Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Brianna

After Colton finally released my sister from her pouring lesson, I let out a breath I hadn't noticed holding.

It didn't last.

"Why are all the cups at this table empty?"

He asked it mildly, to no one in particular, which was precisely what made it a command. Over twenty people sat at this long table, and not one of them—not even my father—found the courage to answer.

He didn't look at Paige. He didn't need to.

"Fill mine first," he said, examining the candlelight through his empty glass. "Then everyone's. Whether they want it or not. When the flagon runs dry, fetch another. And when you've finished—" a small tilt of his head toward the silver trays waiting on the sideboard, "—the refreshments."

Not a punishment this time. A position. He had just assigned my sister a job for the rest of the evening.

I looked away from her, to my husband.

Husband. The word still refused to sit right in my head. But for now, in here, I had no choice but to start practicing it.

There was a faint curve at the corner of Colton's mouth. He was pleased with the view.

Paige finished the wine and started on the refreshments—biscuits, glazed pastries, arranged like offerings.

She began with us. Her hands had stopped shaking by now; that was somehow worse to watch. She had adjusted. People adjust.

Colton took a biscuit from the tray while she still stood there holding it. He bit into it, chewed, unhurried. Then he turned to me, the remaining half held out between two fingers.

Level with my lips.

The table went quiet again. Twenty pairs of eyes pretending not to watch, all watching. My father's fork stopped moving.

And Paige—Paige stood two feet away, tray in hand, forced by her new station to remain exactly where she was and witness it.

I understood the arithmetic instantly. This wasn't affection. It was a demonstration—she eats from my hand—the gentler twin of the pouring lesson, performed for the same audience. And Paige had been assigned front-row seating.

I leaned forward and took the bite.

Sweet. Buttery. It might as well have been ash; my tongue had stopped reporting flavors somewhere around the altar.

"How does it taste?" he asked. Flat, weatherless. I couldn't tell whether he wanted an answer or was simply watching what I'd do when there wasn't a right one.

"...Sweet," I managed.

"Hm." He finished the biscuit himself and was already turning to my father. "The invasion. Next week. Walk me through your plan, Adam. My war council tells me you've earned quite the reputation as a strategist."

My father straightened, visibly grateful to be handed anything that wasn't watching his daughters. Maps were mentioned. Borders. Supply lines. I kept my eyes on my plate and tried not to listen; none of it would make sense to me anyway.

That's what I told myself. My ears disagreed.

"...I'll need every bit of support you can spare," my father was saying.

"You'll have a third of my army," Colton replied. "Garrisoned here."

Here.

My father smiled at the offer. I sat very still, staring into my wine, working through what he apparently refused to see: a third of the Hound of War's forces, stationed inside Duskwood's borders. Call it support, and it was a shield. Call it what it was, and it was a hand closing around my family's throat.

Protection and occupation, I was learning, have exactly the same shape.

Somewhere behind my shoulder, Paige was still moving down the table, flagon in hand, filling cup after cup for guests who no longer dared drink.

Each time she passed behind my chair, I felt her eyes on the back of my neck like two lit matches.

Enjoying yourself? she'd hissed. You won't be enjoying it much longer.

I believed her, actually. Hatred that has to smile and keep pouring—that kind ferments into something patient.

"One more thing." Colton set down his glass. "Adam."

Something in that single syllable made my father stop breathing.

"Your wife and you are asking for a war. Deliberately."

The word war went through me like a splinter of ice. This was a man who had never marched out and come back with anything but victory.

No sane soul on this continent would invite a war with him—which was exactly what made the accusation absurd. And terrifying.

"I—" My father's confusion looked genuine. "Alpha, what happened?"

"Have your wife recount the dowry before my departure tomorrow." Colton's tone never lifted; he might have been discussing the weather. "It's short. I'll assume, for now, that it was a clerical error and not an insult. You'll confirm which it was by dawn."

Across the table, my mother's smile finally failed.

My father answered with a nod. Just a nod. The master strategist of Duskwood, reduced to a bobbing head.

Colton pushed back his chair and rose. He reached for my hand—and I gave it, because the alternative had stopped existing sometime around the moment I first heard his voice through the veil.

The last thing I saw as we left the hall: my sister, flagon still in hand, standing motionless among the tables like a servant awaiting her next order. And my mother beside her, both of them watching us go with identical, unreadable eyes.

I should have paid more attention to those eyes.

He led me through corridors I had walked my whole life, to a wing I had almost never entered. One of the royal guest chambers. The door opened onto velvet and firelight and a bed wider than my entire room.

I hadn't known we had rooms like this sitting empty.

Twenty years this had been here, gathering polish, while I slept three floors away behind a cracked window and a door that didn't lock. My father had never once thought to—

No. Of course he hadn't. You don't renovate the kennel.

The door shut behind us. Colton released my hand.

I stayed by the door. I couldn't have said why—only that my feet had decided this was as far as they went. He crossed to the bed without looking at me, sat, and pulled off his boots. Each one hit the floor with a dull, unhurried thud that seemed far too loud in the quiet.

Then he pointed at the decanter on the vanity.

"Pour me some wine."

My feet found their function again. I crossed the room, lifted the decanter—and my hands, I noticed distantly, were steadier than Paige's had been.

The wine went in clean and quiet, not a drop spilled. Somewhere beneath the fear, some small, vicious part of me registered that and filed it away.

I handed him the glass and turned away to gather what was left of my composure.

"Look at me."

I turned back. I couldn't force a smile; my face had stopped taking orders.

He took one unhurried sip, set the glass aside, and looked at me the way he'd looked at the dagger—like an object whose purpose was about to be determined.

"Take off your clothes."