After My Mate Chose His Mistress

The fourth treatment left me too weak to walk.

Maren had warned me. She'd said the worst would come after the initial purge, when my body started fighting the cure as hard as it had fought the disease. She was right. My wolf was thrashing inside me, confused and panicked, unable to tell the difference between poison and healing.

I spent three days in bed, drifting in and out of consciousness. Winifred sat with me during the worst of it, her hand cool on my forehead, her presence steady and unshakable. She didn't tell me it would be okay. She just stayed.

On the fourth morning, I woke to find someone else in the hallway outside my door.

I heard him before I saw him—the low, rhythmic sound of breathing, controlled and even. Not sleeping. Waiting.

I pushed myself upright, my body protesting every movement, and called out softly. "Hello?"

The breathing stopped.

A moment later, the door opened.

He was tall. That was the first thing I noticed. Broad-shouldered, with dark hair and eyes that were almost black in the dim light. He wore simple clothes—jeans, a dark sweater—but there was something about the way he held himself that made the air feel heavier. Authority. Not performed. Just present.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

His voice was low, unhurried. The kind of voice that didn't need to be raised to be heard.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He hesitated, just for a second, and I saw something flicker across his face. Something I couldn't name.

"Gael," he said. "Winifred asked me to keep watch while you're recovering."

I blinked. "You've been sitting out there all night?"

"Yes."

No apology. No explanation. Just yes.

I didn't know what to say to that.

He stepped back, giving me space. "I'll be downstairs if you need anything."

And then he was gone.

---

I asked Winifred about him that afternoon.

She smiled—just slightly—and set down her tea. "Gael is my godson. Lycan Prince of the Ironveil bloodline. I trust him with my life. And now, I'm trusting him with yours."

"A prince," I said slowly.

"Don't let the title fool you," Winifred said. "He's not like most royals. He doesn't perform. He just is."

I thought about the way he'd stood in my doorway. The quiet. The stillness.

"Why is he here?" I asked.

Winifred's expression shifted, just slightly. "Because you're vulnerable right now. And because I asked him to make sure no one—especially Elias—gets anywhere near you."

I looked down at my hands.

"Elias doesn't know where I am," I said.

Winifred's smile was cold. "He will. Eventually. And when he does, Gael will be ready."

---

Gael didn't announce himself.

He was just… there.

In the hallway outside my room at night. In the chair by the window in the morning. Walking the perimeter of the compound at dawn. I never asked him to stay close. He just did.

On the sixth day, I was strong enough to walk outside.

The garden at Silvercrest was small, tucked behind the main house, with stone pathways and beds of winter herbs that somehow still smelled green despite the frost. I sat on a bench near the back wall, wrapped in a blanket, and let the cold air fill my lungs.

I didn't hear him approach.

"You like gardens," Gael said quietly.

I turned. He was standing a few feet away, hands in his pockets, his expression unreadable.

"I used to," I said. "My mother had one. She grew rosemary and lavender. She said they helped her think."

He nodded slowly. "Do they help you?"

I looked back at the herb beds. "I don't know yet."

He didn't say anything else. He just sat down on the other end of the bench, close enough that I could feel his presence but far enough that I didn't feel crowded.

We sat there for a long time, neither of us speaking.

It was the first time in months I'd felt anything close to peace.

---

The conversations started small.

He brought me tea one evening—chamomile, without asking—and set it on the table beside my bed. I didn't drink it. The next night, he brought it again. Still didn't ask. Still didn't comment when I left it untouched.

On the third night, I drank it.

He noticed. I could tell by the way his shoulders relaxed, just slightly, when he saw the empty cup.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

He nodded. "You're welcome."

Then he sat down in the chair by the window, the way he always did, and pulled out a book.

"What are you reading?" I asked.

He glanced up, surprised. "History. Lycan bloodline records."

"Sounds boring."

His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. "It is."

I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. "Why do you read it, then?"

"Because someone has to remember," he said simply.

I thought about that.

"What do you want to remember?" I asked.

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Everything," he said.

---

Maren cleared me for light activity after two weeks.

My wolf was still weak, but she was there—present, aware, no longer slipping away from me in the dark. I could feel her stirring when I walked outside, curious and cautious, like someone testing the ground after a long fall.

Gael adjusted his morning run.

I didn't notice at first. But on the third morning, I realized his route now passed directly through the garden. He didn't stop. Didn't wave. Just ran past, steady and unhurried, and kept going.

I asked him about it that night.

"You changed your route," I said.

He looked up from his book. "Yes."

"Why?"

He set the book down, his expression unreadable.

"Because you mentioned you liked the garden," he said quietly. "And I thought you might like the company. Even at a distance."

I stared at him.

He didn't look away.

"You don't have to do that," I said.

His voice was steady. "I know."

---

Somewhere far south, Shadowvale was collapsing.

Winifred told me in pieces, over tea, her tone calm and clinical.

The first supply chain had been severed within forty-eight hours of my arrival. Then the warrior training pacts. Then the trade agreements. One by one, every Lycan-backed alliance that had kept Shadowvale functional was quietly, methodically dismantled.

Elias didn't know who was doing it. Not at first.

But Rowan figured it out.

"This is Lycan-tier destruction," he'd told Elias, according to Winifred's sources. "Someone with royal authority has decided your pack needs to cease to exist."

I thought about Elias standing in his office, watching everything he'd built crumble, and felt absolutely nothing.

Winifred set down her teacup and looked at me.

"Do you want me to stop?" she asked.

I met her gaze.

"No," I said.

She smiled.