his mouth before he realized they mirrored Princess JingYi’s.
“I should’ve done . . . more—”
“You’ve fought well. I know you have.”
“The princess . . .”
“She’s unharmed.” Alexander kept his voice firm, solid. “If you’d just focus on getting yourself well, you can see for yourself soon enough.” His gaze lifted. “Here she comes now.”
The princess moved toward them, her gait uneven on the forest floor. She’d been injured after all. Enough to alter her balance.
Instead of finding rest, she carried a small, lacquered chest—no larger than a soldier’s field kit—in her right hand, her grip steady around the handle despite the pain she must be feeling.
“I have some knowledge of the healing arts, my lord,” she said. “May I have a look?”
Beside him, Darion told her, “This will be bloody, Highness. You may want to stand back, or retreat to the tent—”
“Sir.” Her single word wasn’t loud, but the certainty behind it silenced even Darion. “I assure you, I know what I am doing.”
She turned her concealed gaze to Alexander. “My lord. Please.”
His jaw worked. Darion’s warning was sound. But Conrad’s breath was ragged, wet, and the scent of blood hung thick in the air. The boy would be dead before they reached the closest healer.
Relying on her went against every instinct as a leader and protector. But the steel in her voice was a lifeline.
He grabbed it.
“Do what you can,” he told her.
She wasted no time. Setting her wooden box down, she knelt beside Conrad, her hands deft as she peeled away the torn, blood-drenched shirt. The torchlight illuminated the deep gash just shy of his heart. A web of dark veins spread outward from it, like cracks on porcelain.
The princess inhaled sharply. “I cannot see with this veil,” she muttered in Isseric.
Alexander turned, ready to order more torches when she reached up and tore the wide-brimmed hat from her head.
A tumble of glossy black hair spilled free, catching the light.
She was positioned in such a way that he couldn’t see anything beyond that glorious mass of raven hair.
Barely pausing, she ripped a swath of the fabric from her travelling hat and tied it around her head, fashioning a half-veil that concealed her face beneath her eyes.
Alexander forgot how to breathe. Her eyes—black as obsidian, sharp as tempered steel—had met his only briefly, but it seared him.
“Poison,” she confirmed, more to herself than to him. Her finger pointed to the livid, branching pattern. “A cold venom. It seeks the nerves. We must draw it out before it reaches his heart.”
His stomach churned, but he forced himself to speak. “I’ll fetch a lancet. We’ll bleed him straightaway.”
“No,” she said quickly.
Darion’s brow furrowed. “Why not?”
As gentle as he could, Alexander said, “Princess, the poison must be drained out of his body, lest it spreads to his organs—”
She shook her head. “Conrad has lost a lot of blood already. Losing more will not benefit him. It may kill him.” Her dark eyes beseeched him. “Please. I am ignorant in many things, but in this, I am certain.”