Chapter 5

White jacket. Straight posture. Completely out of place among the noise.

He glanced over through the crowd and his eyes settled on me with no particular expression.

I looked away quickly and focused back on the game.

My brother and I worked well together. I rode hard, leaned low, and swung my stick in a clean arc that sent the ball through the goal.

The crowd cheered.

The person behind me kept his eyes on me the whole time, but I didn't look back.

Then something happened over in his row.

One of the attendants spilled a few drops of tea while pouring. Dorian, who normally let small things like that pass without comment, actually said something. The attendant flinched and kept apologizing.

I glanced over without meaning to.

Dorian had one finger tapping the table. Not fast. Just steady.

He looked irritated.

People moved between us and blocked my view.

I went alone to the lakeside pavilion after the event.

The water was still. Mist clung to the far hills. The willows on the bank trailed into the surface.

I was enjoying the quiet when someone arrived and ended it.

I didn't know what Dorian was doing here either.

Rain had started while I was walking — light and quick.

He came into the pavilion and folded his umbrella.

"Congratulations on winning today."

"Name something you want, Ivy. I'll give it to you."

This wasn't the first time Dorian had asked me that.

In my past life, on the second year after we were Bonded, he asked it at my birthday celebration.

"What do you want, Ivy?"

I had everything anyone could see from the outside. Status, security, and what everyone called a good Mate Bond.

But I had one real want.

I asked him, carefully, "Could you come to me more often? Maybe five times a month. Four. Even three would be enough."

The room was quiet. He looked at me without any change in his face.

"An Alpha shouldn't be controlled by his Mate Bond. You're a reasonable person, Ivy. I'd expect you to understand that."

He had made his point. I said nothing more.

That birthday, he gave me many things. Jewelry, gifts from across the territory.

And then he kept to the same two days each month, same as always. Never enough for me to carry a pup.

Now the rain was still falling. The pavilion was quiet except for the sound of it.

I shook my head. "There's nothing I want from you."

He turned something over in his hand and asked again. "What if I insisted you pick one thing?"

I thought about it.

"Then I'd ask for peace in the territory and safety across the borders."

Dorian gave a short, dry sound that might have been a laugh. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small ring — gold, with a carved chain-link pattern around the band.

"For you."

I didn't want it.

But he set it down and left before I could push it back. He walked out into the rain without looking back.

He seemed annoyed again.

Annoyed enough that he didn't notice I had no umbrella.

After he left, someone else came into the pavilion.

It was Cain Wyndham. He was bundled in a thick jacket even though it was spring.

He picked up the ring Dorian had left.

"I'll return this to my brother for you."

He tucked it away, then tilted his umbrella so most of it covered me.

"Thank you for offering the signet ring at the gathering," he said. "But you shouldn't have chosen me. I've been sick my whole life. I'll die early. I'm not a good match for you."

I remembered what I knew from my past life.

I didn't find out until many years later that Cain had loved me. By then, I had already fallen out with Dorian and was stuck in my wing alone. Everyone kept their distance.

Except Cain. Every time he came to Wyndham Manor, he always stopped by my wing. Even when I refused to see him, he would bow to the closed door and say good morning through it.

That winter, it was Cain who arranged for heating to be brought to my room.

When my brother was badly hurt on the northern border, it was Cain who went up there himself to bring back medical supplies.

He never said it. But I knew.

He was the Alpha Heir's younger brother. The Pack healer he went to for his own illness refused to treat him effectively — he couldn't heal himself.

Cain died in the eighth year of Dorian's reign.

Before he died, he came to see me one last time. He was wearing the deep burgundy jacket I had once mentioned I liked on him.

He bowed as he always did. Nothing unusual.

The courtyard had white flowers on the tree. The scent moved through the air.

He turned to leave.

I stopped him without speaking, just the shape of the words on my lips: "Next life?"

He read it. He blinked.

Then he smiled — the kind that made the tree and the afternoon both feel like too much.

"Yes."

Now he stood in the rain, face slightly flushed, my question hanging between us.

He didn't deny it. He just stepped back and repeated, "I'll die early. I really am not a good match."

I didn't press him. I told him simply: "I heard the Alpha King is planning a Mate Selection Gathering for the pack heirs soon. If you put my name forward and he asks my opinion, I'll say yes."

"I'm only giving you this one chance. What you do with it is up to you."