"She, ah." The taller guard cleared his throat. "She asked for room service."

"At this hour?"

"She asked for a cheese board, a bottle of wine, a silk robe in ’champagne, exclusively,’ new pillows because the existing ones were, and I am quoting directly, ’an insult to anyone with a cervical spine,’ and a notary."

Gav blinked. "A notary."

"A notary, sir. She was very specific. She said she needed one for ’documents of a binding nature’ and that if Drakenfell’s legal system was as backwards as its pillow selection, she would draft the terms herself."

The shorter guard added, "She also asked us to rate her outfit. From one to ten. I gave her a seven. She hasn’t spoken to me since."

Gav stared at both of them.

"What did you give her?" he asked the taller one.

"Nine. I panicked."

Gav pushed the door open.

Guinevere Ashford was sitting cross-legged on the bed, wearing a silk robe that was decidedly cream and therefore close enough to champagne that she had apparently accepted it under protest. In her lap sat a leather folio. Color-coded tabs. At least eight pages visible. Her dark hair was down, and her hazel eyes found Gav the moment he entered with the sharpness of a woman who had been expecting him for the last hour and had used the time to prepare.

"You’re late," she said.

"I didn’t know I had an appointment."

"You didn’t. You had a window. It closed twenty minutes ago. I’m extending it as a courtesy because I can feel through the matebond that you’ve been crying in a hallway, and I find that both pathetic and endearing in equal measure."

Gav stopped walking. His jaw tightened.

She held up one hand, palm out. "Before you say anything confrontational, I want to establish some parameters."

"Parameters."

"Yes. Sit down. This will go faster if you’re comfortable, and I’ve already organized the agenda."

"There’s an agenda."

"Page two." She turned the folio around and held it up. The page was titled INITIAL TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT in calligraphy so precise it looked typeset. Below it, in bullet points, were sub-sections labeled MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS, PUBLIC CONDUCT, and EMOTIONAL BOUNDARIES.

Gav looked at the folio. Then at her. Then at the folio again.

"When did you write this?"

"Forty-five minutes ago."

He sat, because the alternative was standing while a woman he’d known for less than twelve hours presented a contract at him, and at least sitting gave him the illusion of control.

Guinevere set the folio between them, opened to page one, and began.

"I’m going to save us both a significant amount of time by telling you what I already know, and then you can tell me what I’ve gotten wrong, which will be very little." The look she gave him was condescending and amused in equal measure.

"You are in love with Serena Frostborne. Deeply, painfully, the kind that rewrites your entire personality. I can feel it through the matebond like a second heartbeat, and it is, frankly, obnoxious."

"You are mistaken." Gav’s face didn’t change when he said it.

Guinevere ignored him. "You also love Dexmon Drakenfell. Your best friend. The man whose mate you kissed in a temple while ancestors watched. You are carrying guilt about that the way pack mules carry bricks, which is to say badly and with visible strain."

"Are you done?"

"I’m on point two of seven."

"There are seven?"

"There were nine. I cut two for time." She turned a page. "Point three. You need a mate. A visible, public, confirmed mate who gives Dexmon a reason to trust you again and gives Serena a reason to stop feeling guilty about whatever she feels for you."

She paused. Let that land.

"Point four. I need protection. I assaulted the Crown Princess of Drakenfell in front of witnesses, destroyed property, and drew royal blood. Finnick will have me on trial before the week is out. Drakenfell is considering exile. I have burned every bridge I own and several I was borrowing."

"Your bridges weren’t borrowed. You stole them."

"Semantics." She waved a hand. "Point five. We are fated mates. Rejecting the matebond will cause you physical pain and possibly psychological damage."

Gav stared at her.

She held his gaze without flinching. "I’m the best option you have, Gavriel Sterling. You need a mate. I need an ally. We are already bonded by fate, which means the hard part is done. Everything else is logistics."

The silence stretched.

"You drew blood on our crown princess," he said. His voice was quiet. Controlled. The kind of controlled that preceded storms. "You stole her mother’s necklace. You threw a teacup at her collarbone. You chased Dexmon naked through Shadowclaw trying to bite him with a binder full of wedding invitations for a man you’d never spoken to."

"The binder was aspirational."

"The binder was psychotic."

