Chapter 654: You Can Lead A Wolf To Love

The guards surrounded Vesper on all sides. One had her chained wrists. Another had her waist. A third was trying to manacle her ankles, which were kicking with the force and rhythm of a woman who had apparently attended the same combat academy as a mule.

"SHE SPREAD HER LEGS FOR A CROWN, TRISTAN! THAT’S THE ONLY TRUTH!" Vesper bellowed at full volume. "A greedy, crown-chasing cumrag bartering her fuck-hole for power!"

Through the matebond, River’s surprise hit Lucian like a slap.

It was clear she hadn’t fully been listening until now and the vulgarity must have caught her off guard. The surprise reverberated through her magic hitting the audience and guards and the sympathy was immediate, overwhelming, and very bad news for Vesper Willow.

Because two hundred Fae nobles were just force-fed, through magic, the genuine "oh wow that hurt my feelings" surprise of a princess. The room became one pissed-off organism. Side chosen. Fury, locked in. They were going to scream the pick so hard the guilty party would hear it from hell.

"WE LOVE THE PRINCESS. YOU ARE A BITCH. END OF STORY!"

"I HOPE THE PRINCE BREAKS HIS FATED TIE WITH YOU!"

"YOU WILL NEVER BE OUR QUEEN. THANK THE GODS. SERIOUSLY. THANK THEM."

Vesper struggled against the guards.

"I AM YOUR FATED QUEEN WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, ASSHOLES! YOU WILL ALL BE PUNISHED THE SECOND I TAKE THE CROWN!"

A guard attempted to cover Vesper’s mouth with his hand. She bit that too.

"—back-alley bitch WHORE with a BROTHER FETISH and a tiara! She’s healing everyone with her magic because that’s what WHORES DO, they make everyone feel GOOD!"

"That makes zero sense, young lady. Someone wash that girl’s mouth out with soap!" an elder boomed.

Lucian almost laughed.

ALMOST. The laugh built in his chest and made it halfway to his throat and his discipline caught it at the border and sent it back with a stamp that read DENIED, because the Alpha of the Northern Realm did not laugh at bonding ceremony disasters, even when the bonding ceremony disaster involved a woman being dragged across a courtyard by six guards while screaming the word "cumrag" at a princess who was being carried in the opposite direction by a prince who looked like he was reconsidering every life choice that had led to this moment.

"TRISTAN, you gutless PRICK. I am your fated mate. The one given to you from the Moon Goddess, and YOU are carrying a PROSTITUTE who is wetter for power than she is for you!"

Tristan stopped. Turned. Blinked a few times with a "what the actual fuck" look on his face. Then, without a word, resumed carrying River through the doors in the opposite direction.

Through the matebond, Lucian felt the moment Tristan’s arms tightened around River. He felt her relief spike and then collapse into sadness and guilt, like a woman doing something wrong by allowing herself to be comforted.

Lucian watched the guards finally pin Vesper to the ground. One was missing a shoe. Multiple were bleeding. The ratio of guards to arrests was approximately twelve to one, and the arrest had still taken seven minutes.

Fin stood beside Lucian in a courtyard covered in frosting and chaos and watched the wolf king’s face settle back into the composure he wore like armor.

The humor was gone. The almost-laugh was gone. What remained was the face of a man who had watched his mate be insulted and carried away and whose every instinct was telling him to follow and whose every year of discipline was telling him to stay.

Lucian stayed.

He always stayed.

Fin wanted to shake him. Wanted to grab his shoulders and say stop doing this to yourself, you stubborn bastard. Go after her. Tell Tristan the truth. I watched you die for the privilege of being able to do that and silence kills you every time.

Instead, Fin watched Lucian Moon, First King of Wolves, Alpha of the Northern Realm, the man who had loved and lost and died and been reset and didn’t remember any of it, straighten his ceremonial jacket, adjust his cuffs, and walk toward the eastern corridor with the measured stride of a man who had places to be and a face that revealed none of them.

Through the matebond, River’s signal was steady. Sad. Resolute. Like she was playing a game whose rules only she understood.

Lucian didn’t understand the game. He didn’t know the rules. He didn’t know why his wolf recognized Vesper as a threat before introduction, or why River’s grief carried the weight of a future that hadn’t arrived, or why the deja vu kept hitting him in waves.

He knew one thing.

The woman whose pulse sat in his ribcage had a plan. She was doing it solo. And the matebond, that loyal little instrument of divine sadism, was whispering with perfect accuracy that the plan was going to take River for everything he had.

His jaw set.

✦✦✦

The morning felt wrong before Lucian’s eyes opened.

He was in the guest quarters Atlas had assigned him, a room that was too fine for a wolf king and too close to River’s wing for Lucian’s discipline to consider restful. The matebond had been carrying a low-frequency unease all night, the kind of signal that sat underneath sleep and colored dreams without announcing itself, and Lucian had woken three times before dawn with his hand flat against his sternum and zero memory of why.

Something was wrong with River. He didn’t know what. The matebond didn’t deliver specifics, just weather. And the weather coming through the thread was a storm system that hadn’t broken yet but was gathering force in the dark.

He dressed and went looking for Tristan.

Found him in the corridor outside his chambers, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and looking exhausted.

"You look terrible," Lucian observed.

Tristan glanced up at him. "I’m going to need you to lower your expectations for how I look for the foreseeable future. This is my face now. This is what we’re working with."

"Where’s River?"

"Fever. She was seizing in her sleep."