The chamber held nine elders in formal robes. Yuki sat at the head of the long table in the same pale-gray robe every elder wore in chamber. She looked composed and almost bored, prepared to sign off on something dangerous, irreversible, and legally creative. Bjorn stood at her left, his face shut down.
Morag was there too. She didn’t smile. She gave Catalina one precise nod. It steadied Catalina more than anything I could’ve said.
Graves crossed to Yuki’s right and took his place, the first mate present under protocol. In full view of every elder in the room, making it very clear he wasn’t objecting to what came next. I moved to stand across from him.
The eldest elder rose. “The Council of Ashenmere convenes at oh-four-thirty to acknowledge the bond claim of Lord Rhain Solberg of Tromsø upon Catalina Cordero, currently bonded mate of Enforcer Dominic Graves of Ashenmere.”
Bonded mate.There it was again. The old, convenient language. The kind that turned a person into a category.
“The formal record of this claim shall be recognized under Norwegian protocol and Ashenmere council sanction,” the elder continued, “with full clan acknowledgment, in the presence of the first mate and under witness of the Council Head.”
Yuki looked to Graves. “The first mate is present.”
Graves gave one short nod.
“The council witnesses.” The nine elders answered in Old Wyrm. The sound rolled under the table and through the floor. I felt it first in my feet, then my chest. My dragon lifted his head.
Yuki turned to Catalina. “Catalina Cordero. Are you taking this claim of your free will?”
“I am.” No hesitation. No tremor. Catalina had been answering questions people had no right to ask for most of her adult life.
“Are you under coercion?”
“No.”
“Has your first mate consented to the second bond?”
Catalina looked at Graves. “He has,” she said.
Yuki turned to me. “Lord Solberg. Are you offering this claim of your free will?”
“I am.”
“Are you offering it to the woman before you, recognizing her as a free human under treaty law?”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand the political consequence of binding yourself to a foreign-claimed human in defiance of your father’s emergency order?”
I didn’t look at Bjorn. I had spent thirty years learning when not to. My father had never noticed how many times I chose against him by keeping my eyes forward. “I do.”
Yuki held the silence for one breath. “You may proceed.”
I turned to Catalina. The council was there to witness the bite, not choreograph it. That part was ours.
I stepped to her and she tilted her head, baring the right side of her throat. Graves’s mark sat at the left of it, where her neck met her shoulder, where every person in the room could see it. Mine would go on the right, the mirror of his.
I lifted my hands, one to her jaw, one to the back of her neck. Careful and deliberate.
The dragon had been at my surface since the alcove, pleased enough to be dangerous and possessive enough to require manners. It knew what the room was about to witness. It knew what she had chosen. It knew, with old and unembarrassed certainty, that she was ours.
I put my mouth to the right of her throat, where it curved into her shoulder.
I had wanted her there since Day Three. Days of carrying a match unlit, and I now had permission to burn.
Minrose in my chest.
I didn’t say it. She would feel the truth soon enough.
