To heal a Rogue

LYSANDER

Just as intimate. Just as profound. The healer felt what the Alpha felt. They shared strength, shared pain, shared purpose. I am certain we all know the tale of the White Lord and the Fair Maiden.”

The presiding elder stroked his beard, his expression distant. ”The healer who saved the White Lord from the wasting sickness of rot. They became bound. When he went to war, she felt every blow he took as if it struck her own flesh.”

”Precisely,” Bradley confirmed.

Edelina’s eyes narrowed when everyone seemed to be buying it. ”What exactly are you implying, High Beta? That the breeder is bound to Lysander like some legendary consort? That she is his equal? Let us not disrupt history for our agenda. Healer Muna, Goddess, rest her soul, deserves better than this.”

I turned to look at Bradley, and something in his expression told me he understood exactly what he’d just handed me, even if he hadn’t fully intended to hand me quite this much. He’d been grasping at straws, trying to protect his future King with whatever half-remembered legend he could dredge up on the spot. But he’d given me something solid, something I could actually build on, and I wasn’t about to let it go to waste, however uncomfortable it felt to use it in a room like this.

And even though I had not wanted to call it out like this, even though I had wanted to keep Bonnie’s status private, to protect her from the politics of the court, Edelina wouldn’t let this rest regardless. She’d twist whatever I said into a weapon eventually. But protecting Bonnie came first. Everything else could wait.

And it was perfect, really. Title mattered more than almost anything in this part of the world, and stripping the breeder mark off Bonnie now, publicly, permanently, would keep her a full step ahead of whatever Edelina was actually planning against her. It would elevate her above the reach of Edelina’s vengeance, and I could keep her safe.

Fia’s words came back to me, clear and steady.

”A healer of legend returns to this world, and the very first thing she does is save a regent, soon to be named Alpha King, a man who supposedly condemned her to a fate worse than death only minutes earlier. If that isn’t the goddess herself backing your claim to that throne, I don’t know what is. Turn the narrative in her favor.”

I could use that. I could turn the story in her favor. Propaganda, Fia had called it. Or simply truth, wrapped in the packaging the court would accept.

I sighed, letting the sound carry the weight of resignation, of secrets reluctantly revealed.

”Bradley is implying correctly,” I announced, my voice carrying to every corner of the chamber. ”Not only are Bonnie and I connected as healer and Alpha. She is my mate.”

The gasp that followed was like a physical force, a wave of shock that rippled through the assembled nobles. Elder Vane’s hands dropped to the table before him. Bradley’s eyes widened, though he covered it quickly. And Edelina went very, very still.

”The goddess has blessed this union,” I continued, pressing my advantage while they were reeling. ”It seems those who stand against the natural order of things, who seek to disrupt what Selene herself has ordained, are making moves behind the scenes to stop what is destined. It does make you wonder, does it not? Why would anyone oppose a bond sanctified by the source itself unless they feared the power it represents?”

I turned my gaze to Edelina and gave her a mocking smile, the expression feeling strange on a face that had known only rage and grief this day.

She recovered quickly, her composure snapping back into place like a mask sliding into place. ”Mates? Out of the blue? Are we supposed to believe that you simply discovered this now, after she has committed treason and attempted regicide?”

”I can be tested,” I replied calmly. ”The Spiritual Elder can be called upon. Her loyalties are with our Lady Selene, not with me. She can verify the bond. She can confirm what I say.”

I watched Edelina’s jaw tighten, watched the muscle jump beneath her skin. She knew as well as I did that the Spiritual Elder would not lie. If I claimed the bond, and if I was not afraid of her showing up to confirm it, the Elder would sense the truth of it. The spiritual connection between mates was not something that could be faked, not to one who served the goddess directly.

Edelina sat back down, her movements controlled and deliberate. ”If the healer is not punished,” she said, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, ”what message would that send to the kingdom? Can anyone assault a prince and walk free? That the laws which bind us all do not apply to those who could one day share the Regent’s bed?”

I leaned forward in my chair, resting my elbows on my knees, letting my own voice drop to match hers. ”In the grand scheme of hierarchy, a sitting queen matters more than some prince. The retainers who died were under my protection. Johann violated that protection. He acted against my explicit orders. If we are speaking of messages, Your Majesty, what message does it send when a prince can defy the Regent with impunity? When he can murder men who were promised clemency?”

Edelina’s eyes went bloodshot, the red spreading through the whites like ink in water. Her hands gripped the arms of her chair until her knuckles turned white. ”I do agree,” she hissed. ”A sitting queen matters more than a prince. But isn’t Amaranthine your mate? She was betrothed to the throne after all, and that throne would be yours. Knowing that...the sitting queen, should you take the throne... it has to be her.”

I had forgotten about this. In the chaos, in the blood, in the desperate scramble to save Bonnie from the consequences of her rage and mine, I had forgotten the political reality that had been arranged since my uncle’s switch on who would sit the throne.

I opened my mouth to respond, to find some way out of this snare Edelina had so neatly closed around my throat, and I found nothing. It had trapped me as thoroughly as it had saved Bonnie.

Edelina smiled, and this time the expression reached her eyes. They were red and wet and triumphant.

”So,” she purred, settling back into her chair like a cat who has cornered its prey. ”Which is it?”