Thane’s mouth curved, not in humor exactly, but in something that looked like understanding. “Those aren’t the questions you really want to ask. But I’ll answer anyway. My name is Thane and I’m an alpha. Malric is the other alpha. He’s a good man. He’s just worried about the war.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. The truth of that pressed in from all sides. My body still felt strange, too warm, too aware, and every time I breathed in his scent, my thoughts slipped sideways, tugged toward things I didn’t have words for. The war. I didn’t want to talk about that. I wanted to stay in my tower—protected, isolated, safe.
He waited.
Time stretched. The tower hummed quietly, the sound low enough that to feel more than hear, a vibration that seemed to match the steady rhythm of Thane’s breathing. I clutched the blanket tighter, my gaze dropping to my hands, to the way my fingers trembled slightly despite the calm settling into my chest.
When I finally spoke, my voice came out barely above a whisper.
“What did he mean,” I asked, “about the war?”
Thane’s jaw tightened. He looked away, not from me exactly, but toward the far wall, as if measuring how much truth could fit into the space between us.
“And about my father.”
The silence that followed was heavier than before.
Thane inhaled slowly, then nodded once, as if committing to something. “All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I know. But I’m not going to dress it up, and I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t hurt.”
I nodded, my stomach tightening in anticipation.
“The Unseelie lands weren’t always like this,” he began. “Before your father took the throne, the courts were brutal, but predictable. Power shifted. Alphas fought. Omegas were rare, but they existed. Bonds were messy, political, sometimes violent, but they weren’t hunted.”
My fingers curled into the blanket.
“When the king rose,” Thane continued, “he decided control mattered more than balance. Omegas became leverage. He claimed they destabilized the realm. That they made alphas weak. So he started taking them. For ‘protection.’ For ‘containment.’”
My breath hitched.
“He built programs,” Thane said, his voice steady despite the tension running through it. “Breeding houses. Forced bonds. Experiments. When resistance formed, he crushed it publicly. Executions in the square. Villages razed when they sheltered dissenters.”
I pressed my palm to my stomach, nausea rising fast and sharp.
“The rebellion didn’t start because of ideology,” Thane said. “It started because people were disappearing. Because packs were breaking apart. Because entire bloodlines vanished.”
My vision blurred. Shutting my eyes, the room began to tilt under the oppressive weight of his statement.
“That’s-that’s not true,” I whispered, though the certainty wasn’t there. “He said…he said it was necessary. That he was keeping order.”
Thane looked back at me then, his gaze steady and unflinching. “That’s what tyrants always say.”
The sickness crested. I bent forward slightly, clutching the blanket to my chest as my breath came too fast again. A small sound escaped me, broken and involuntary, and before I could stop it, my body folded inward, curling tighter as if trying to protect something vital.
Thane was on his feet in an instant, then halted himself just as quickly, stopping short a few steps away. His hands lifted, then stilled in midair.
“May I?” he asked quietly.
I nodded, the motion small and desperate.
He crossed the distance and sat on the edge of the bed, not crowding me, his presence warm and solid beside me. He didn’t touch me right away. He let me close the space instead.
I did, without thinking.
I leaned into him, my forehead brushing his shoulder, my hands fisting in the fabric of his tunic as if it were the only solid thing left in the world. His scent surged, enveloping me, and something inside me loosened with a shuddering breath.
Thane froze.
His body went still beneath my touch, the tension that snapped through him like a wire pulled too tight. His scent changed, deepening, warming, and my own body responded in kind, heat pooling low and sudden, my breath hitching as something sharp and unfamiliar twisted inside me.
