One Hour
? Ivy ?
Rowan gives the council an hour before the inquiry resumes. No one may leave the palace wing, and guards stand outside every door, so the mercy is mostly decorative.
Nora wants to examine my cheek. Holt wants to compare the Vance seal against three missing archive entries. Dane wants to know why a capital guard was posted near the records room before Sloane struck me. Everyone wants something useful from the hour.
Roman waits until they’ve gone before he asks, “Do you want to go back to our rooms?”
“Yes.”
He walks beside me through the council corridor. My cheek aches, one hairpin is pulling loose, and the black gown that made me feel steady this morning now feels heavy enough to leave on the floor.
A few wolves lower their eyes as we pass. Others look too long and then remember themselves. The slap is already becoming a story, and stories move faster in the capital than medicine ever did.
At our door, Roman stops.
“Come in,” I say.
The room is warm, but he leaves the length of it between us. Dried blood darkens one knuckle, and when he notices me looking, he closes his hand.
“Did you hit something?”
“No.”
“That’s not a convincing answer.”
“The edge of the council table.”
“Was the table involved?”
“It was close.”
Despite everything, I almost laugh.
“You should sit,” he says.
“I’ve been sitting all day.”
“You’ve been questioned all day.”
“I don’t need to be managed.”
His expression tightens. “I know.”
The sharpness in my voice was meant for the court, but he’s the one standing in front of it. I remove the loose pin and set it on the table before it can scratch me.
“What do you need?” he asks.
“You closer than that.”
Roman crosses the room and stops within reach.
His hand rises. I lean into it before he can ask, and his fingers settle beneath my ear, careful of the bruise.
“You can stop treating me like glass.”
“I do when I want something.”
“What?”
“You.”
The answer is rougher than the rest of him.
I catch his wrist before he can retreat and pull him down to me.
His mouth meets mine once, almost cautiously, then the control in him slips. His hands close around my waist. I kiss him harder because I’m angry, bruised, tired of being studied, and still certain about this.
Roman pulls back first.
A frustrated sound escapes me. “Don’t.”
His forehead rests against mine. “I want you.”
“Then why?”
“Because today is still all over you.”
“I’m in the room too.”
“I’m trying to hear what you’re asking.”
“Then hear me.”
His breath shakes. “I’m afraid I won’t stop.”
The honesty hurts more than reassurance would have.
I step back without letting go of his shirt. “Don’t decide I’m too hurt to want you.”
“I won’t.”
“You already are.”
Roman has no answer. For once, he doesn’t manufacture one.
I move to the window and begin pulling the remaining pins from my hair. The capital rooflines beyond the glass are turning blue with evening. Somewhere below, a printer is striking fresh copies of the council notice, and by morning strangers will know Sloane hit me before they know why.
Roman stays behind me. Not across the room this time, but not touching either.
“When you stopped in the training room, I understood. Today I don’t.”
“Ivy.”
“I came to you. I told you what I wanted. You listened to the court instead.”
His reflection meets mine in the glass.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.”
The last pin comes free. My hair falls over my shoulders, and the relief is immediate.
Roman crosses the remaining space. “What do you need now?”
“Stay. That’s all.”
“All right.”
He says it without a speech. I decide to believe the attempt, not the certainty.
We sit on the sofa, our knees touching. I take his hand and turn it over. The cut beneath his knuckle is shallow. I clean it with water from the untouched pitcher while he watches me as though allowing care is another kind of trial.
“You should’ve asked Nora.”
“She’s angry enough already.”
“She usually is.”
The quiet that follows isn’t comfortable, but it belongs to us. I rest my shoulder against his. He doesn’t move away.
After a while, Roman reaches toward the clasp at the back of my necklace and stops before touching it.
“It’s pulling,” he says.
I hadn’t noticed how tightly the silver chain was sitting until he named it. “Take it off.”
His fingers work carefully at the clasp. The necklace comes free, followed by the last bent pin caught beneath it. He sets both beside the others instead of handing them to me, as though my hands have carried enough sharp things today.
“I hate that the slap made them believe me,” I say.
Roman looks at the bruise, then away from it. “I believed you before.”
“I know. That’s why this room feels different.” I rub the tender place below my ear. “But the court listened only after Sloane did something they could record. Everything before that was family disagreement, nerves, a difficult girl remembering badly.”
His hand closes loosely around mine. He doesn’t tell me the record will fix it. We both know paper can preserve a wound without repairing it.
“Tomorrow they’ll print her hand before they print what she said,” I continue. “People will choose whichever version lets them keep liking the right family.”
“Then we give Rowan the whole statement.”
I look at him. “We?”
“You tell it. I make sure no clerk shortens it into something easier.”
The offer is practical enough to accept.
We use the back of an unused council notice, and I write the order of the room while it’s still clear: the archive page, Sloane’s words, the strike, the guard already waiting near the records door.
Roman adds nothing until I ask whether I’ve forgotten a detail.
By the time I set down the pen, the memory feels no kinder, but it belongs to me again.
A knock comes before either of us can ruin the moment by explaining it.
Roman looks at me. I nod.
A council clerk waits outside with a sealed paper from the crown advocate. Two guards stand behind him, different from the ones who escorted us from the chamber.
“New orders?” Roman asks.
“Requests pending Elder Rowan’s ruling,” the clerk says carefully.
I break the seal at the table.
The first review found no evidence that Roman forced or commanded my choice. The new claim doesn’t dispute that result. Instead, it argues that his broken-vow scar may distort the bond, amplify my command, and make my judgment unreliable.
The crown requests immediate separation, suspension of Roman’s military authority during testing, and medical custody over me until the healers report.
At the bottom, Grant’s seal has already been pressed into the wax beside the word temporary.
One of the guards shifts toward the room.
Roman doesn’t rise. “Rowan hasn’t ruled.”
The clerk swallows. “No, Alpha.”
“Then no order exists.”
The guard stops.
I give the paper to Roman. He reads it once, his face becoming very still.
“They couldn’t prove you didn’t choose me,” he says. “Now they’ll blame the scar.”
My cheek throbs. His hand is still warm where I cleaned the cut.
“Then I’ll answer them.”
Roman folds the page and sets it beside the loose hairpins.
This time, when he sits beside me again, I don’t have to ask twice.