“Dance?” I repeated, staring at Tiernan. “In front of *everyone*?”
His mouth curved. “Yes.”
“I barely know how to not trip over my own feet *walking*,” I hissed. “You want me to add music and an audience?”
“You have a wolf with predatory grace,” he said calmly. “You’ve been running the woods with trainees half the week. You can handle a few steps in a hall. Besides…” His eyes flicked toward the lower tables. “Dancing is the one arena where elementals and alphas can show off without breaking bones. Usually.”
“That last word is not reassuring.”
He leaned closer, his breath warm against my ear. “You want them to remember you as more than the girl who burned the yard,” he murmured. “This is one way. On your terms.”
Ashra purred. *We like the idea of making them watch us move for joy instead of fear.*
“You’re impossible,” I muttered.
“You like me,” he said.
I glared. “You keep saying that like you want me to argue.”
His eyes glinted. “Do you?”
My mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Annoying man.
“Besides,” he added, leaning back, voice returning to normal volume. “If we’re dancing, Elyra and Rhys can’t ask you to give a speech. You’d rather dance than talk in front of eight alphas, correct?”
I swallowed.
He knew exactly where to prod.
“I hate you,” I said.
His smile softened. “I know.”
He pushed back his chair and rose.
Conversations dipped, then surged again as wolves noticed Stormwake’s alpha standing. A few glanced around as if expecting some sort of announcement.
Instead, Tiernan turned to me and offered his hand.
“Kaia Thorn,” he said, voice carrying just enough to be heard by the nearest tables. “Will you dance with me?”
The hall seemed to inhale.
I felt every eye.
Every whispered *that’s her*.
My instinct screamed at me to curl in on myself. To duck my head. To pretend I hadn’t heard.
Ashra bristled. *We are not prey,* she growled. *Take his hand, Kaia.*
My fingers curled around my goblet so tightly my knuckles whitened.
Then I forced them to relax.
Stand, Nana had told me once. Let *them* be the ones who feel small.
I pushed my chair back and stood.
Tiernan’s hand waited.
I put mine in it.
Heat slid up my arm.
A murmur rippled through the hall.
Someone—Head Cook Tomas, I realized a second later—snapped his fingers at the musicians in the corner. The fiddle’s languid tune shifted, picking up into something smoother, a low, steady rhythm.
Tiernan led me toward the clear space in the center of the hall where, earlier, pups had chased each other between courses.
I walked like I was heading to an execution.
He squeezed my fingers. “Breathe,” he murmured. “You’ve stood in fire. This is just wood and eyes.”
“Eyes are worse,” I muttered.
He laughed softly.
We stopped at the center of the cleared space.
The musicians settled into a slow, rolling melody—something between a waltz and a pack circle dance. Couples were beginning to stand at other tables, sensing an excuse to shake off post-speech stiffness.
“Right hand here,” Tiernan said quietly.
He guided my right hand up to his shoulder.
It was solid and warm under my palm.
His left hand found my waist, fingers spreading lightly against the fabric of my dress. Not possessive. Not tentative. Just *there*.
My breath hitched.
His right hand laced with my left.
“Follow,” he said. “You don’t have to think too hard. Just…trust me.”
“Dangerous words,” I murmured.
His eyes met mine. “Then trust yourself,” he said. “You already know how to move.”
The music swelled.
He stepped.
I followed.
At first, it was awkward. I forgot which foot to use. The skirt tangled around my ankles. My hand on his shoulder felt like a foreign object.
He covered for my missteps with infuriating ease, shifting his weight, adjusting the angle of his palm at my waist, guiding without forcing.
Slowly, my body began to understand.
A step back, a slide, a turn.
His scent wrapped around me—storm and pine and faint smoke. The hall blurred at the edges. The hum of conversation faded into a low, background buzz.
“Stop staring at your feet,” he murmured. “They know what to do.”
“So says the man not wearing a dress,” I grumbled.
His mouth twitched.
“Look at me,” he said.
I did.
Mistake.
Up close, in this light, he was…too much.
The scar along his jaw. The faint crinkling at the corners of his eyes. The heavy fringe of dark lashes that should have looked ridiculous on someone so broad and dangerous.
His gaze held mine steadily, not demanding, not pleading.
Inviting.
“Better,” he said. “See? You’re not falling.”
“Yet,” I said.
He huffed a quiet laugh. “You are impossible.”
“You like me,” I shot back, surprising myself.
His smile flared, sudden and bright. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”
Heat curled low in my stomach.
Ashra rolled, delighted. *He admits it so easily. Good male.*
We turned, the hall spinning lazily around us.
As we moved, other couples joined.
