Chapter Four
MALRIC
The room was too warm.
Not from fire or sun, but from her. From the way her scent had soaked into the stone, into the linens, into the air itself until every breath carried it deep, bypassing reason and drilling straight into instinct. Warm honey. Sweet spice. Silver blossom. It coated the back of my throat like syrup.
Mine.
The word came with my pulse, sharp and uninvited. I kept my face still as if my body were not turning against me one slow inch at a time, my alpha tightening in my chest, my hand itching to reach, to anchor, to take.
I didn’t move. I clawed for my discipline, needing it to keep me from drawing in her scent.
I watched Aveline with the same detachment I used on a battlefield, cataloging details that mattered and forcing the rest into a locked box. Her posture pinned to the wall. Her hands at her stomach. Her gaze darting between Thane and me as if deciding which blade would fall first.
Aveline said her father was the king.
That single fact rearranged the entire mission in my head, shifting pieces into place with brutal efficiency. The Wyrdwood. The binding stones. The tower that didn’t belong in this forest. The wards layered like cages within cages. This was not a random prison. It was a vault.
The king hid his most valuable assets where only old magic could keep them.
If she were his daughter, then she was leverage.
A symbol. A secret. If she were an omega—if her scent meant what my body insisted it meant—then she was a weapon in a way the king’s court would never speak aloud.
Omegas bent alphas. They could break bonds.
They could create them. They could change the shape of a war without ever lifting a blade.
And the tower had opened for me.
That was the detail I couldn’t ignore.
My wrist mark throbbed under my bracer, a steady burn that had become background noise over the years. Here, in this room, it flared hotter, as if the tower recognized the leash and tested how far it could pull.
Thane shifted in front of me, a subtle movement that blocked my next step before I consciously took it. He slowly sheathed his sword, a move I wouldn’t approve of, but Thane went his own way. His posture had hardened, his shoulders squared as if he expected me to strike.
Not her.
Him.
The bond between us pulled taut. His agitation was like heat along my skin, storm pressure building under his ribs, the familiar edge of lightning trying to crawl out through his control.
He had always run closer to his instincts than I did.
It was part of what made him dangerous, and part of what made him loyal.
Right now, it made him defiant.
After a moment, when he determined I was going to let him take the lead, he faced her, softened his position, his shoulders relaxing, and his hands opening in a welcoming gesture. The omega, Aveline, subtly appeared to ease and watch him warily.
“Aveline,” he said quietly, his voice shaped to soothe her even as his magic stirred. “We won’t hurt you.”
Her eyes flicked to him, then back to me, as if my silence were the sharper threat. She swallowed, throat working hard. The scent in the room shifted with her fear, warming, thickening, and my body responded immediately, muscles tightening, breath going shallow.
I despised that.
I had survived torture. I had survived cages. I had survived the king’s dungeons and the slow, methodical work of men who wanted my screams more than my death. I had survived because I could keep my mind separate from my body.
And now a woman in a simple gown and a stone room was undoing that separation with a scent I couldn’t ignore.
Thane angled his body again, nudging me back without touching me. The gesture was small, but it meant everything. Move. Give her space. Stop pressing.
It infuriated me, but I listened.
Not because he was wrong. Because it meant I had lost control enough that he believed he needed to manage me.
I took one measured step back, then another, letting him guide me toward the doorway. My gaze remained on Aveline until the frame cut her from view. The moment she disappeared, the air thinned, but the scent lingered in my lungs as if it had been branded there.
The corridor outside her bedchamber was narrower than the chamber itself, stone curving close, the stairwell yawning just beyond. The tower’s hum was quieter out here, but not absent. It ran under the soles of my boots like a heartbeat.
Thane left the door ajar behind him. Not closed. Not sealed. A concession to her, to the idea that she wasn’t trapped with us.
He turned on me the moment we were out of her direct line of sight.
“What in the hells was that?” he snapped, voice low but hard.
I kept my face blank. “Interrogation.”
“That went beyond interrogation.” His eyes were too bright and his jaw was set. “You were looming over her like a damned executioner.”
“She said the king is her father.”
“She also said she’s been locked in that room for years,” he shot back. “Did you hear anything besides the word king?”
