I muttered Ch 16

Lady Vaela looked like someone had crossbred a runway model with a serial killer and given the result etiquette lessons.

I was minding my own business, walking back from the moon garden where I’d been having a perfectly nice existential crisis about my life choices, when she materialized beside the colonnade like a bad omen in designer heels.

“I was wondering when we’d finally get a chance to speak,” she said, smile sharp enough to cut glass.

“Were you now.” I kept walking, but she fell into step beside me with the kind of predatory grace that suggested she’d practiced this conversation in a mirror.

“You think love will save you?” Her voice was honey with a razor blade chaser. “You think cradling a monster in Cassian makes you queen?”

“I think you’ve been reading too many romance novels,” I said, but my fingers were already white-knuckling my shawl.

She stepped closer, and her perfume hit me like a chemical weapon disguised as flowers. Rose and citrus that made my throat close up.

“I’ve seen your type before,” she continued, circling me like I was a particularly interesting specimen. “Wide-eyed. Fragile. Clinging to borrowed silk and fairy-tale delusions.”

“Thanks for the character analysis. Really insightful.”

“He may want you now, but that bond will rot. Power corrodes everything.” She reached out and brushed something invisible off my sleeve, like she was wiping away filth. “And you? You weren’t forged for it.”

“I didn’t ask for a throne.”

“No. You just fell into one.” Her smile was arctic. “You weren’t raised for this world. You don’t understand the rituals, the politics, the way a single curtsy can end a life or win an army.”

“Right, because curtsying is definitely a life skill I need to master. Got it.”

“You are nothing but a shadow. And shadows disappear.”

“I’m still here,” I said, pulse hammering against my ribs.

“For now. But not once the Elders file their motion. Not once Cassian is cornered again with your fate as the cost.”

She was circling me now, slow and deliberate, like a shark who’d smelled blood in the water.

“You don’t even realize what’s coming, do you? You think this is a love story. But court isn’t a fairy tale. It’s a war.”

“And you’re what, the welcome wagon?”

“I’m trying to help you see reality.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You’re woefully underdressed for this particular war.”

“I know enough to see you’re threatened,” I shot back. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because if I wasn’t a problem, you wouldn’t have bothered with the dramatic villain speech.”

Her smile flickered. Just for a second, but I caught it.

“No,” she said, recovering. “I’m bored of you. There’s a difference.”

“You followed me out here to make threats. That doesn’t sound like boredom.”

“I followed you,” she said, voice sickeningly sweet, “to give you an opportunity. Leave. Disappear on your own terms. I can arrange safe passage. Quiet exile. You could go back to Valen. Or wherever else takes in broken little things.”

“I’m not broken. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Her eyes lit up like I’d just given her exactly what she wanted. “Then you’ll be shattered properly. You think Cassian can protect you from everything? He’s still a prince beneath a crown he hasn’t earned. He can’t shield you from the court’s judgment—or mine.”

My stomach dropped, but I kept my voice level. “You’re not offering mercy. You’re cleaning house.”

“And you’re bleeding all over the marble,” she said with mock pity. “Don’t think no one sees it.”

She leaned in close enough that I could count her perfect eyelashes. “Cassian doesn’t need a mate. He needs a queen. And you’re not even a proper wolf anymore, are you, Omega? You’re something fragile. The kind of thing we bury under roses and move on from.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Oh, you should be.” Her whisper was soft as silk and twice as deadly. “Because unlike you, I don’t play with my food. If you interfere again—if you speak out of turn, or step into chambers where you don’t belong—I’ll make sure you disappear without a sound. The court won’t even ask. They’ll thank me.”

She turned to leave, cape swishing like she was auditioning for a period drama, but paused on the steps.

“I don’t have to lift a blade to destroy you,” she said without looking back. “I just have to wait.”

And then she was gone, leaving me standing there like an idiot in expensive clothes I didn’t choose, trying to figure out if I’d just been threatened or given a masterclass in psychological warfare.

Probably both.

My knees wanted to buckle, but I stayed upright out of pure spite. Because fuck her, and fuck her perfectly arranged threats, and fuck the horse she rode in on.

But as I watched her disappear down the corridor, one thought kept circling through my head:

She was right about one thing. I was bleeding all over their precious marble.