“She’s quiet, has impeccable manners. Reiyana insists she’s the best thing to happen to her since our ship docked. She’s in a delicate condition, did I tell you? You should’ve seen her crossing Issoirea, cousin, sick the entire time. Didn’t let go of the gunwale once. The healer sorted her out within the day. Andnow? She’sglowing. Four months along and still refuses to rest. Alarik has to play a nursemaid.”
“She needs the rest,” Alarik muttered, folding his arms.
Alexander barely heard him. His pulse pounded in his throat. The air thickened around him, too warm, too bright. His fingers had curled into fists at his sides before he realized it.
Kaelen turned to look past the market square. “They should be—ah. There they are.”
Alexander followed his gaze.
Two women stepped out from the shaded mouth of a narrow lane. Reiyana he recognized immediately—tall, radiant, dressed in seafoam silk. She laughed at something her companion said, one hand lifted to shield her eyes from the sun.
The second figure unravelled him completely.
She walked half a pace behind the princess, her movements more subdued. She limped slightly, favouring one leg. The sight struck him harder than any voice could have. That near-imperceptible hesitation before each step on uneven stones, the posture she held to protect the places that had been hurt.
No one else moved like that.
Her dress was simple: a soft blue muslin gown cinched neatly at the waist, the fabric clinging to her svelte form in the coastal breeze. No trailing silk or jewelled clasps, no desire to dazzle or draw attention. Her dark hair had been twisted into a tidy bun at her nape.
Blood rushed in his ears. Heart slammed against the walls of his chest.
His wife. His Omega.
The Alpha in him didn’t hesitate. It surged forward, a tide breaking through a dam. Pulse roared, vision tunnelled. The half-formed bond flared to life—jagged, aching, incomplete, as if even now, days later, it remembered the moment it almost sealed itself into permanence.
His fists clenched at his sides from the unbearable need to go to her, to grab her shoulders and say—what? He was sorry? He hadn’t known? He never wanted her to leave?
She stepped closer, still talking to Reiyana, unaware of the storm she was walking into. Then, as though sensing him, she looked up.
In that instant, the world narrowed.
She didn’t gasp or falter. Her eyes didn’t go wide with shock, nor did her lips part with his name, but he felt it all the same—the silent jolt, the unseen shudder inside her, the thread pulling taut between them. She took a step back. Justone.
The Alpha inside him roared. He moved without thinking, legs rapidly closing the space between them.
“JingYi—”
She didn’t flee, but she didn’t come to him either.Thatcut deeper than any blade.
Then, a man—an Alpha—strode forward and blocked his path, a sudden wall of sun-browned muscles and leather armour, a curved sword at the hip. His posture was calm but unmistakably ready, standing between him and the Omega he’d crossed the ocean to find.
His vision reddened. He barely registered Kaelen’s warning call or the sharp breath Alarik drew behind him. The square seemed to drain of sound, of presence, of everything but the figure positioned between him and his mate.
A jagged, shameful thought cut through the red haze: This man had been standing whereheshould have been.
A low sound rumbled from him. “Step aside.”
“I will not,” the soldier replied, voice level and unshaken. “I am sworn to protect Tazahrina Reiyana. That includes members of her household.”
A possessive snarl coiled in his throat. It didn’t matter who the Alpha was—soldier, noble, stranger. All that mattered wasthat JingYi stood behind the man, silent and pale and not reaching for Alexander.
His next words came through clenched teeth. “I will not ask again.”
The man’s hand drifted, calm as dusk, to the hilt of his blade. Something primal and volatile surged, distilled into pure, driving instinct, and he reached for his own blade.
But then?—
“Stop.”