The gates close with a sound like a sentence.
Lyria hears it as if it were the last door shutting on her past life. The courtyard fills with faces. Wolves who used to be strangers now look like jurors. They circle, silent and curious. Their eyes settle on the mark on her throat and they do not like what they see.
She is shoved down from the horse before Kael dismounts. He does not help. He lets her land on her feet and then grips her arm like a leash. The press of his palm is rough. Her skin remembers the bite there.
"You will stay within my estate," he tells the gathered pack. His voice is flat, but it carries. "She is Nightfall's now. Restitution."
A ripple runs through the crowd. Some snarl quiet approval. Others look uneasy. Whispers start, low and fast.
"My Alpha," a woman says, stepping forward. Her tone is soft like oil. "This is unprecedented. We claim her as—"
"As what?" Kael cuts in. He does not look at her. He looks at Lyria. "Not as Luna. Not as mate."
The woman bows her head and falls back. No one argues.
They lead Lyria through the stone halls. The estate is big and silent, full of paintings of hard faces and hunting trophies. It smells like cedar and smoke. Servants lower their eyes as she passes. Children hide behind boots. Even the dogs, silent and steady, press their noses to the ground instead of barking.
Kael turns her into a wing at the far side. It used to belong to his mate, says the maid with hands that do not stop trembling when she speaks the name. Selene. Lyria swallows the name and the old grief in the walls seems to reach for her.
"You will stay here," Kael tells the maid. "Do not call her Luna. Lose the courtesy if you value your position."
The maid bows. "Yes, Alpha."
When the door closes behind Lyria, the room feels too large. The bed is wide and neat, the curtains thick, the fireplace cold. There is a chair by a window that looks out over pines. A mirror on the wall shows a girl in a dress with ash still in her hair. The mark on her neck flashes when the light hits it. It throbs like a pulse.
She moves careful steps, like the room could bite. She tries to think of her brother's laugh. She thinks of his fingers, callused, pressing her palm and saying not to bow. She thinks of the way fire smells right before everything goes dark.
On the second night, the mate bond wakes fully. She is alone in the room and heat starts low in her ribs. It is an ache that moves like hunger. She presses her palm to the mark and it burns under her touch.
Across the estate, somewhere deep where the Alpha sleeps, Kael rolls and wakes. The bond tugs at him too. He does not come. He does not come because he refuses to accept what it forces on him. He refuses to give the thread a name he does not like.
The first morning, a woman brings her a tray. Food looks fine. Bread, dried meat, a sweet cup. Lyria eats slowly. Guards pace outside the door. Other than the occasional clink of armor, the house lives like a beast that has been cauterized. Quiet keeps the wounds closed.
People watch from the edges. The servants whisper about Selene and the girl who is supposed to have been there the night Selene died. Lyria hears her name in their mouths like it is a stone. It hits her chest.
She has not yet told the truth about that night. She has not had a chance. Every time she opens her mouth, the image of Kael's face at the auction comes back and she clams up. His eyes that said she had betrayed someone. His hands that forced her down. His words, cold and full of accusation.
"You were near Selene," he had said, and she believed at once that the world had made her a villain.
Four days pass. The mark grows hotter by the hour. It feels like a living thing under her skin. It hums when she walks past doors where warriors sleep. It hums when rain slides down the window. At night she dreams in flashes: a clearing, a scream, a woman with long dark hair crumpling in leaves.
Each time she wakes, the thread tugs. Each time Kael refuses to look at her properly, the tug twists into a lead weight.
He is cruel but precise. He denies her comforts she once knew. He will not let her sit at the main table or speak in councils. He sends guards to watch her at odd hours. He tells the pack that inside the estate she is to be seen but not acknowledged.
"You will not take two steps beyond your door without permission," he tells the steward in front of her. The steward nods, pale and afraid. Kael's rules are like iron.
The pack treats her like a wound. Some spit when she walks past. Some avoid her like a ghost. A few younger wolves stare at her with an odd mix of pity and hunger, as if deciding what they might take if given permission. Lyria keeps to herself. She watches faces. She learns who moves fast and who speaks slow. She looks for eyes that might be true.
One afternoon, when rain scrapes glass and the house smells of wet stone, Kael's mother comes to see her. She is wrapped in fur and old grief. She has the face of someone who has carried too many losses.
"You are the girl from Silver Crest," she says, without greeting.
"Lyria," she answers.
The woman stares at the mark. "You were seen with Selene the night of the attack."
"I did not know Selene was there," Lyria says. "I ran for my life. I was trying to save my brother."
The old woman's mouth twists. "Your father sold you. He called it necessary. He called it survival."
Lyria's throat tightens. "He said he had no choice."
"No one has to sell their child," the woman says. "Some do it to save a seat. Some do it to save themselves."
Kael appears in the doorway as if drawn by a thread. He does not cross into the room. He stands there, a shadow at the threshold, watching the two of them like a judge.
"You will be restitution," he says again.
The woman bows and leaves. Kael stays.
He moves close enough that she feels the heat radiating off him. The bond thrums between them like a heartbeat now. It pulls and pulls and she fights back tears.
"Do you remember that night?" he asks quietly.
"I remember only the smoke and the blade," she says. "I remember him falling. I remember dragging him into the road."
"And you did not see Selene," he says, as if testing her. "You did not see her face in the trees."
"I did not."
He watches her like he is trying to find a lie written into her skin. His hand jerks and presses into his jaw. For one sharp instant his control breaks. He inhales as if to say something fierce, but he keeps it inside and turns.
"Good," he says finally. "We will see what the truth brings."
That night, a maid leaves a tray by her door. Lyria eats because hunger binds the body tighter than pride. She sips the wine and the meat and the bread. The mark burns all the while. The house is quiet. Rain drums on the roof like a warning.
After the tray is taken, she feels lightheaded. The room tilts.
She reaches for the glass and lifts it again to her lips. Her tongue touches something bitter. Her stomach heaves. The wine is wrong. A chemical edge crawls along her throat and her limbs go heavy.
Somebody has laced her drink.
She drops the cup. Her heart spikes. Panic is a quick animal in her chest.
Outside the door, footsteps pause and then move away.
Someone tried to kill her.
She looks at the bowl and the bread and the neat place where the server's hand rested and sees danger everywhere. The bond thrums louder, a red flare at the edge of her mind.
A shadow fills her doorway without a sound.
A man stands in the dark, not a guard. Not one of Kael's usual men. He is smaller, slighter. His face is in shadow but his voice is soft when he speaks.
"You should have finished your wine," he says.
Lyria's breath stops.
Because the voice belongs to someone she knows. Someone she thought dead.