Elyra and Rhys stepped onto the floor with the practiced grace of wolves who’d danced together for decades. Kellan grumbled his way through a set with a fierce-looking warrior woman from Frostfang. Even Brenna dragged a protesting Eren into the edges of the dance, stepping on his toes with obvious glee.
“I feel exposed,” I muttered as we passed the lower tables.
“Because you are,” Tiernan said calmly. “And surviving it will make every other kind of exposure easier.”
“I don’t like how you phrased that.”
He chuckled.
On our third pass near the omega section, I caught Nana Lysa watching us, eyes bright and wet, hand pressed to her mouth.
Brenna beamed at me over Eren’s shoulder, mouthing *you’re doing it*.
My throat tightened.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Tiernan murmured, cutting across my spiralling thoughts. “Tell me something else. Something that has nothing to do with rocks or fire or alphas.”
I frowned. “Like what?”
“Anything,” he said. “Your favorite river. The worst soup you’ve ever made. The first time you punched someone.”
I huffed. “That’s easy. Beta Corin’s son. I was thirteen. He tried to snap my towel when I was carrying boiling water.”
Tiernan’s hand tightened on my waist. “And?”
“I dumped the water on his boots on ‘accident’ and clocked him when he grabbed me.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “You punched a Beta’s son at thirteen,” he said. “In this pack.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re still alive.”
“Yes,” I said. “Barely. Nana hid me in the root cellar for two days. Corin spent a week yelling about respect. Rhys made me scrub the kitchen floors with a brush until my fingers bled.”
His expression darkened.
I shrugged one shoulder. “It was worth it.”
He exhaled slowly. “You’ve always had a spine,” he said quietly. “They just tried to wrap it in someone else’s chains.”
“I tried to break their fingers,” I said.
He laughed.
The music shifted into something a little faster.
We moved in closer.
My chest brushed his when we turned.
His breath hitched.
His fingers flexed on my waist.
The bond between us thrummed—warm, insistent, like a string being plucked.
Ashra purred, pressing nearer to the surface, curious.
“Careful,” I said under my breath, pulse racing. “We’re in public.”
“I know,” he murmured. “Doesn’t change that I want to kiss you.”
My heel caught.
I stumbled.
He steadied me, a startled chuckle escaping.
There was no mockery in it. Just genuine amusement at my reaction.
“You can’t just say things like that,” I hissed.
“Why not?”
“Because,” I snapped. “Because it…does things.”
His eyes darkened. “Good things?” he asked softly.
“Terrifying things,” I whispered.
He sobered.
“Then I’ll save the rest for when you’re ready to be terrified in private,” he said.
Heat flared under my skin.
“Who says I’ll ever be ready?” I muttered.
He smiled, small and real. “Who says I’ll ever stop hoping?”
We turned again.
At the edge of my awareness, I felt other eyes.
Not just pack.
Something…else.
A prickle along the back of my neck.
Ashra paused mid-purr.
*There,* she said. *Left. Balcony.*
My gaze flicked up.
The second-floor balcony was crowded with wolves who hadn’t found seats below or simply preferred the vantage point.
Most looked down with idle curiosity.
One pair of eyes did not.
They glowed faintly.
Not gold.
Not elemental-bright.
A pale, washed-out blue ringed with white.
My blood went cold.
The dream.
The wrong eyes.
The figure from the stones.
They were real.
And they were here.
*Easy,* Ashra warned, claws curling inward. *Don’t spook. Don’t burn.*
Tiernan felt my sudden tension.
“Kaia?” he murmured.
I forced my gaze back to his.
“Balcony,” I whispered, lips barely moving. “Far left. Blue eyes.”
He didn’t look.
His jaw tightened.
“Describe,” he said quietly.
“Average height,” I murmured. “Brown hair. Could be any wolf. Except…their eyes. Wrong. Like someone smeared frost over them and forgot to wipe it away.”
Ashra hummed, hackles rising. *They smell like old stones and empty houses.*
“They’re watching,” I added.
“Us?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Aggression?”
“No.” I swallowed. “Curiosity. Hunger. Like they’re trying to decide if we’re…worth the effort.”
His nostrils flared faintly as he drew in a slow breath.
“I don’t scent anything unusual,” he said. “Rian?”
Rian’s mental voice flickered along the link Tiernan had opened between us earlier in the day for training.
*Looking,* he said.
The song wound toward its end.
Tiernan spun me gently, presenting my back to his chest for the last notes, his hand firm at my waist, my palm in his.
From the outside, it probably looked graceful.
Inside, my heart hammered like a trapped thing.
As the final chord faded, wolves clapped politely. Others whistled. The tension shifted, diffusing into general movement as couples changed partners or drifted back to tables.
