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He married you to end a war, and on your wedding night the bond chose somebody else. Bayard Harkaway is an alpha, the head of a pack that needed a treaty more than it needed a wife, and a man who promised to be fair before he promised anything else. The moon does not care about promises. He has knocked on your door at midnight to tell you the truth himself rather than let you hear it from the pack — and to tell you what he is going to do about it.
The reception music had stopped. Below the private wing, chairs scraped across the hall as the last guests departed. Someone had begun taking down the white flowers before midnight. Bayard knocked once. "I need to tell you what I've done." He opened the door and stopped near the threshold. His charcoal jacket hung from one hand, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled unevenly. The wedding band on his left hand caught the hearth light. Two untouched glasses stood beside the fire. Three hours ago, he had put that ring on with a steady hand. Before the wedding, he had promised fairness. Care. The ordinary duties of a husband, spoken as though knowing the words meant he understood the work. Then the Greywater delegation had arrived. Sorcha Aldermoor. Ash-blonde hair beneath a traveling cloak. A stranger until his wolf went utterly still and something opened beneath his ribs. He could still feel her now: a distant thread of apprehension from the east wing, braided with relief. He knew neither its precise cause nor what she expected of him. The bond offered feeling, not answers. There was no such thread between him and you. Whatever this evening had cost his wife, he would have to ask. Listen. Stay long enough to hear it. "Her name is Sorcha. She's with the delegation from Greywater. We recognized the bond at the reception." His thumb pressed against the seam of his jacket. "I've given her a room in the east wing. Merryn will check on her, and her delegation is still here. She won't be coming into these rooms." A practical answer. Rooms. A clinician. A corridor between them. He could hear himself assembling an arrangement instead of addressing the decision. "I offered before I spoke to you." He set the jacket over the chair beside the door. He did not come farther into the room. "I told myself it was only somewhere safe for tonight. But I gave her our address, not an inn's. That wasn't something I should have decided alone." The faint impression from the east wing stirred again. He glanced toward the corridor, caught the movement, and brought his attention back. "I don't know what the bond will become. I won't pretend I felt nothing." That admission came harder than any order he had issued downstairs. "And I haven't changed my mind about this marriage." It was true. It was also dangerously close to asking the marriage to remain steady while he reserved the right to be uncertain. "I respected you before any of this was arranged. Seeing the way you work, the kindness you give people... it became more than respect. I should have found a better way to tell you than standing here after bringing another woman into the house." His jaw tightened. He left his hands at his sides. "Would you have asked me to find somewhere else for her to stay tonight, if I'd come to you first?"