Chapter 4 – Not His to Claim

He took me to the north wing guest quarters.

Not the medical wing. That alone told me he understood what I hadn’t needed to explain: I could not be found by Kieran’s people, not yet. The north wing was different from the rest of the pack house. It belonged to visiting Alphas and their inner circles, governed by an unspoken rule of discretion. No one entered without permission, and no one asked questions about what they saw inside. It was, in its own way, the safest place in this building that had already turned dangerous for me.

I noticed everything as we walked. The sound of footsteps behind us, the spacing of guards along the corridor, the way people lowered their gazes when they recognized him. Two members of his retinue walked beside us without instruction, and still, no one spoke.

He walked beside me at a careful distance. That small restraint should not have mattered. It did.

The rooms he led me into were large but stripped of excess things. A meal had been left untouched on the side table, already forgotten by whoever had prepared it.

He guided me toward the chair nearest the fire without speaking, then moved to the cabinet along the wall as if he already knew what he would find there. He returned with a cloth, a bowl of water, and something medicinal that carried a sharp, clean scent. Only then did he sit across from me.

“Your wrist first,” he said, placing the bowl down between us. “Then your head.”

I looked at him for a moment, uncertain of where to place the fact that he was doing this at all.

“You don’t have to—”

“I know,” he interrupted, not unkindly. His hand extended, palm open, waiting.

After a brief pause, I placed my wrist in his grip.

He examined the joint first, fingers moving along the bone carefully. When he finally applied the wrap, his movements were efficient.

“It’s not broken,” he said at last. “Bad sprain.”

“Alright,”I scoffed.

The faintest shift touched his mouth, close enough to suggest he had heard more in my tone than I had intended to give away.

He finished the wrap and moved on to my head, tilting my chin slightly so he could examine the cut near my temple. Him being close, sharpened everything. That scent I had noticed in the courtyard returned again, clearer here, cutting through everything else until I had to remind myself to breathe.

“It won’t need stitches,” he said after a moment, pressing the cloth gently to the wound. “But it will bruise.”

“I’ve had worse.”

He sat back slightly, his attention settling fully on me for the first time since we had entered the room.“Tell me what happened,” he said.

I looked at the fire for a moment before speaking. When I finally did, I didn’t give him everything, but I gave him enough. The corridor. The voices. What I had heard. The locked room. The realization that had followed me like a wound that hadn’t stopped bleeding. He listened without interruption.

“You want a divorce,” he said at last.

“I want out,” I replied. “A divorce is the cleanest version of that.”

“And Kieran refused.”

“He didn’t refuse,” I said after a moment. “He laughed like the idea of me having a choice was irrelevant.”

I exhaled slowly, calming myself before continuing. “He won’t agree. And my father’s pack is three territories east. Without formal release, I have no standing in neutral land. I’d be treated as a runaway Luna. Any Alpha could return me.”

Saying it out loud made the trap clearer. I had spent five years learning the laws that governed us, believing that knowledge would protect me. Instead, it had shown me exactly how tightly I had been bound.

Riven was quiet for a moment.

Then he said, “I can get you the divorce.”

I looked at him properly then.

“Kieran won’t accept interference from me,” he continued. “But he will not refuse a formal challenge from my authority. My standing supersedes his in inter-pack disputes. If I raise an objection to the continuation of your bond on grounds of violation of Luna rights, the pack will dissolve it.”

I studied him carefully.

“Why would you do that?”

I caught the brief crack in his composed expression.

“I have my reasons,” he said.

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” he agreed quietly.

“You’re asking me to trust an arrangement I don’t understand,” I said. “I won’t trade one Alpha’s control for another’s.”

His gaze held mine for a long moment before he leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on his knees. The shift made him less distant.

“You’ve heard things about me,” he said.

“I have.”

“Most of them are true.” There was no pride in it, no shame either. “What isn’t true is why. I was not looking for companionship or distraction.”

He paused, as if deciding how far to take the explanation.

“Until recently, I couldn’t properly distinguish scent,” he continued. “For a wolf, that is not a small loss.”

I understood what he meant without needing more detail. Scent was identity for wolves. Memory. Recognition. Bonding. Without it, the world would lose its structure in ways most people could not survive.

“It can be corrected,” he said. “But only through a specific trigger. A mate whose scent moves through the distortion. Someone whose presence restores what is missing.”

His gaze held mine, steady and unflinching.

“In the courtyard tonight, when I found you,” he said quietly, “I could smell you. Perfectly. For the first time in fifteen years.”

I thought of what I had felt in that moment. The sudden clarity.

“Second chance mate,” I said.

“Yes.”

“You knew immediately.”

“Yes.”

I looked down at my hands for a moment. One wrapped, one unsteady, both belonging to someone who no longer had a clear place in the world she had woken up in.

“What are you proposing?” I asked.

“A contract,” he said. “You come under my protection. That removes you from Kieran’s hands immediately. I will raise the challenge with the council and get your bond dissolved within a fortnight.”

He paused briefly before continuing.

“In return, you remain within my territory for three months. Your presence stabilizes the condition. After that, you are free to leave. No obligations. No claims.”

I studied him for a long time.

“You’re asking me to live in your pack three days after losing a pregnancy, two days after being locked in a room by my husband, and hours after escaping through a servants’ passage,” I said quietly. “And you want me to sign a contract.”

“Yes,” he said simply.

A humorless breath left me before I could stop it. “That’s either reckless or calculated.”

“Both have been suggested,” he replied.

I looked toward the fire again. Thought about the locked room. The guards. The fact that without him, there was no clean exit left to me that didn’t end in being dragged back.

More than anything, I thought about that moment in the courtyard.

“I have conditions,” I said.

“State them.”

“I am not your Luna. Not your responsibility. I am a guest under your protection. Nothing more.” I looked at him directly. “I retain full freedom of my movements, my decisions, my time are mine.”

“Agreed.”

“If I choose to leave before the three months end, I will.”

“You can leave,” he said. “The council filing continues regardless.”

I searched his face for hesitation and found none.

“Why unconditional?” I asked.

His voice lowered slightly. “Because what was done to you is not something I intend to leave unresolved, regardless of your decision. That is separate from our arrangement.”

I didn’t know what to do with that answer, so I didn’t try. I simply held it aside, like everything else I couldn’t afford to process yet.

Finally, I extended my hand.

He looked at it for a brief moment before taking it.

His grip was firm. The contact sent that strange feeling through me again, and I saw something tighten in his expression as he felt it too.

We held the handshake for long before he released me.

“I’ll have the contract drawn up tonight,” he said. “Rest. A room will be prepared for you.”

“And Kieran?”

His voice didn’t change. “Leave him to me.”

He said it like a conclusion rather than a threat.

And I believed him.

I sat alone in the firelight as he left the room, my wrist wrapped, my future rearranged, while outside the walls the feast continued without interruption.

For the first time since waking in that white room, I let myself close my eyes.

And I slept.