"Vision boarding is a legitimate practice, Gavriel. My execution was aggressive, I’ll grant you that. The vision was sound."

He leaned forward. "Let me be very clear about something. You are my fated mate. I didn’t choose that. The Moon Goddess has a sense of humor that I do not appreciate."

"Noted."

"But here is what I do choose. If we do this, if we keep the matebond and play the part, there are conditions. These are mine. They are non-negotiable and they are permanent."

"I’m ready."

"One. You apologize to Serena. Fully. On your knees if necessary. You look her in the eyes and you tell her you are sorry for every single thing you did, and you mean it, Guinevere. I will know if you don’t."

She wrote it down.

"Two. The chaos stops. The binder, the schemes, the midnight sabotage, the nude pursuits. All of it. I am a Gamma in the middle of a war. I do not have the bandwidth to manage a mate who treats social interaction like a contact sport."

She tilted her head and considered this. "Agreed. Revised parameters for chaos. I will consult you before any major social operations."

"The word ’operations’ concerns me."

"It should. Continue."

"Three. You do not interfere with my friendship with Serena. You do not undermine it, weaponize it, or use it as leverage. I consider her family. If you make me choose between my mate and my family, you will lose. I promise you that."

Something flickered behind her eyes. For the first time since he’d walked in, her composure cracked by a fraction. A sliver of something honest moved across her face before she buried it.

"I understand what it’s like to be second to a woman who doesn’t know she’s competing," she said, and her voice was different. Quieter. Stripped of the performance. "I’ve been watching Finnick prioritize her for months. I know what that math looks like."

Gav studied her. Behind the binder, behind the calligraphy, behind the color-coded tabs and the champagne robe demands, he caught a glimpse of a person he had not been looking for. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

A woman who had spent her entire life fighting for attention in a family that gave it to everyone else first. A woman who had watched her cousin build a kingdom while she was handed a guest room and a title that meant nothing. A woman who had done terrible things because terrible things got people to look at her, and looking was the closest she had ever gotten to being valued.

Too bad. She was still the square root of evil and he did not soften.

"Four. If I find out you are scheming against Serena, against Dex, against Fin, or against anyone in my pack, I will break the matebond that same day. I will accept the pain. I have survived worse."

"You haven’t survived worse."

"I watched the woman I love tell me she’s happy I found my fated mate thirty minutes ago. Trust me, Guinevere. I have survived worse."

For three full seconds, Guinevere Ashford had no quip, deflection, or counter-argument prepared. The silence was its own kind of surrender.

"I have one condition," she said. "Only one."

"Name it."

"You give me a real chance." Her chin lifted. The vulnerability was brief, controlled, offered like a card played face-up because she had decided the only way to win this hand was to stop bluffing. "I know you love her. I’m asking you to let me exist in your life as more than a political arrangement. I’m asking for the possibility that one day, years from now, you might look at me and feel something that isn’t obligation."

The room was quiet.

"I can do that," Gav said. "The possibility. That’s fair."

She nodded once. Wrote something in the folio, signed the bottom of the page, and held the quill out to him.

Gav looked at the woman who had, in the span of forty-five minutes, built a legal framework for a fated matebond with color-coded tabs and a sub-section on emotional boundaries.

"You want me to sign a matebond contract."

"I want documentation. Verbal agreements are the refuge of the disorganized and invite ambiguity."

He signed.

"Wonderful." She closed the folio with a snap. "Now. My apology to Serena."

"When she’s ready."

"I can rehearse. I’ve prepared three versions. Version A is formal and diplomatic. Version B is emotional and personal. Version C involves tears, but I should warn you, the tears in Version C are manufactured and I can only sustain them for ninety seconds."

"Use Version B and make the tears real."

"I will try. I am emotionally capable of real tears, but they require a trigger. Do you have a sad story about a dog?"

Gav pressed both hands into his face.

Rook: Our mate is unhinged.

Gav: I know.

Rook: I think I like her.

Gav: You are also unhinged.

Gav stood.

He paused at the door.

"For what it’s worth," he said without turning around, "you’re smarter than I expected."

"I’m smarter than everyone expects. They see the binder and miss the brain."

"The binder was still psychotic."

"The binder was thorough. Goodnight, Gavriel."

He closed the door. The shorter guard looked at him.

"Seven was fair," Gav said. "She’s an eight on a technicality."