She Pulled a Pregnant Wolf From the River—Then the Alpha King Brought Her to His Throne

Chapter 5

I wrapped linen around my fingers before lifting one sealed stem. The wax held firm. I meant only to confirm the seal before sending it to Master Tolan, not to harvest it. I set the pot on the high shelf near the window, away from the cradle, and imagined Ronan ordering three healers to test the soil. The thought made me smile.

Evening fell. The prince woke hungry and cross. I fed him, soothed him, and placed him back beneath his warm blanket. By then the fire had burned low, and the nursery windows reflected the room in dark glass.

That was when I felt the first wave of heat.

It moved under my skin slowly, like fever waking from the bones. I pressed a hand to my throat. The room seemed too warm. The firelight blurred at the edges, and my heart quickened — not with fear, exactly, but with an uneasy rush of sensation I could not place.

I reached for the table to steady myself and noticed a pale smear on my fingertips.

Snowbind sap.

The linen I had used lay near the plant, torn by a tiny thorn I had not seen. The sealed stem had not been sealed at all.

A floorboard creaked outside the nursery. I lifted my head. A knock came — light, uncertain.

“Lady Wren?” Varen’s voice came softly through the door. “One of the pages said your guards had been called away. Are you unwell?”

Cold fear cut through the heat. Only then did I realize how empty the doorway was. My hand closed around the edge of the table. “Do not come in.”

A pause. Then his voice again, quieter and genuinely uncertain. “The guards are gone. Should I send for Master Orwin?”

Far down the corridor, a warning growl answered.

The summons had reached Ronan too late — but my broken breath through the bond had reached him first. Before the door opened more than a handspan, a black shape struck the corridor side with enough force to shake the frame. The door burst inward. It was Ronan who entered, not Varen. Somewhere beyond him, hurried footsteps retreated down the corridor, swallowed by the alarm rising through the palace.

I did not understand it then. I only heard the retreating footsteps and felt through the fever in my blood that something colder than snowbind had just slipped out of the corridor.

Ronan turned toward the sound. I made a small, broken noise, and he stopped at once.

“Wren.”

He crossed the room and caught me before my knees failed. His arms were solid around me, his body warm through the fever burning beneath my skin. I gripped his sleeve, fighting the strange pull of the sap, the heat, the dizziness, and the ache of instincts stirred inside a body that had never learned how to trust them.

“The plant,” I managed. “The sap — it was cut.”

He looked toward the shelf. His lips drew back from lengthening fangs.

“Someone cut it,” I whispered, “so that I would.” The word came out shaped like his mother’s voice in my memory, and I almost laughed.

His gaze snapped back to me. The heat worsened when he held me, and Ronan felt it and went utterly still. He lowered me onto the bed near the hearth and knelt beside me — not over me. Even with his wolf raging beneath his skin, he gave me space.

I reached up and touched the scar on his cheek. He went still beneath my hand.

“I cannot scent you,” I whispered. “I cannot feel what the others feel when you enter a room.”

“I know.”

“But I know who wakes when your brother cries. I know who stands outside the nursery until we are safe. I know who removes the bones from my plate and pretends it is nothing.”

His breath shook. “Wren.”

“The snowbind did not make that true.”

A soft, wounded growl left him. He caught my wrist gently and pressed my palm against his cheek, as if the touch itself were an oath. “Look at me,” he said. “Know me. If there is any part of you that does not want this, I will stop. The snowbind will pass. I will not let it choose for you.”

I looked at his scar, at his golden eyes, at the restraint that cost him more than hunger ever could.

“I want you,” I said. “Not because of a scent. Not because of fate. Because my heart learned you before my body knew what to name it.”

The words changed him. Ronan bent his head, and when he kissed me, it was careful at first. Almost disbelieving. The fever did not vanish, but fear did. He drew back once, his brow resting against mine, giving me one last chance to turn away. I answered by closing my hand around his.

Outside the door, guards gathered at his command. Inside, the fire burned low, and the snowbind plant trembled in the winter draft like a secret waiting to be exposed. Ronan kept every touch slow, every pause open, until the choice felt like mine in every breath.

Much later, beneath the hush before dawn, I rested against his chest with his cloak drawn over my shoulders. Where his fangs had marked the curve of my neck, warmth burned gently beneath my skin. His wolf had chosen. My heart had answered.

Dawn came pale and quiet. I woke against his chest, the mark at my neck warm beneath my fingers. When his hand rose toward it, he stopped — still asking, without words. I answered by leaning into his palm.

Outside the chamber, the palace morning should have been stirring. Servants in the corridor, guards changing watch, distant calls from the courtyard.

Instead, there was nothing.