Aubrey
The royal ballroom was a galaxy of glittering jewels and shimmering silks. A hundred chandeliers dripped crystal light onto the polished marble floors, turning the vast space into a cage of unbearable brightness. The air was thick with expensive perfume and the low hum of gossip, a sound I now recognized as the buzzing of flies on a corpse.
My entrance in the black mourning gown did not go unnoticed. The music seemed to stutter for a moment. A wave of whispers followed me as I descended the grand staircase, parting the sea of pastel-colored nobles like a ship of black iron.
They stared. Good. Let them stare. Let them wonder. Let them fear.
I saw him across the room, holding court near the gilded thrones. Prince Roderick. My golden prince. He was as handsome as I remembered, his smile easy and his posture confident. He was laughing with a duke, a glass of champagne in his hand, the very picture of a future king.
Then he saw me. His laughter died in his throat. His blue eyes widened, first in confusion, then in disbelief, and finally, in a flicker of irritation.
He excused himself from the duke and began to walk toward me. Each step he took was a step toward a ghost. He had no idea he was walking toward the woman he had already murdered.
“Aubrey,” he said, his voice a low, controlled greeting. He stopped a few feet from me, his eyes sweeping over my black dress. “A bold choice for the evening.”
“Boldness is required for survival, Your Highness,” I replied, my voice even and cold.
He forced a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Survival? This is a celebration, my lady, not a battlefield.”
“Is it?” I said, meeting his gaze without flinching. “Sometimes I find it hard to tell the difference.”
His smile vanished completely. “What has gotten into you? You have been distant. And this dress… it is an insult.”
“The only insult is a lie,” I said. “And I am done with lies.”
I turned and walked away from him, leaving him standing alone in the middle of the floor. I could feel his stare, and the stares of half the court, burning into my back. It felt like nothing. A pale imitation of the fire I had already endured.
I needed a drink. I needed air. I needed to find my monster.
I took a glass of wine from a passing servant and scanned the room. My sister, Celia, was watching me from across the floor, her face a mask of fury and confusion. She stood beside a group of chattering ladies, but her attention was fixed on me. I raised my glass to her in a mock toast before turning my back.
He wasn't here. Of course he wasn't. The Wolf of the North would not be found in the center of the pack, basking in the light. He would be on the fringes. In the shadows.
I made my way through the throng of bodies, ignoring the startled looks and hushed comments. I was headed for the doors to the terrace, the long stone balcony that overlooked the royal gardens.
It was colder out here. The moonlight was a stark, silver wash over the stone balustrade. Most of the nobles avoided the terrace, preferring the warmth and light of the ballroom. But it was not empty.
He stood at the far end, shrouded in the deep shadows cast by a marble column. He was exactly as the whispers described him, and worse.
Prince Kaelen was not a man built for ballrooms. He was a creature of the mountains and the snow. He was immense, a head taller than any other man I had seen, with shoulders as broad as a doorway. His black hair was long, tied back loosely at the nape of his neck. A jagged scar cut from his left temple down to his jaw, a pale white line against his weathered skin. He wore the black and silver uniform of the Northern armies, stark and severe, without any of the golden frippery Roderick favored.
He wasn't looking at the party. He was staring out into the darkness of the gardens, a cup of something dark held loosely in one large, calloused hand. He radiated a palpable aura of menace, a stillness that was more threatening than any overt display of aggression. The few other people on the terrace gave him a wide, respectful berth.
They saw a monster. I saw a weapon. My weapon.
I started walking toward him. The sound of my heels on the stone was unnaturally loud in the quiet. I felt his head turn, his attention shifting from the night to me. His eyes were dark, and even from a distance, I could feel their intensity.
I did not slow down. I did not drop my gaze.
I stopped when I was just a few feet away. He looked me up and down, his expression unreadable, a faint curiosity mixed with contempt.
“You are a long way from the fire, little dove,” he said. His voice was a low rumble, like stones grinding together. “Did you lose your way?”
“I came looking for you, Prince Kaelen,” I said clearly.
He gave a short, humorless laugh. “No one ever comes looking for me. They stumble into me by accident and then run away. You should do the same.”
“I don’t run,” I said.
“A mistake,” he said, turning his gaze back to the gardens. “Especially for someone like you. Go back to the party. Go dance with my golden brother. He is your future, is he not?”
The casual venom in his voice when he mentioned Roderick was exactly what I had hoped for.
“Roderick is a fool and a liar,” I stated.
This got his attention. He turned his head fully, his dark eyes boring into me. They were not black, I realized, but a grey so deep they seemed to swallow the light. The color of a storm cloud just before it breaks.
“Those are dangerous words to speak about a future king,” he warned.
“The truth is often dangerous.”
“And what does a girl like you know of truth?” he sneered. “You, who was raised on silks and sweet words.”
“I know that the world is not what it seems,” I said, stepping closer. I was so close now I could feel the cold radiating from him. “I know that some men who look like princes are demons. And some who are called monsters are merely misunderstood.”
He studied my face, his own a mask of stone. “Whatever game you are playing, play it somewhere else. I am not a toy for a bored noblewoman to entertain herself with.”
“This is not a game.”
“It always is with your kind,” he growled, his patience clearly wearing thin. “Now leave, before you get hurt.”
“I am not afraid of you, Wolf of the North.”
“You should be,” he said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper.
I took the final step, closing the space between us. I looked directly into his stormy eyes, summoning a memory from a future that would never happen, a piece of information I had overheard from a drunken, weeping chambermaid who had once served in his mother’s household.
“Should I?” I asked softly. “I don’t think so… Kae.”
The world seemed to stop. The music from the ballroom, the rustle of the wind, it all faded into nothing.
His body went rigid. The casual contempt in his eyes vanished, replaced by a sharp, violent shock. It was as if I had struck him. His hand tightened on his cup, his knuckles turning white.
He moved faster than I thought a man his size could move. In a heartbeat, he had me backed against the cold stone of the column, his body caging mine in. His face was inches from mine, his expression terrifying.
“What did you just call me?” he demanded, his voice no longer a rumble, but the deadly snarl of a wolf with its teeth bared.
