Chapter 6 An Audience With The King

_Rowena's POV_ Celeste slid the phone across the table. I stared at it for half a heartbeat before lifting it to my ear. "Your Majesty." Silence answered me first. Then Alpha King Alaric spoke, his voice deeper than I remembered. "Are you safe where you are?" The question caught me off guard. Kaelen would have demanded to know where I was. Alaric only wanted to know whether I was safe. "For tonight," I said. A pause followed. "Then this conversation should not happen over the phone. I'm sending you an address." My fingers tightened around the device. "When?" "Now." The line went dead. A message appeared seconds later, containing an address in the financial district and one final instruction. Come alone. Celeste read it over my shoulder. "You don't have to go," she said. "Yes, I do." If I wanted this decision to belong to me, I had to make the request myself. * Forty minutes later, I stood before a mirror in one of Celeste's guest rooms. I had exchanged my torn dress for a dark, high-collared gown. Powder covered the worst of the bruising around my wrists. A silk scarf concealed the marks on my throat. My mother's pearl earrings still rested against my neck. For a moment, I considered taking them off. They had once represented everything I believed my marriage would become. Instead, I left them in place. My mother had been wrong about Kaelen. That did not mean every piece of her belonged to him. "You look like an Ashthorne," Kyra said. "I am an Ashthorne." The admission felt different now. Stronger. I left Velvet with Celeste and took the car alone. The address Alaric had sent did not lead to a palace or a traditional pack house. It led to an unmarked glass tower in the center of the financial district. The lobby was quiet, the security discreet, and no royal crest hung on the walls. But the moment I gave the receptionist my name, she rose. "This way, Lady Rowena." She led me to a private elevator and pressed the button for the fourteenth floor. When the doors opened, a man in black was waiting to escort me down a silent corridor. I felt Alaric before I saw him. The pressure of his wolf moved through the building like a current beneath still water. It did not beat against my senses or demand submission. It simply existed—vast, controlled, and impossible to mistake. Kyra rose inside me. "His wolf remembers us." "He has met us before." "That isn't what I meant." The office door opened. Alaric stood at the windows with the city spread out behind him. His jacket had been set aside, and the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled neatly to his forearms. The last time I had seen him, my mother had still been alive. He had attended one of the Ashthorne memorial ceremonies in formal black, already a king but not yet a man who seemed capable of bending the entire region around his will. We had exchanged no more than a few words. I remembered the man. I had not been prepared for the king he had become. His shoulders seemed broader now, his features harder. Authority no longer rested on him like a ceremonial mantle. It had settled into his bones. His gaze found mine. "Rowena." Not Luna Rowena. Something in my chest tightened. "Your Majesty." I inclined my head. The door closed behind me, leaving us alone. Alaric gestured toward the chairs before his desk, but he remained standing. "You asked for my intervention." "I did." "Then ask." There was no cruelty in the command, but no softness either. He would not make this easier merely because he had known me once. I lifted my chin. "My marriage to Kaelen Varkos was never consummated. He did not mark me, and no mating bond was completed. Hours after our wedding, he left for the Federation border." "I know." The quiet answer unsettled me, but I continued. "I governed Moonreign in his absence. When he returned, he brought another woman with him. She is carrying the child he claims as his, and he intends to give her equal standing as his wife and Luna." "And you object." "I am leaving." Alaric's gaze sharpened at the distinction. "I asked Kaelen for a legal dissolution," I continued. "He refused. Any ordinary petition would be filed within Moonreign, which means it would be heard under his authority. He is not only the husband I am trying to leave. He is the Alpha empowered to decide whether I may leave him." "And so you came above him." "Yes." "To ask me to overturn his decision." "To ask you to review mine." For the first time, something shifted in his expression. Then it vanished. "Your mother came to me when she arranged this marriage," he said. "The Varkos elders had concerns about recognizing a union without a fated bond. She petitioned the Crown personally. She asked me to ensure the marriage would be honored under regional law." My throat tightened. "She did more than ask, Rowena. She gave her fortune, her name, and her word to secure your place in Moonreign. You are now asking me to dismantle the protection she begged me to grant." The words struck where he intended them to. For three years, I had treated my mother's last wish as sacred. I had endured loneliness, insult, and neglect because I believed abandoning the marriage meant betraying her. But love did not make every decision right. "My mother was dying," I said. "She had buried her husband and her sons. She wanted certainty for me, and she mistook marriage for safety." "You believe she made the wrong decision?" Pain moved through me, but I did not look away. "I believe she loved me. I also believe love does not prevent people from making mistakes." Alaric said nothing. "I honored her choice for three years," I continued. "I managed Kaelen's pack, protected his family, and preserved the marriage even when I received nothing from it. But my mother is not the one living with its consequences." My voice remained steady. "I am." The silence stretched between us. Then Alaric stepped closer. His gaze had shifted to my throat. "What is beneath the scarf?" My hand rose instinctively. "Nothing relevant to my petition." "I can smell blood beneath the powder." My heart missed a beat. Of course he could. He stopped an arm's length away. His size and power should have made the distance feel smaller, but he did not cross it. "Did Varkos do that?" I held his gaze. Alaric raised one hand, then stopped before touching me. "May I?" The question affected me more than his closeness. Kaelen had taken whatever distance he wanted. Alaric waited for permission to cross mine. After a moment, I nodded. His fingers caught the edge of the scarf. His knuckles brushed my skin as he drew the silk aside, and Kyra went utterly still. So did Alaric. His eyes settled on the bruises shaped like fingers around my throat. The air in the room changed. His wolf pressed closer to the surface, cold fury filling the space between one heartbeat and the next. Yet Alaric's touch remained controlled. "Did he try to mark you?" "No." "To complete the marriage?" I forced myself not to look away. "He tried." Something dangerous entered Alaric's eyes. His thumb shifted once against the edge of the scarf, close enough that I felt its warmth against my pulse. Then he released the fabric and stepped back. The loss of contact came too quickly. I refused to examine why I noticed. "Why did you conceal this?" he asked. "I did not come here to display my injuries and beg for sympathy. I came because the legal grounds exist." His expression remained unreadable. "Good," he said. "Because I will not dissolve a Crown-recognized marriage out of sympathy." The words stung, but before I could respond, he returned to his desk. "I will open a royal review," he continued. "Bring me the marriage contract, the full record of the Ashthorne transfers, and a sworn statement of what happened tonight. A royal healer will verify that no mark or completed bond exists." "And then?" "If the evidence supports your petition, my decree will reach Moonreign within three days. Kaelen may challenge the evidence, but he cannot prevent the review." Three days. Something inside me loosened. Not freedom yet. But a path to it. "Thank you, Your Majesty." "You earned the hearing yourself. Do not thank me before you have won it." I turned toward the door. "Rowena." I stopped and looked back. Alaric stood behind his desk, but the distance between us no longer felt entirely official. "When the decree is delivered," he said, "come back." "Will there be another hearing?" "No." "Then why would I return?" His gaze held mine. "The King will have nothing further to ask of you." My pulse quickened. "Who will?" A pause. "Alaric."