Chapter 6

The Woman Without a Pack.

Nobody explained the whispering. I did not ask. Marcus put me in a small room off the main hall, told a woman named Petra to bring food, and left before I could raise the question again. Whatever his pack thought they knew, he was not handing out answers. I was too tired to go chase them down myself.

By morning the whispering had not stopped. Just moved further off, out of earshot, into corners.

A boy at breakfast stared at me too long. No older than fourteen. An older woman yanked him back by the shoulder, muttering something under her breath I could not catch. I finished my meal alone at the end of a long table nobody else picked.

I found Marcus in a back room, papers spread across a table wide enough to seat ten. He did not look up.

“I want work.”

That got his attention. “You do not have to earn a bed here.”

“Not asking permission. Telling you what I need.” I crossed the room, stood on the other side of the table. “Six years running a household bigger than this territory. Not sitting around in a borrowed room while your pack decides whether I am dangerous.”

He studied me the same slow way he had in that square two days back. “Ledgers, then. Supply counts. Nothing that touches border security.”

“Because you still do not trust me.”

“Because that is not how trust works with somebody I met yesterday.” He slid a stack of papers across the table. “Grain counts. Half do not match the storehouse totals.”

I took the stack without another word. Mostly because arguing would have meant admitting he had a point.

The ledgers were worse than he let on. Whoever kept them last rounded numbers instead of counting properly, which meant nothing added up and every gap took twice as long to trace. I worked through the afternoon at a desk near a window, ink staining the side of my hand by the second hour, the kind of stain that used to mean something when it showed up on my hands at Redthorn too. Marcus checked once, stood in the doorway long enough to watch me cross out an entire page of somebody else’s math.

“You are rewriting the whole thing.”

“It was wrong.”

“It was close enough.”

“Close enough gets a storehouse counted wrong in winter.” I did not look up. “Not doing sloppy work because nobody asked for careful before me.”

He did not answer right away. When I glanced up, something close to amusement crossed his face. Gone fast, same as before.

“You are stubborn.”

“You are controlling.”

“Have not told you what to do since you sat down.”

“You are standing in my doorway checking my work like I might set the place on fire.”

Almost a smile. He pushed off the doorframe and left without confirming or denying anything.

Three days in, the whispering finally turned into words I could catch.

Crossing the courtyard, two pack members stopped talking the second they noticed me. I kept walking. Caught the tail end anyway.

“half the council asking why he is harboring a Redthorn traitor at all. Alpha Renner sent a formal complaint yesterday”

I did not need to hear the rest. Found Marcus that evening in the same back room, same paperwork spread across the table, like he had not moved since I left him there hours earlier.

“Your allies are asking questions about me.”

He set down his pen. “They are.”

“You did not think that was worth mentioning.”

“Did not think it changed anything.” He leaned back. “Renner complained. Two other territories sent quieter versions of the same thing. None of it changes what I decided the day I found you in that square.”

Petra appeared in the doorway briefly, saw the two of us mid-conversation, and backed out again without a word. I noticed. Marcus did not seem to.

“It should. I am costing you something.”

“Costing me a handful of uncomfortable conversations. Not the same as costing me something that matters.” Plain, no weight behind it, like the math was simple even if I could not make myself believe it. “Had worse trades.”

“Why does none of this bother you the way it should?”

“Bothers me plenty.” His jaw tightened. “Do not like being told who I can and cannot let inside my own gates. Renner forgets himself sometimes.”

I sat down across from him without waiting to be asked. Standing suddenly felt like more effort than I had left. “You could send me somewhere else. Somewhere that would not cost you with your allies.”

“Could.” He held my eyes. “Have not decided that is what I want.”

Neither of us said anything for a while. The quiet sat different than it had two days earlier.

A knock broke it. One of his guards, a young man I recognized from gate patrol, stepped in holding a sealed message, wax stamped with a mark I knew too well.

“Alpha.” He held it out. “From Redthorn. Marked urgent.”

Marcus took it, broke the seal, read it once without a word. Whatever crossed his face told me more than the letter would.

“What does it say?”

He set it down, turned it toward me so I could read Damian’s handwriting myself.

He was demanding I be surrendered within three days, or Redthorn would treat it as an act of aggression against Marcus’s territory.

I read it twice, the way I had read the notice about my own bounty three days earlier, waiting for the words to sit differently the second time through. They did not. Damian’s handwriting had not changed since the last note he ever wrote me, back when it still ended with something other than a threat.

“Three days,” I said.

“Three days.” Marcus folded the letter back along its original creases, slow, like the care he put into it mattered even though the words inside it did not deserve it. “Renner will use this. So will the rest of them.”