Amber
A guard appears at our door. He is a mountain in polished steel, his face an unreadable mask. He does not speak to Ronan, our elder. He does not acknowledge Lena, who stands protectively at my side. His eyes find me.
“The King requires your presence.”
The words are not a request. They are a command wrapped in cold iron. Lena’s hand flies to my arm, her grip tight.
“Alone?” Ronan asks, his voice rough with suspicion.
The guard’s gaze does not waver from me. “Alone.”
A chill that has nothing to do with the drafty corridors seeps into my bones. This is it. This is the consequence of Lord Valerius’s public venom, or worse, the result of that impossible, soul-shaking moment in the great hall.
“It will be alright,” I say, my voice a whisper I intend for my pack mates, but it sounds like a lie even to my own ears. I gently peel Lena’s fingers from my arm and nod to the guard. “I will go.”
The walk is silent. The guard leads, his footsteps echoing on the marble floors, a rhythmic clap that sounds like a countdown. We pass courtiers who fall silent as I approach. They stare, their faces a mixture of contempt and morbid curiosity. I am the spectacle. The omega who flew too close to the sun.
I keep my head high. I think of the stone in my mother’s hands, polished by years of worry and love. I think of Ronan’s tired eyes, of Lena’s fierce loyalty. I am not just Amber. I am the Silverwood pack. I will not shame them.
The guard stops before a set of heavy, carved oak doors. He knocks once, a sharp rap of his gauntleted fist.
“Enter,” a voice booms from within. His voice. The sound of it travels through the thick wood and finds a place deep inside my chest, a resonating hum that is both terrifying and familiar.
The guard opens the door and steps aside, gesturing for me to enter. I take a deep breath and step across the threshold. I step into the lion’s den.
The door clicks shut behind me, the sound final. The room is not a throne room. It is a solar, a private study, but it feels no less intimidating. Bookshelves filled with ancient tomes line one wall. A massive fireplace, cold and empty, dominates another. A vast table is covered in maps held down by polished stones and daggers. The air is thick with the scent of old paper, woodsmoke, and him. Pine and cold stone. It makes my head swim.
He stands by a tall, arched window, his back to me. He is dressed not in the finery of the feast, but in a simple black tunic and trousers that do little to hide the raw power in his frame. The silence stretches, a string pulled so tight it hums. He is waiting for me to speak, to bow, to acknowledge his station.
I wait, too. My fear is a cold lump in my throat, but my pride, newly forged in the fire of Valerius’s scorn, holds me still.
Finally, he turns. The full force of his presence hits me like a physical blow. In the great hall, he was a distant figure, a king on a dais. Here, mere feet away, he is a force of nature. His storm gray eyes lock onto mine, and the golden cord of the bond, which has been a dull, constant ache for two days, flares to life. It pulls at my center, a desperate, undeniable yearning to close the small distance between us.
I can see the struggle in his face. His jaw is a hard line, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He is fighting the same pull. We are two magnets, forced into the same small space, warring against our own nature.
“Amber of the Silverwood,” he says. My name on his lips is a strange and painful magic. “Thank you for coming.”
I incline my head slightly. “You did not give me a choice, Your Majesty.”
A flicker of something, perhaps surprise, crosses his features. “No. I suppose I did not.”
He gestures to a chair near the empty hearth. “Please.”
I do not move. “I prefer to stand.”
Another silence. He is the King. He is not accustomed to being defied, even in such a small way. He watches me, his gaze intense, assessing. He is trying to understand what he saw in the hall, what he sees now. He is trying to reconcile the force of the bond with the small, unassuming omega standing before him.
“I understand you had an unpleasant encounter with Lord Valerius,” he says, his voice carefully neutral.
“He was… direct,” I reply, choosing my word with care.
“He is my wife’s cousin,” Theron continues, his eyes never leaving mine. “He is protective of her. Of the Queen.”
He says the word ‘Queen’ like a shield, a wall he is building between us right here in this room. Every syllable is a stone placed carefully on top of the last. The ache in my chest sharpens.
“I understand,” I say, and I do. I understand her position. I understand his duty. It does not make it hurt any less.
“I am not sure that you do,” he says, his voice softening slightly. “My marriage to Queen Seraphina is not just a personal union. It is the cornerstone of a treaty that has kept this kingdom from war for over a decade. Her family is powerful. Our alliance ensures the prosperity and safety of thousands of my people.”
