Knotting His Rejected Breeder

Five days had hollowed out the great hall.

The long trestle tables that had groaned under the weight of visiting Alphas were gone, hauled back down to the storerooms alongside the heavy pine benches. The week-long din of iron boots, overlapping territorial disputes, and clattering pewter had vanished, leaving behind an echoing stretch of flagstone—and a single, small table near the hearth.

Seth sat there alone.

His breakfast had turned cold an hour ago. He didn’t care to touch it.

Across the room, two young servants worked in quiet synchronization, unhooking the last of the guest banners from the high rafters. One paused as a fringe of gold thread caught on the oak beam, carefully working it free before folding the velvet over his arm. Seth followed the movement listlessly before looking back down at his plate.

Five days since the foreign packs had packed their wagons and cleared out of Silvercrest.

Seth had stayed behind. Nobody had asked him to, but no one had thrown him out, either. Aurora hadn’t commanded him to leave, and in the quiet vacuum of the castle, that silence had felt enough like permission.

At least, it had on day two.

The soft, uneven whisper of slippers against stone announced her before she reached the eastern archway.

Aurora wore pale, faded blue—a dress with frayed hemline embroidery and none of the structure required for formal court. Her dark hair was pinned up haphazardly, slipping out at the nape of her neck. No silver combs. No carefully chosen clan colors designed to draw the eyes of an eligible suitor.

She had simply stopped trying.

Her gaze swept the length of the hall, lingering on the iron-studded front doors for a second too long.

She did it every morning. Seth had learned not to mention it.

A rider down the pass. A messenger. A scrap of parchment. Anything from the south.

Aurora crossed to the table. "You’re still here."

Seth looked up, his thumb running along the chipped rim of his wooden cup. "So are you."

"Unfortunately," she murmured, a dry, weary edge to her voice.

The corner of Seth’s mouth twitched upward.

She pulled out the heavy oak chair opposite him. Almost instantly, a servant slipped out from the pantry corridor to pour fresh tea. Aurora didn’t drink it. She picked up the small silver spoon, tapping it rhythmically against the porcelain rim.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

"You’ve been beating that cup for five minutes," Seth noted gently.

The spoon stopped mid-air. "I wasn’t."

"The tea is splashing onto your knuckles, Aurora."

She looked down, her fingers tightening around the silver handle before she set it down on the wood. "I like keeping my hands busy."

"I’ve noticed."

She offered a faint, fleeting smile that vanished before it reached her eyes.

A heavy quiet settled between them. It wasn’t the jagged, defensive silence of their first encounter. Five days of shared isolation had smoothed down the edge. Seth knew without asking that she hated honey in her tea, that she couldn’t sleep when the mountain winds kicked up from the east, and that she slipped out to the western gardens around four because the terrace shaded the worst of the heat.

Aurora knew he pushed himself through weapon drills at dawn to burn off restless energy, and that he’d stopped sweetening his morning brew because she’d once offhandedly complained about the cloying smell.

Neither had acknowledged the adjustments. They had simply adapted to each other like drafty windows finding their frame.

Seth tilted his head back. "Still watching the road?"

Aurora’s hand hovered over the tea saucer. Her chin came up, tight and guarded. "Who says I am?"

Seth gave a soft, dry exhale. "Don’t."

"I’m just sitting here, Seth."

"You haven’t looked at me once since you sat down," he said quietly. "Your eyes keep pulling back to the entrance."

Her shoulders dropped half an inch, a tiny, ragged breath escaping her chest. She turned her head toward the tall lancet windows, where the jagged peaks of the southern range cut into the gray sky.

"He should have reached the border by now," she said softly, her voice losing its edge.

Seth said nothing.

Three days had been the agreed deadline. Three days had passed, then four. Now five. No delegation. No banners on the horizon. No word from BloodMoon.

"He didn’t make any promises," Aurora added suddenly, as if defending an absent ghost.

"I know."

"Which means he owes Silvercrest nothing."

"Aurora," he murmured. "I know."

She turned sharply back to him, her knuckles pale against the armrests. "Then why are you sitting here watching me wait?"

The bluntness hit him squarely in the chest. Seth’s grip tightened around his cup. He considered brushing it off with a joke or making an excuse about his own horses needing rest.

Instead, he met her eyes directly. "Because I didn’t want you sitting here alone."

Aurora held his gaze. There was no anger left in her face—just a sudden, agonizing flicker of pity.

It cut worse than an insult.

Before either could speak, the heavy oak doors at the end of the hall groaned inward on their iron hinges. A palace guard stepped into the room, his muddy boots leaving dark prints against the scrubbed stone as he marched straight toward the high dais where King Vance and Queen Runa stood overseeing the estate ledgers.

Aurora was on her feet before the guard reached the steps.

The movement was so abrupt her chair skidded backward, screeching against the floorboards. Seth rose a second later, his pulse quickening in spite of himself.

The guard offered a brief bow and held out a folded parchment. The seal was stark: coarse black wax stamped with the jagged imprint of a running wolf.

Vance took the missive. He didn’t break the seal immediately; he merely stared at the symbol, his thumb tracing the impression.

The entire room seemed to draw inward. Runa leaned close to her husband’s shoulder, her hand resting light and tense against his forearm.

"BloodMoon," she whispered.

Vance cracked the wax with a sharp snap.

Aurora took two steps toward the dais. Seth stayed at her shoulder. Vance scanned the opening lines, his expression a wall of stone. He read down the middle of the page, paused, and then re-read the middle paragraph.

Something cold shifted behind his eyes—not shock, but the slow, calcifying settling of an insult.

Runa caught it immediately. "Vance? What is it?"

Slowly, Vance folded the parchment back along its creases. "Dane has taken a wife."

Aurora stopped cold.

Seth looked over at her. Her lips were parted, her eyes wide and blank, fixed entirely on her father’s face.

"Married?" her voice was a thin paper rasp.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!