Rejected at Seventeen, Crowned by the Lycan King Chapter 07

Rejected at Seventeen, Crowned by the Lycan King Chapter 07 – Two Questions

Kaine Drexel is still the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. I hate that. It’s the kind of detail that should have burned off

with the bond.

He was halfway through a greeting for the King when he saw the crown on my collar, and then my

face.

The color left him like someone had pulled a plug.

“Wren?”

“Commander Hale,” I said.

“You- “He took a step toward me and I heard the thought arrive before his mouth moved: her father just lost the

Sablewood contract, if I can get the bond back, Ironvale’s mine.

Charming. A year of silence and he was doing arithmetic.

“You look-”

“Careful,” I said. “You’re about to compliment a Ravenguard Commander in front of her King while your delegation watches. It’s going to sound like begging.”

Rafe Thorne turned a laugh into a cough.

“I made a mistake,” Kaine said, low and urgent.

“You made a calculation,” I said. “It’s not the same thing, and it isn’t my problem. Director, could someone show the

delegation to the east room? They’re blocking my morning.”

And I walked past him.

Nyx howled with joy the entire length of the corridor.

They gave me Fenrow’s caseload after that – Halloway slid the stack across the table without a word, which is the

Ravenguard’s version of a coronation and a punishment at once.

“Commander Hale, as this is your first meeting, allow me to explain how-”

“Please proceed if it makes you comfortable, Your Majesty,” I said. “But I’ve read the arbitration statutes. If

something’s unclear, you’ll know, because I’ll ask.”

Rafe put a hand over his mouth.

The King opened the second file himself. “Then let’s start with the one that’s about to become a body count. Two

packs, one strip of land. Eleven hundred acres between Thorncross and Greywater. Two years of escalation, four

failed arbitrations.”

“My unit worked it,” Vance said, flat with old frustration. “Twice. Neither Alpha will speak to the other. Thorncross has

forty warriors on the fence line. Greywater has fifty.”

“How long has the land itself been empty?” I asked.

“…Empty?”

“Unused. No grazing, no timber, no houses. How long?”

Nobody answered.

“Second question.” I turned my palm up. “What reason did either pack give for wanting it?”

Silence. Seven Commanders and a king, all looking at each other.

The King flipped through the file, slowly, page after page.

“There’s no reason recorded,” he said quietly. “In two years, nobody asked.”

“Two years,” Nyx said, delighted. “Two years of grown wolves measuring each other’s fences, and not one of them

asked WHY.”

“Do you mind if I take a swing at it, Your Majesty?”

He handed me the file without a single question, and I watched six Commanders register exactly what that meant.

Vance caught up with me in the corridor.

Up close he’s absurd. Six-two, gray eyes, a scar through one eyebrow, and the particular stillness of a man who has never once needed to prove he’s dangerous.

“You’ve been living on the other side of my wall for a year.”

“You’ve been calling me ‘he’ for a year.”

“In my defense, you never came out of your wing.”

“In my defense, your unit’s first thought about mine was to ask how many of my women were ‘willing.”

He stopped walking. “Say that again.”

“Reece and the tall blonde. Courtyard, oath day.” I kept going. “You’ve got a discipline problem, Commander. Fix it

before I do.”

“He’s very confused right now,” Nyx said happily. “He can’t decide whether to be furious or to mate you.”

“Neither. He’s a colleague.”

“Mm.”

We took the land dispute as a full unit.

Two hours into the drive, Orson said: “Commander. Those eleven hundred acres have been empty for a hundred and

eighteen years. Ceded jointly in 1908. Neither pack has touched it since.”

“1908,” I repeated.

Something cold walked down the back of my neck.

“What happened in 1908?”

“Nothing in either archive,” Danica said. “That’s the weird part. There’s a whole year missing from both.”

We rolled up to the disputed border at sunset.

Ninety armed wolves, facing each other across eleven hundred acres of empty grass, hands on their weapons.

Not on my watch.

I got out of the SUV, walked into the middle of the field alone, and heard a hundred and eighty heartbeats change at

once.

“Gentlemen,” I said. “Two questions, and then you can all go home.”