The note from Sera still sat on the desk when Ann pushed herself to her feet.
Ironclad. No loopholes. No cracks.
It should have reassured her, but the words only echoed against the pressure already crowding her ribs. Every victory in council felt smaller than the weight waiting outside it.
So? Maeve prodded. Still think giving yourself away piece by piece is a clever strategy?
Ann pinched the bridge of her nose. "It bought us time."
Time for what? Maeve asked, sharp. To bleed slower?
"I don't bleed," Ann muttered, "Not where they can see at least."
Yet, Maeve said darkly, "I doubt they've even started with their favourite schemes yet, I suppose we'll have to wait and see when they're going to start using their own claws instead of their words."
"Doubtful…the majority of them are too cowardly for that. They blanch at the slightest sign of irritation from Adam, imagine how they would behave with him clutching their throats with the murderous rage in his eyes."
"Mmmm my favourite image of Alpha boy..."
"Behave." Ann snorted.
"Never."
The walls were already beginning to feel claustrophobic, and Ann needed air. She crossed the hall and stepped out through the side doors that opened onto her mother's gardens.
The shift in atmosphere hit her immediately.
The private gardens were quiet, the kind of quiet Ann rarely found inside the palace. The scent of lavender drifted in the air, roses climbed untamed across their trellises and the gravel crunched under her shoes, each step louder than she liked and the absent footsteps of Adam at her side left an ache in her heart that she couldn't let go of.
For once though, she let herself breathe fora few moments without the threat of lists or ledgers at her back.
Maeve stretched inside her mind, content.
"Finally. A walk without silk-wrapped parasites breathing down your neck."
"Don't jinx it," Ann murmured, trailing her fingers across the hedge as she turned down the rose path.
She didn't notice the shadow at first...just a slight shift of the air, and the prickle on the back of her neck.
Ann slowed, a slight frown settling on her brows as she focused her attention on the path ahead of her that curved toward the shaded arch of an old oak.
Her hand brushed against the stone balustrade, and she left it there a moment longer than necessary to steady herself as a sense of foreboding fell over her.
Maeve's heightened senses kicked in and picked up what hers were too slow to, a snarl of fury reverberating through her bones.
"ANN!" Maeve's panicked roar filled her head and the raw emotion chilled her to the bone
She'd meant this to be a rare moment of peace. She should have known better.
The shadow detached itself before she fully saw it., a hood pulled down low and the flash of a blade.He was fast. Too fast.
"Guards!" Her cry broke into a gasp as steel cut through the air towards her. She twisted, the knife slicing through a section of her dress instead of opening a deep flesh wound there, but the pain bit along her side anyway. It was just a shallow wound, but deep enough to send fire racing up her ribcage.
Then another blade arced through the air towards her.
"Where the fuck are the guards?!" Maeve screamed in her head furiously.
Ann let out a cry of frustration as she tried to avoid the blade, but her instincts and reactions were too slow in her condition.
This time the assassin's blade caught her sleeve, ripping through more fabric as he drove her back relentlessly against the stone edge of the fountain. Pain radiated up her arm and she bit back a sob as she tried to shove him backward to throw him off balance.
But it did nothing to slow him. He was far stronger, pressing forward with his attacks with a deadly focus.
Maeve snarled, sharp and vicious.
For fuck sake Ann!! Do something!!! Rip him apart or at least make him regret choosing this over a nap! We're not fucking dancing with the twat! I'd do it myself but the pups…!
"I'm fucking trying," Ann hissed through clenched teeth, twisting against the weight pinning her. Her body wasn't what it had been before the pregnancy. Her balance had shifted and her strength seemed to have disappeared.
She bit back another sob of frustration as her heel slipped on wet stone. For a terrifying second the knife came closer. Too close.
Then a second shadow exploded into her line of sight and the assassin was gone in a blur of motion. He was torn away and slammed into the gravel hard enough to spray dirt across a wide area.
A savage growl full of fury ripped through the air, deep and primal, shaking the very foundations of the fountain that Ann was slowly pulling herself up on.
