(Nyx POV)
The problem with being "the people's queen" is the people.
Also, the cameras and microphones, and the way my wolf wants to break every lens that points at our mark.
"Ready?" Cassian asked, voice calm, boots echoing off the concrete. We were three levels below the hospital, in a tunnel. Fluorescents flickered overhead.
"Define ready," I said, adjusting the sling on my arm. I'd swapped the hospital gown for black cargos, a fitted tee, and a jacket that hid a thigh sheath. They'd tried to take my weapons. They'd failed. Again.
Dorian was at my shoulder, heat and threat wrapped in a suit. He'd dressed while I stubbornly refused to.
"Ready: you keep your head down and let me run point," he said without looking at me.
"Pass," I said. "I like my head where it is. Attached to my decision-making."
"Nyx."
"Your Majesty."
Cassian made a choked sound like a man trying not to laugh in church. "Save the marital bliss for the car," he said, then pointed to a wall map. "We go out here." He tapped a red circle. "Loading dock. SUVs ready. Secondary decoy route along the east sewer. Press has the front and side entrances choked."
"I can hear them from here." The noise was a hive above us—chanting, questions, the metallic clatter of barriers being rattled by a hundred curious hands.
Cassian's eyes flicked to my neck. "You want a scarf?"
"No," I said, then thought about it. The new mark pulsed warm beneath my collarbone, the skin tender and the shape forming. "Fine. Something black."
Without a word, Dorian shrugged out of his jacket and draped it around my shoulders, the fabric swallowing me whole. His scent wrapped me. My wolf was practically panting.
"Don't," I warned her.
I didn't say anything, Kelly purred. I'm just… appreciating craftsmanship.
Cassian handed me a ball cap. "This helps too. Low angle kills the bite shot."
I took it and pulled the brim down. The mirror on a utility locker said I looked like a mercenary who'd robbed a royal closet. Accurate.
We moved into military formation, and now I can relate to this, except I was used to running points.
Two royals up front. Cassian, me, Dorian in the middle. Two more behind. Our boots slapped in rhythm; our hand signals snapped between us—left, slow, eyes up. Dorian's signals were military-clean; mine were Blades-fast. We kept accidentally issuing contradictory orders due to a difference in our styles. It felt like dancing with a man who couldn't decide if he wanted to lead or defer.
At the final door, Cassian pressed two fingers to his ear, issuing commands before we exited.
"Wall-to-wall," came Rafe's voice. "We've got press, priests, and a small choir of aunties with homemade signs. One says Bite Me Next, Your Majesty. Not sure if that's a threat."
"It's aspirational marketing," I muttered.
A humorless huff from Dorian. Stay behind me, he pushed through the bond.
In your dreams.
Hourly.
Cassian keyed the panel. The service door whined open to a wedge of daylight and a roar that hit like surf.
The world exploded into noise. I rolled my eyes. "What's the point of this secret tunnel if it's not a secret?"
Flashes strobed. Voices tangled into a single desperate note:
"Your Majesty! Is it true—"
"Princess Liora says—"
"Is the assassin pregnant—"
"Queen Nyx! Over here—"
"Show us the mark—"
"People's queen! People's queen!"
The chant rolled over me.
I kept my chin down, Dorian's jacket tight around my shoulders. Cameras hunting the bite; enemies' eyes, Liora's supporters, hunting weak points.
"Nyx," someone screamed, voice cracking with sincerity. "Thank you for saving him!"
I glanced up on instinct. A girl on a barricade was crying and smiling simultaneously, a homemade poster trembling in her hands: A Soldier Saved Our King. A cartoon crown over a wolf's head. A knife drawn like a halo.
My chest did something complicated.
A priest elbowed his way into the gap ahead, robe flaring, microphone glinting. "King Dorian," he boomed, live-broadcast smooth. "Does the bond violate the sacred order? Do you repent?"
Dorian didn't break stride. "I repent nothing."
The priest stuttered, because that's not in any liturgy he knows. "But—Prophecy—"
"Prophecy was fulfilled," Dorian said, voice carrying effortlessly. "The goddess chose a soldier strong enough to survive it."