He takes a step closer. The air crackles. My wolf whines, wanting to submit, to fall at his feet, to do anything that would soothe the agonizing tension between us.
“I love her,” he says. The words are quiet, but they hit me with the force of a physical slap. My breath catches. The beautiful, fragile hope I did not even know I was holding shatters into a million pieces.
“I see,” I manage to choke out.
“It is a different kind of love than… this,” he admits, a hand gesturing vaguely to the space between us. There is a deep torment in his eyes, a genuine conflict that makes me pity him, and I hate myself for it. “What I have with Seraphina is a fortress built over years. It is real. It is solid. It is my duty to uphold it.”
He stops in front of me now, so close I can feel the heat radiating from his body. My scent, wild herbs and earth, is mixing with his, pine and stone. It feels both sacred and forbidden.
“This bond,” he says, the words tasting like a curse on his tongue. “It is a complication my kingdom cannot afford. It is a threat to the peace I have sworn to protect.”
I finally understand. The summons. This private audience. It is not about Lord Valerius. It is not about my pack’s petition. It is an execution. He is here to kill the bond between us.
“So you wish to reject me,” I say. It is not a question. The words are flat, dead things in the heavy air.
Pain flashes in his eyes, so raw and sharp it takes my breath away. He feels it too. The thought of the rejection is like a blade aimed at his own heart.
“The rejection of a true mate is a spiritually dangerous act,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “It can weaken an Alpha, fracture his spirit. It is not something to be done lightly, or if the other party is… unwilling.”
He looks at me, and I see the plea in his eyes before he even speaks the words.
“I would see you and your people cared for,” he says. “Land. Fertile land in the south, sworn to your pack in perpetuity. A title for you. Baroness. More wealth than you have ever dreamed of. Your people will never go hungry again.”
He is offering me everything I came here to beg for. Everything my pack needs to survive. He is offering me a gilded cage, a comfortable exile. He is trying to be gentle. He is trying to be fair.
He is trying to buy my soul.
“Anything you desire,” he finishes, his voice thick with a desperation he cannot hide. “All I ask in return… is that you formally accept my rejection of the bond.”
My heart, which I thought had already broken when he spoke of his love for his queen, finds a new way to break. He thinks I can be bought. He thinks my love, my fate, the other half of my very being, has a price tag. He thinks he can solve this divine, agonizing miracle with coin and dirt.
Something inside me, something harder than stone, settles in my chest. The trembling stops. The fear recedes. All that is left is a cold, clear pride.
I meet his gaze. For the first time, I am not the frightened omega. I am not the desperate petitioner. I am his mate, and he has just insulted me to the core of my being.
The words feel like they are pulled from the deepest part of me, from the stone and soil of my blighted home. “You cannot buy a soul, Your Majesty.”
The air goes still. The shock on his face is absolute. He did not expect this. He expected me to be grateful, to be relieved, perhaps to shed a few tears and then accept his generous offer.
“My people are starving,” I continue, my voice gaining strength. “I came here to plead for their lives. I would have scrubbed the floors of this palace, I would have begged on my knees for a single bag of grain for them. But I will not sell this.”
I press a hand to my chest, over the place where the bond hums and aches. “This is not a trinket to be bartered. It is not a political alliance to be negotiated. Whatever this is, it is mine. And it is not for sale.”
I look him in the eye, the Alpha King, my mate, the man who just offered me the world to get rid of me.
“I want nothing from a king who belongs to another.”
I see the blow land. I see him flinch as if I had struck him. His composure, the mask of the king, cracks. He looks at me with a new, dawning horror. The easy solution he had constructed has just crumbled to dust at his feet.
I gave him my answer. There is nothing left to say.
Without waiting for his dismissal, without another word, I turn my back on him. It is the most difficult thing I have ever done. Every instinct screams at me to stay, to go to him, to fix the chasm that has opened between us.
But I keep walking. I walk to the great oak doors, my steps even and measured. I do not run. I do not look back.
I pull the door open and step out into the hallway, leaving him standing alone in the silent, map-filled room. The guard outside gives me a startled look, but I ignore him.
I left him with my refusal. I left him with the full, unbearable weight of our shared fate. I have no land, no title, no food for my pack. But as I walk back through the hostile, whispering corridors of the palace, I carry the one thing he cannot take from me. My pride. And the knowledge that I am not the only one who is trapped.