She turned in wide eyed shock, half expecting to see Adam but when her eyes landed on the man that had saved her, her heart almost stopped in disbelief.
Brad..
His wolf was evident on the surface of his face, eyes burning gold and his deadly teeth bared as he pinned the assassin. Brad's hands closed on the man's throat, his claws breaking skin to plunge deeply through the assassin's neck as he choked the air from his lungs.
The struggle was ended quickly and brutally. A single wrench of his hands, a menacing snarl followed by a wet crack, and then…
Silence.
Ann stood frozen, her heart hammering wildly as Brad let the body drop. For a few seconds, his chest heaved like he hadn't quite pulled himself fully back from the edge of the shift. Then he turned, his wolf's bright gaze locking onto her.
"You're bleeding," he said, his voice rougher that told her his wolf was still close.
Ann glanced at her sleeve as she moved her hand to explore the wound on her side.
They were both fairly shallow cuts, although the one on her side might need a few stitches.
Her heart however, was another matter entirely.
She forced her heart to slow as the pups in her belly emitted a flurry of movement, sensing that something wasn't right.
"I'm fine." she forced out finally.
Maeve snorted.
"Fine? Fucking fine?! That bastard knife was one twitch away from gutting us. Next time, let's call it what it is: alive by pure luck and the grace of the goddess. Not. Fucking. Fine."
Brad stepped closer, scanning the trees as if more threats might leap from the shadows. His presence was almost overwhelming as he allowed his Alpha aura to ripple outwards from him, dominating the area around him in case of further attackers..
Ann lifted her chin against his aura. She could allow Maeve to assert her own dominance, but she didn't want to push that confrontation unless absolutely necessary.
"I wasn't expecting you to visit so soon." she said coolly.
His jaw clenched.
"I wasn't planning on it either. But as soon as we heard that Adam had left you alone, my wolf…" He shook his head, his eyes flashing, "He wouldn't let me stay away. Not with him convinced that you were left vulnerable like this."
"Vulnerable," Maeve echoed dryly. "Is he sure that he doesn't mean 'while there's no Adam to glare at me and put me in my place while I make moon eyes at you.'
Ann ignored Maeve. She also ignored the insistent pull of Brad's wolf, the part of him that still thought she was his. Once, that bond had been hers too, but it wasn't anymore.
The only thing she felt for him now was a kind of pity, sharp and careful, because it wasn't his wolf's fault that their bond had been stolen from him and it wasn't Brad's fault that his wolf refused to release what was gone.
"You shouldn't even be in the palace gardens without clearing it first," she said her tone deliberately even. "If my guards had seen you before I did, we might've had two bodies on the ground instead of one."
His mouth tightened, but he bowed his head.
"Noted."
"Still," Ann added, forcing civility into the space between them, "Thank you. You kept me alive."
Something in his gaze softened, his wolf pushing against his restraint.
"You know that we'll always protect you when we can. Always."
Maeve groaned inwardly.
"Always." She groaned , filling Ann's head with vomiting noises, "Goddess save me from lovesick wolves. Next he'll start quoting poetry. If you had cut Brad's dick off like I suggested then he would probably be a little more wary of us."
Always. That one word was heavy, too heavy and if Adam heard that? It was as good as signing his own death warrant.
She didn't want this and she certainly didn't need it on top of everything else.
Ann stepped back, putting space between her past that was trying its hardest to force its way back in.
"Report the body to the captains and have it taken for examination. With any luck there'll be a mark that we can use for identification. Maybe we'll learn who sent him."
Brad hesitated.
He almost said something else…she saw it, the start of it…but it never came and he nodded instead.
Ann watched him in silence as he dragged the corpse easily as if it weighed nothing, leaving a dark trail in the gravel.
Ann stood by the fountain, sleeve damp with blood and her breath coming steady again but only because she forced it to.
Maeve was the first to speak.
"He still thinks you're his. Someone should tattoo 'rejected' on his forehead so he gets the hint."
"I know," Ann whispered. Her gaze lingered on the blood spattered roses, already curling at the edges. "But distance is all I can give him."