I stepped closer, forcing him to yield space in the narrow corridor. The dominant part of me rose on instinct, not only because his tone challenged me but because my body was still full of her scent and wanted an outlet for the pressure.
Thane didn’t give an inch. That surprised me more than his anger.
“You’re protecting her,” I said.
His nostrils flared. “I’m not blind.”
“You’re reacting to her scent.”
“I know what I’m reacting to,” he said, and the bond between us tightened, a live wire snapping. “And so do you.”
His accusation hit the exact place I’d been trying to barricade.
I looked past him, down the stairwell that spiraled into the tower’s depths.
The air here still carried her faintly, enough to keep my alpha awake, enough to keep the urge coiled tight under my ribs.
It wasn’t only my body. It was the tower too, its old magic pressing and listening, waiting to see what I would do.
“She is the king’s daughter,” I said, my voice controlled. “And she’s an omega.”
Thane’s expression shifted, something like disbelief crossing his face before he masked it. “You’re saying she’s the weapon.”
“I’m saying the king hid her here for a reason,” I replied. “Omegas don’t disappear without someone making them disappear. He either hid her because she is valuable to him or because she is dangerous to him.”
“She believes she’s dangerous,” Thane said. “She told us to leave so we wouldn’t get hurt.”
“I know.”
“That’s not the behavior of a weapon.” He looked toward the half-open door. “That’s the behavior of someone who’s been told they’re a weapon long enough to believe it.”
The words landed with more precision than he likely intended. I didn’t respond to them.
“If the king comes here,” I said, “we have one opportunity. His visits are irregular. She can’t predict them—but when he comes, he arrives without warning. If we’re here when he does, we end this.”
Thane became completely motionless. “You’re talking about assassination.”
“I’m talking about ending a forty-year war.”
“In her home.” His voice had gone quiet that meant he was keeping something contained. “In the place she’s been imprisoned. You want to make her watch—”
“I want to win,” I said.
Thane stepped closer, storm pressure building in him, magic stirring. “She’s been locked up. She might know nothing.”
“She knows his name.”
A sound came from behind the door.
Soft. A scrape of fabric. A breath caught too high.
Thane’s gaze snapped to it. Mine followed.
Aveline stood in the doorway now, her hand on the stone frame as if she needed it to hold her up.
Her face had gone pale, her eyes wide, mouth parted.
Her scent surged outward, warm and frightened, and my body reacted immediately, alpha flaring, the urge to step toward her hitting hard enough that my boots nearly moved before I willed them still.
“You’re going to kill him,” she said.
The words weren’t a question. Thane swore under his breath, a low curse like a gust of wind in the corridor.
I didn’t soften my posture. If I softened, my body would take over. If I softened, I would reach for her and I didn’t trust myself to stop at a single touch.
“He’s the king,” I said.
“He’s my father,” she whispered, and she wasn’t defending him. She was terrified, though she didn’t fully understand the situation.
Thane moved first, stepping toward her, palm lifted in a calming gesture. “Aveline—”
I cut him off. “Your father has been murdering his own people for decades.”
Her flinch was immediate, a recoil as if the words themselves struck. “No.”
“He hunted omegas,” I said, and my voice sharpened despite my control because the memories sharpened it for me.
Friends taken. Families destroyed. Packs broken apart until the land itself quieted.
“He took them, stole them, forced bonds that stripped them of choice. He executed dissenters in the square to make the rest of us watch. He built prisons for alphas who wouldn’t kneel.
There are no more omegas because of him.
Our world is dying. Because of your father. ”
My wrist mark burned under the bracer, and the tower seemed to notice, the hum rising slightly beneath our feet.
Aveline’s eyes flicked to my wrist, then snapped away as if the sight hurt. “He would never do that,” she whispered. “He protects us. Me. He says the world is dangerous.”
“You. He said he was protecting you. From yourself. That’s different.”
Something shifted in her face. Not collapse—the opposite. A tightening, as if she were holding something together by force of will.
“He said the world was dangerous,” she said.
“It is.” I kept my gaze on her. “He made it that way.”
Her breath hitched. Her chin came up. “Then you’re no better than he is.”
The words resonated deeply.
Thane shifted between us, his body turning to block my line to her as if he could physically stop the damage my mouth was doing. “Malric,” he warned softly.