Betrothed To The Alpha, My Soul Answered His Dearest Friend

"Seven days, Lady Elara. Seven days, and you still haven't approved the seating chart."

Matron Hilde slapped the parchment onto my desk. She was the oldest steward in House Draven, and she had never once smiled at me.

"I approved it this morning," I said. "You moved the Ironvale elders to the back row after I left."

Her lips thinned. "The Ironvale elders are Omegas. Alpha families sit in front."

"The Ironvale elders are my family." I picked up my quill and slid their names back to the second row. "If they sit behind the kitchen door, my father pulls his soldiers off your northern border before the vows are done. Would you like to explain that to Alpha Kael?"

Hilde stared at the ink like it had insulted her mother.

Then she snatched the chart back. "As you wish, future Lady of the Territory."

She said the title like it tasted bad.

I didn't care. Three years of this had taught me to keep my face smooth and my voice soft. I was the perfect Omega fiancée. I tasted the cakes. I picked the moonflowers. I sat through dinners where Draven warriors joked about Ironvale "breeding stock" while Kael laughed into his wine.

All for the treaty. All for peace.

All for him, if I was honest.

By midnight, my eyes burned. My assistant, Pip, a skinny Beta boy with ink on his fingers, held out a leather folder.

"The border agreement," he said. "Alpha Kael has to sign it before the Ironvale envoy arrives at dawn. If he doesn't, the whole wedding schedule falls apart."

"Then he'll sign it tonight."

"It's past midnight, my lady. He won't want visitors."

"I'm not a visitor, Pip." I tucked the folder under my arm. "I'm the woman he's marrying in a week."

---

Kael's private manor sat on the hill above the main keep. The gate guard straightened when he saw me.

"Lady Elara." His eyes slid sideways. "The Alpha isn't receiving anyone."

"This is treaty business."

"He gave strict orders."

"Then he can yell at me himself." I stepped past him.

The guard didn't stop me. He didn't follow me either.

That should have warned me.

The front hall was dark. But the garden doors stood open, and warm lantern light spilled across the stone path. I heard laughter first. Low. Rough. His.

Then a woman's voice, sweet as honey.

"You're terrible, Kael. What if someone sees?"

I froze behind the rose trellis.

Lois Marrow. The daughter of Kael's war captain. A pretty Alpha female with copper hair and a laugh that every man in the territory seemed to love.

She was sitting on the edge of the fountain. Kael stood between her knees. His hands were on her waist. His mouth was on her neck.

Right where a mating mark would go.

"Who's going to see?" Kael murmured against her skin. "Everyone's asleep. Even my little Omega."

Lois giggled. "Your little Omega works too hard. Hilde says she's been fighting about chairs all day."

"Elara likes to feel useful." He pulled back just enough to grin at her. "Let her plan the wedding. Let her smile at the elders. That's her job."

"And what's my job?"

"This." He kissed her. Hard. Slow. Like he had done it a hundred times before.

My fingers dug into the leather folder until the edge bit my palm.

I had kissed Kael four times in three years. Every time, he pulled away first. Every time, he said we should wait. He said he respected me. He said our bond should be sacred.

I had believed him.

Lois broke the kiss and touched his jaw. "Seven days, Kael. After that, she sleeps in your bed."

"She sleeps in the east wing," he said flatly. "That's already arranged."

My stomach dropped.

"And you?" Lois asked.

"I sleep wherever I want." He ran his thumb across her lower lip. "Usually here."

"Promise me she'll never get your mark."

Kael laughed. It wasn't a cruel laugh. It was easy. Careless. That was worse.

"Lois. It's a treaty. Ironvale gets peace. I get their grain and their soldiers. She gets a title." He pressed his forehead to hers. "You get me."

Something cracked inside my chest. Not loud. Just a quiet, ugly sound, like ice giving way under a boot.

I wanted to walk into that garden.

I wanted to throw the folder at his perfect face. I wanted to scream until every lantern shook. I wanted Lois to see me, and I wanted Kael to know exactly how long I had been standing there.

My feet didn't move.

Because I knew how it would go. Kael would sigh like I was a child. Lois would cry. By morning, the whole territory would say the Ironvale Omega attacked an Alpha female out of jealousy. My father's envoy would arrive to a scandal. And the border would burn.

I pressed my fist against my mouth.

Then I turned around and walked away.

---

The guard at the gate didn't meet my eyes.

"You knew," I said.

He swallowed. "My lady, it's not my place—"

"How long?"

Silence.

"How long?" I repeated, and my voice came out sharp enough to make him flinch.

"Since before the engagement," he whispered.

I laughed.

I actually laughed. Right there in the cold, with the folder shaking in my hands. The guard looked at me like I had lost my mind.

Maybe I had.

Three years. Three years of bending, of swallowing every insult, of telling my father that Kael was a good man underneath. Three years of waiting for him to look at me the way he had just looked at her.

He never would. He had never planned to.

Pip was waiting in my study when I got back. He jumped to his feet.

"Did he sign it?"

I set the folder on the desk. The edge was bent now. There was a smear of blood on the leather from where I'd crushed it.

"My lady, your hand—"

"Pip." I sat down slowly. "If an Omega broke a treaty engagement seven days before the wedding, what would happen?"

His face went pale. "You're joking."

"Answer me."

"The Draven council would call it a declaration of war." He swallowed hard. "Ironvale would lose the grain routes. Your father would lose the northern pass. And you…" He hesitated. "They'd say you shamed both houses. No Alpha would ever take you."

I stared at the blood on my palm.

Break the engagement, and my people starve.

Keep it, and I spend my whole life in the east wing while Kael sleeps by that fountain.

"Get some rest, Pip," I said quietly.

"What are you going to do?"

I didn't answer. I unfolded the border agreement and read the final clause again. The one written in my father's careful hand. The one I had never paid attention to before.

*Should the Draven heir dishonor the Ironvale bride before the vows, this alliance shall be void without penalty to Ironvale.*

Before the vows.

I had seven days.

And for the first time in three years, I knew exactly what I needed.

Proof.