Chapter 3 Trophy On Display

• "Sit still," Riven said, "and don't speak unless I speak to you first."
• "I'm not a dog."
• "No." He fastened the last clasp on the collar himself, the same iron weight from the night before, colder now in the gray morning light. "A dog would obey."
• I said nothing. It felt like the closest thing to a victory I was going to get before noon.
• The feast hall was already loud when he walked me in, one hand at the small of my back, not quite gentle and not quite cruel either, just present, unmistakable, a claim in the shape of a touch. Long tables ran the length of the room, packed with Blackthorn wolves eating and drinking like the war had ended a year ago instead of a night. Every head turned when we entered. The noise didn't stop. It just changed shape, dropped into something lower, hungrier, aimed at me.
• "There he is," someone called. "Blackthorn's new pet."
• Riven didn't answer that. He led me to a seat at the high table, close enough to his own chair that no one in the hall could pretend I was anything but exactly what he'd named me last night. I sat because refusing would have meant a scene, and a scene would have meant I never got the chance I was waiting for.
• "Eat," Riven said, low, just for me.
• "I'm not hungry."
• "Eat anyway. You fall over from hunger in front of them and it makes me look weak. I won't have that."
• "Careful," I said. "Almost sounds like you care what they think of you."
• Something flickered across his face, gone before I could name it. "I care what they think of us," he said, and turned back to the hall before I could ask what that meant.
• "There is no us."
• "There is now. Whether either of us wanted it." He kept his voice low, meant only for me, though I could feel the weight of every eye in the hall still crawling over us both. "Last night proved that much."
• "Last night proved I bleed when you bite me. That's not the same as us."
• "Isn't it." He reached for his cup, didn't drink, just turned it slowly between two fingers like he needed something to do with his hands. "You felt it same as I did. Don't pretend otherwise. Not to me."
• "I'll pretend whatever keeps me breathing until I find a way to end you."
• I hadn't meant to say the last part out loud. It came out anyway, quiet, meant only for him, and for a moment something almost like respect crossed his face instead of anger.
• "At least you're honest," he said.
• "I don't have the luxury of being anything else."
• He didn't answer that. He turned back toward the hall, jaw tight, and I went back to picking at food I had no intention of eating.
• I picked at the food. Around us, wolves laughed too loud, drank too fast, threw glances my way that ranged from curious to openly hostile. A woman two seats down leaned toward her neighbor and didn't bother lowering her voice.
• "Ashgrove blood at our table," she said. "Never thought I'd live to see it."
• "Enjoy it while it lasts," the man beside her said. "I give it a month before the alpha's bored of him."
• "I'm not deaf," I said.
• The table went quiet for a beat, then broke into laughter, uglier this time. Riven's jaw tightened but he said nothing, and I understood the game then, understood it wasn't my place to speak, only to be spoken about, and something in my chest burned hotter than the collar ever could.
• It was the beta who ruined it. Cassian, someone called him, broad through the shoulders with a scar that split one eyebrow, the kind of man who mistook cruelty for confidence. He rose from his seat halfway down the table and crossed to where I sat, ignoring the way Riven's attention snapped instantly toward him.
• "Let's see it, then," Cassian said, and grabbed my jaw before I could pull back, turning my face side to side like he was inspecting livestock. "What's so special about Ashgrove stock that the alpha wants it warming his bed."
• "Get your hand off me."
• "Or what." His grip tightened, fingers digging into skin that was already bruised from the night before. "You'll bite? Go ahead. I hear you Ashgrove types have teeth."
• "You're drunk," I said, "and you're an idiot, and both of those things are about to cost you more than you think."
• "Big words for something wearing a collar."
• "Cassian." Riven's voice, quiet, dangerous, cutting through the noise of the hall like a blade through cloth. "Let go of him."
• "Just having a look, Alpha. No harm done."
• "Let go of him," Riven said again, "or I will remove the hand for you."
• Cassian laughed, too loud, the laugh of a man who'd had too much to drink and not enough sense to know when to stop. "You've gone soft since the war ended. Trading blood for a pretty face. My grandsire…"
• I did have teeth. I used them.
• He howled and reeled back, clutching his hand, blood welling where I'd broken skin, and for one bright, vicious second I felt more like myself than I had since the war started. Then the whole hall went still, that same terrible stillness from the victory hall, and I understood I'd just handed every wolf in the room a reason to end me before I ever got close enough to Riven to do what I'd promised myself I'd do.
• "You little…" Cassian lunged.
• He never reached me.
• Riven moved faster than I'd ever seen anything move, faster than should have been possible for something that size, and the sound of his palm connecting with Cassian's face cracked through the hall like a whip. Cassian dropped. Just dropped, boneless, stunned, blood already blooming across his split lip to match the wound on his hand.
• "Get up," Riven said. His voice had gone somewhere I hadn't heard it go before, flat and cold and absolutely final.
• Cassian didn't get up fast enough. Riven crouched over him, one hand fisted in the beta's collar, and hauled him half upright just to make sure every wolf in that hall had a clear line of sight.
• "Let me explain something," Riven said, loud enough now to carry to every corner of the hall. "This omega is mine. Not the pack's. Not yours. Mine. Ashgrove blood, Blackthorn collar, and every single one of you will keep your hands off what belongs to me, or you'll lose them. Am I understood?"
• Silence. Then a ragged chorus of yes, Alpha, dragged out of throats that clearly didn't want to give it.
• Riven dropped Cassian back to the floor like he weighed nothing and rose slowly, straightening his sleeve, and for one moment the whole hall held its breath waiting to see what he'd do next.
• He turned to me instead.
• I expected triumph. I expected the same bored, certain cruelty he'd worn in the victory hall the night before, the look of a man enjoying his own power. What I found instead, buried fast behind his eyes before anyone else could catch it, was something that looked almost like guilt, gone the second I recognized it, but not fast enough.
• Not fast enough at all.