“It certainly wouldn’t. But . . . might it change the ending? If the cruelest act wasn’t his, does that change how you see the man who sailed across an ocean to undo it?”
JingYi looked at their reflections, her sad smile not reaching her eyes. “It should. But all I can think about is that he needed a perfect Omega to restore his House, and I was the flawed one he tried to send back.” Her hands twisted the fabric in her lap. “If it hadn’t been for my Heat, he would never have touched me at all.”
The hands stilled at her hair. “You truly believe that?”
A profound sadness flickered across Reiyana’s face. In that look, JingYi saw her own secret fear reflected back: the torment of questioning every touch, of never being sure which was duty and which was desire.
Reiyana sighed. “It’s not my place to have an opinion on your marriage, but the way Lord Wulfbane looked at you today . . . that was not a man eager to be rid of his wife.”
JingYi froze, her breath snagging. Something hot rose in her throat. The raw panic in his eyes, the tremor in his voice when he pleaded—he hadn’t been the cold, detached lord she’d scripted, but a man unravelling by the second.
The doubt was a crack in the ice. She pressed her lips together and lowered her gaze.
“You don’t owe him anything after all you’ve been through.” Reiyana paused, her hand pressing on JingYi’s shoulders. “But I’ve learned that a person’s first thought is not always their last. Being wrong about someone—truly, shamefully wrong—can teach them more than being right from the start.”
JingYi lowered her gaze, her throat dry.
Reiyana gave her shoulder another squeeze, then left her in the shaded hush with the sound of distant waves.
A fragile, impossible thought lodged like a splinter in her heart:What if he truly wanted me, too?
CHAPTER 43
ALEXANDER
All around him, candlelight flickered and string music swelled. Courtiers drifted like silk moths in soft, glittering orbits. Gold-threaded sleeves brushed past. Laughter chimed. The air smelled of rosewater and waxed floors—charming, but none of it could ease Alexander enough to enjoy the evening.
He’d survived battlefield standoffs with less strain than this ballroom.
He stood alone beneath an arch of gilded glass, stiff in borrowed finery that pulled across his shoulders. A tray of wine passed by, but he didn’t reach for it. His gaze was fixed on the entrance. She would enter from there, he knew. He’d been studying the layout like a soldier memorizing terrain.
Kaelen sidled up beside him and drawled, “Cousin, you look fit to throttle someone. Have a drink. Loosen your teeth a little, for Solthar’s sake.”
Alexander didn’t move. “I didn’t come here to partake in merriment.”
“No,” Kaelen said mildly, “you barrelled into my in-laws’ city to reclaim a wife you, by all appearances, tried to legally erase from your life with a few strokes of a pen.”
A retort was at the tip of his tongue, but another voice cut in, sharp enough to draw blood. “Tell me the truth. Did you think to set her aside because of her birthmark? And her gait?”
The words struck like a hammer to the ribs. Alexander stiffened, but the answer clogged his throat.
Alarik’s golden gaze pinned him. “I’ve known you to be an honourable Alpha,” he said. “But this”—he shook his head, jaw tight—“this isn’t it.”
Shame lanced through him. There was no defence. No noble lie he could conjure that wouldn’t rot in his mouth. Yes, he wrote it. And then . . . he’d started to see her. Therealher.
“Perhaps Tremore breeds different Alphas,” came a low voice from behind. Alexander’s teeth clenched as Captain Marzius stepped forward.
“In Asadia, we don’t mistake a flawless face or perfect stride for true beauty. We know better than to let vanity blind us to strength.”
Alexander’s hands curled into fists. Half fury, half something darker, because the man—damn him—wasright.
The worst part was the confidence in Marzius’s stance. The unshakable assurance of a man who’d been doing what Alexander ached to do: protecting her. The captain hadn’t just judged Alexander from afar. He’d walked at JingYi’s side, matching her pace. That knowledge was a burr under Alexander’s skin, a truth he couldn’t dismiss with Alpha posturing.
Marzius wasn’t finished yet. “And if our Omega stumbles, we carry her. We don’t cast her aside because she slows our steps.”
Alexander turned to Kaelen. “Why is he here?”
Kaelen’s smile was all jagged pleasantry. “Because it pleasesmeto have him here. And because I enjoy witnessing a Wulfbane Alpha being called to account.”
