Iris enters late. She has been taking the majority of her meals in her room since the kiss. Tonight, for whatever reason, she has decided to test the waters.
I watch her pause at the entrance, scanning the room, calculating the distance to the empty seat at my right hand. Herplace. The one I have kept open every night, a silent reminder that avoidance has its limits.
She never makes it that far.
Ragnar steps into her path before she has taken three steps. He is not alone. Three wolves flank him, their postures aggressive, their eyes bright with the particular cruelty of men who have found a target they believe cannot fight back. The hall goes quiet in stages, conversations dying like candles snuffed by a sudden wind, until the silence is absolute.
"The alpha's whore should eat with the dogs," Ragnar says, his voice pitched to carry. "Not at the table with proper wolves."
Iris stops. I can see the tension lock through her body, the way her hands curl into fists at her sides, the slight lift of her chin that tells me she is preparing to fight even though she is surrounded and outmatched. My fierce omega. She has no idea how beautiful she is when she refuses to bend.
I set down my cup and rise from my seat.
The hall is large. The distance between my table and where Ragnar has cornered Iris is perhaps fifty feet. I cross it in silence, my boots making no sound on the flagstones, my pace unhurried. Every wolf in the room is watching. They know what is coming. Ragnar should know too, but he is drunk on his own daring, on the small power he has gathered by whispering poison into willing ears. He does not turn to face me until I am close enough to touch.
When he does turn, the color drains from his face.
"Alpha." The word comes out strangled. "I was just explaining to the human where her place is in the pack hierarchy."
"Were you." I stop an arm's length from him, close enough that he has to crane his neck to meet my eyes. The wolves flanking him move from foot-to-foot uneasily, their bravadoevaporating in the face of the violence I am not bothering to hide. "And where, exactly, do you believe her place to be?"
"She's not one of us." Ragnar's voice wavers, but he presses on. Perhaps he believes that backing down now will cost him more than standing his ground. He is wrong. "She's human. Weak. An omega, yes, but not a wolf. The pack deserves a luna who can stand beside you in battle, not a fragile thing who hides in her room and refuses to take her mate."
I let the silence stretch. Let him hear how absolute it is, how completely the pack has withdrawn its support from him. Then I reach out and take his wrist.
The first bone breaks with a sound like a dry branch snapping. Ragnar screams. His knees buckle, but I hold him upright by his shattered wrist, letting the pain radiate through him while I address the assembled pack.
"This woman is your luna in all but ceremony." My voice carries through the hall, calm and conversational, as though I am not currently grinding broken bone against broken bone in my grip. "Her word is my word. Her protection is my command." The second bone breaks, and Ragnar's scream cuts off into a wet gurgle as he chokes on his own agony. "Touch her, and I will take it from your flesh piece by piece."
I release his wrist and he collapses to his knees, cradling the ruined limb against his chest. The joint is bent at an angle that nature never intended. He will heal, as wolves do, but not quickly. Not without pain. And every time he feels that ache in the months to come, he will remember this moment.
I crouch in front of him, gripping his jaw and forcing his head up until his tear-streaked face is level with mine.
"Threaten her, and I will let you live long enough to watch me destroy everything you love." I lean closer, dropping my voice to a whisper that only he can hear. "She is mine. And you will never speak to her again. Do you understand?"
He nods, frantic and broken.
"Good." I stand and turn to where Iris is watching, her face pale, her eyes wide with something that is not quite fear. "Apologize to your luna."
Ragnar crawls forward on his knees, his broken arm hanging useless at his side, and presses his forehead to the floor at Iris's feet.
"Forgive me," he gasps. "Luna. Please. Forgive me."
Iris looks down at him, then up at me. I cannot read her expression. There is shock there, certainly. Perhaps horror at the casual brutality of what I have done. But beneath it, flickering like a flame behind glass, I see something else. Recognition. Understanding. The acknowledgment that this is what I am, what I have always been, and that she has known it since the moment she read those journals in my study.
"Take him to the cells," I tell Torben, who has appeared at my shoulder. "He will remain there until I decide what to do with him."
Torben hauls Ragnar upright and drags him from the hall. The three wolves who had stood at Ragnar's back scatter like leaves before a wind, unwilling to meet my eyes, desperate to distance themselves from a rebellion that has just been crushed.
I turn to the assembled pack.
"Does anyone else have concerns about my choice of mate?"
The silence is answer enough.
The hours after the hall are filled with quiet work. Reports from Torben, orders for increased patrols, the tedious business of maintaining control. I do not seek her out. I wait.
Iris comes to my chambers late that night, when the fires have burned low and the fortress has settled into the quiet of sleeping wolves. I hear her footsteps in the corridor before she reaches my door. I recognize the rhythm of her pace, the slight hesitation as she pauses outside, the small breath she takes before she knocks.
