“Remove your hands from me!”
“Say it!”
“Let her go.”
Giselle’s voice. From behind me.
I turned my head. Giselle stood four feet away, claws extended. Full shift on her hands, curved points catching the midday light. She’d appeared from the eastern perimeter without making a sound.
“Walk away, Giselle.” I didn’t release Annora’s hair. “This isn’t your fight.”
“It is now.” She moved closer, positioning herself between me and the retreat path. “Look at yourself. Dragging a noblewoman through the mud. This is what you want Veyndral’s queen to look like? Tactless. Feral. A human with dirt on her face and violence in her hands.”
“She pushed me to the ground while I’m carrying three babies.” I tightened my grip. Annora whimpered. “What did you expect me to do? Curtsy?”
“I expected you to prove you’re better than this.” Giselle’s claws caught the light. “But you keep proving the opposite. Stringing three men along, playing house with a bond you can’t sustain, and now assaulting the woman the council sent to oversee this operation.”
“Stringing them along?” The accusation hit the wound she was aiming for. “I didn’t string anyone along. Every single one of them came after me.”
“And you let them.” Her voice dropped raw. “You don’t deserve him. A decade I stood beside Solomon. A decade of loyalty, of waiting for him to see me. You walked in with your human blood and your pretty eyes and took him in weeks.”
“Giselle-”
“It should’ve been me. I know him better than you can ever know him. I was there at his worst. Not you.”
“You’re a human playing house with lycans.” She raised her claws. “When this war ends and you realize what you’ve trapped yourself in, you’ll leave. And he’ll be destroyed. Again. You will never deserve him.”
I released Annora’s hair. She scrambled away from the bank, mud streaked across her face, her braid ruined.
Two of them now. One with political fury, one with grief wearing the costume of aggression. Both with claws that could open my throat before I blinked.
My body ached. The fall had done more than I wanted to admit. My elbow throbbed, my knee burned where the skin had broken, and a cramp had settled low in my belly that I was actively refusing to think about.
But my voice held steady.
“Go ahead, Giselle. Put those claws in a pregnant woman carrying your commander’s children. See how that plays out for you.”
The claws trembled.
“Or how I will slit your throat before you even try to harm my kids.”
“You want to know the biggest mistake you both just made?” I looked between them. “It’s not the insults. Call me what you want. Whatever gets you through the night. I’ve heard worse.”
My hand went to my stomach.
“The mistake was involving my children.” My voice dropped. “I won’t need Lucian or Solomon or Percy for what I’ll do to you if you try this again.”
A patrol whistle cut through the trees. Two short blasts. The signal for the perimeter rotation returning to camp.
Bodies would be moving through the tree line within minutes. Voices, footsteps, the camp refilling with witnesses.
Annora straightened. Wiped the mud from her face with the back of her hand. The mask reassembled itself, piece by piece, but the cracks were visible underneath.
“You’ll learn your lesson soon enough,” she said.
Giselle retracted her claws. One finger at a time. She repositioned beside Annora, and the alignment was complete. Soldier and politician. Retreating together.
“Count on it,” Annora added over her shoulder.