Tiernan bowed slightly, never taking his eyes off mine.
I dipped a curtsey so shallow it barely qualified, mostly so I wouldn’t trip on my own dress.
As we straightened, his voice brushed against my thoughts.
*Don’t turn,* he said. *Not yet. Let Rian do the scouting.*
*He’s in my head again,* I told Ashra.
*We like him there right now,* she said grimly. *He keeps you from leaping at blue eyes with no plan.*
Tiernan guided me back toward our seats.
I forced myself not to glance up again.
At the table, Brenna immediately leaned across Eren to hiss, “Who is the creepy balcony stalker and can I punch them?”
“You saw?” I asked under my breath.
“Everyone on this side of the hall saw,” she said. “They were staring so hard I thought their eyes might fall out. Very unsubtle. Very rude.”
Eren scowled. “They don’t smell like our pack,” he said. “But they’re in our colors.”
My skin crawled. “What?”
He nodded toward the balcony. “Second row. Third from the end. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Wearing Redwood colors. I don’t know his face.”
Rian slid into the seat on my other side, expression thoughtful.
“That’s because he’s not Redwood,” he said quietly. “He’s from the visiting Riverbend delegation. I saw him at the border when they arrived. Beta’s nephew, supposedly. Name’s Callen.”
“Supposedly?” I echoed.
“His papers check,” Rian said. “But his energy…” He shrugged one shoulder. “Feels off.”
Tiernan’s jaw flexed. “Elemental?” he asked.
“Not like Kaia,” Rian said. “Not like our stormstones. More…muted. Like someone poured water into the old blood to see how far they could dilute it without losing the spark.”
“Lovely,” I muttered. “So we have a stalker with bad eyes and questionable magic.”
“And interesting timing,” Tiernan added. “He shows up after weeks of border poking. He bleeds on our stones—”
“We don’t *know* that was him,” Elyra said quietly, having drifted closer under the guise of speaking with Frostfang’s alpha. Her eyes were cool, but worry threaded her scent.
Rian’s mouth twitched. “Yet.”
“The last thing we need,” Rhys said from her other side, voice low, “is accusing a guest of ritual sabotage without proof. The Summit would turn into a war council.”
“We can’t ignore it,” Tiernan said.
“We’re not,” Elyra said. “We watch. We listen. We let him think we don’t see him seeing us. The feast ends tonight. Tomorrow, half the alphas and their entourages will be on their way home. If he’s part of something larger, he may try to contact you again before he leaves.”
My stomach knotted. “In my dreams,” I said. “Or with…another fire.”
“We’ve strengthened the wards,” Elyra said. “The hall and your room both. He won’t slip in that way again so easily.”
Ashra snorted. *She underestimates old magic.*
“She’s doing her best,” I told her.
“That’s not enough,” Ashra replied. *Not for us. Not anymore.*
I rubbed my temple.
“If he tries to reach you,” Tiernan said quietly, “call me. Immediately. I don’t care if it’s in the middle of the night. I don’t care if I’m in the middle of a meeting. You pull on that bond so hard I wake up with bruises.”
Heat rushed to my face. “I told you not to pop into my head without invitation,” I reminded him.
“I’m not asking permission to use the bond to spy on your dreams,” he said. “I’m asking you to use it like a rope if you’re drowning.”
Ashra huffed. *We can swim.*
*We can pretend,* I said.
“Kaia?” Tiernan prompted.
I swallowed.
Old habits screamed *don’t rely on anyone. Don’t show weakness*.
New reality whispered *you already did. In the hall. And he came*.
“Fine,” I said gruffly. “If he shows up in my dreams again, I’ll…yank on your soul.”
His lips twitched. “I look forward to it.”
“Don’t sound so pleased,” I muttered.
Rian smirked. “Teen wolves,” he said. “So dramatic.”
“I’m seventeen,” I said.
“Exactly.” He stole my tart.
I swatted his hand.
The momentary levity eased the tension.
But the awareness of the watching eyes on the balcony never fully faded.
Even when I dared a quick glance up and found the spot empty, a chill lingered along my spine.
They were here.
They’d seen me dance.
They’d heard my Luna name me pack.
And they wanted something from me.
Ashra curled around the coil of unease.
*They think we’re theirs to claim,* she said.
*We’re not,* I replied fiercely.
She purred. *Not while stormboy breathes.*
Heat flared along the bond.
I didn’t know if Tiernan had heard.
I didn’t ask.
I just clung a little tighter to my goblet and reminded myself of the feel of his hand on my waist, the steadiness of his gaze, the way he’d put himself between me and fire without hesitation.
If blue eyes thought they could outstare a storm, they were about to be very disappointed.
---