The crowd rippled; half cheered, half gasped. My pulse spiked. A well-delivered line would not move me.
"Camera right," Cassian snapped. "We've got Liora."
Of course we did.
She stood on the back of a shiny black sedan like it was a stage, crown perfect now, makeup perfect, grief performatively perfect. Her parents flanked her in diplomatic misery. Three microphones hovered like mosquitoes.
"This is a tragic mistake," she said, eyes shimmering right on cue. "I love my sister. I always have. I will step aside if that is truly what the goddess wants—" She paused just long enough to let that martyrdom land. "—but I fear lies and manipulation have twisted the truth. Our king deserves the right mate, not a shadow made of ambition."
The crowd, traitorous as crowds are, murmured. Cameras swung.
"I swear," I said under my breath, "if I had a lemon I'd throw it."
"Use mine," Cassian offered, deadpanned.
"No," Dorian said quietly. "This is mine."
He stepped forward, pulling me with him until he was a wall in front of me and, somehow, still the only thing they could see. He didn't push dominance through the bond; he didn't have to. Authority rolled off him.
"Princess Liora," he said, tone not quite icy. I could feel the restrained heat in it, and the crowd felt it too. It made the microphones lean closer as if drawn by gravity. "You are my subject. Nyx is my sovereign."
The sound the crowd made was messy—cheers, outrage, someone dropping their phone.
Liora blanched and recovered with royal practice. "You cannot mean—"
"I mean," he said, and pointed to the cameras because he knows how to stage a war, "that the crown is done being bartered. The prophecy did not choose your portrait. It chose the soldier who saved your kingdom."
My throat tightened. This was politics. This was a performance. This was… a hand on my back, warm and steady in a way that made my bones remember what it felt like to be carried out of a forest I should have died in. My mate. My destiny.
Kelly hummed in approval. Now you understand. By the way, your mind link was open. The king heard that, too.
"Move," Cassian murmured. "Ten meters to the SUVs."
We moved.
The press surged, sniffing blood. A mic bumped my shoulder; a question clipped my ear:
"Queen Nyx! Do you regret the mark?"
I should have ignored it. I didn't.
I slowed a fraction—just enough to be stupid. Dorian's hand tightened, warning.
"I don't regret," I said, voice flat. "I survive."
The line hit like a hook. The chant morphed: "She survives! She survives!" Signs rose. Phones rose. Somewhere, a priest combusted in indignation.
The barricade to our right protested. A man in a news vest leaned too hard and stumbled toward me, hands up, face apologizing. The royals reacted; Cassian moved—too slow if the man had a blade.
I had one first.
I caught his wrist, turned, and redirected him back to his side of the barrier with precisely the pressure needed to make a point without a lawsuit. The crowd loved it. Cameras feasted. Dorian's wolf purred in my ear: Show-off.
Jealous? I sent.
Proud, he replied, and it landed in my chest like a warm stone.
We hit the SUVs. Black paint, armored doors, tinted windows reflecting a hundred hungry faces. Cassian opened the rear door with a curt "In."
"Wait," Dorian said, and didn't move.
"Don't you dare," I muttered.
He dared.
He turned back to the crowd, one hand on the open door, the other catching mine. The bond flared bright and hot, and for a second, the hive went quiet, prey sensing a predator they also worshiped.
"Listen well," he said. "There will be a statement at the palace at dusk. You will hear the truth from your King and your Queen." He squeezed my hand once. "Until then, let your cameras rest. We are done bleeding for your speculation."
It was… a line. It should have been smug. It wasn't. It was tired and true and landed perfectly.
The chant shifted again: "Dusk! Dusk!"
"Get in," Cassian hissed.
We slid inside. Doors slammed. The roar became muffled thunder. I yanked the cap off and breathed like I'd been running a sprint. Dorian didn't look at me, but his knee pressed mine, deliberate and grounding.
"Status," he said to the front.
"Lead clear," the driver replied. "Decoy heading east. We've got three tails, likely press, one unmarked maybe-not."
"Maybe-not?" I asked.
"Doesn't smell like the press," Cassian said, peering through the slat. "Smells like trouble."
"Of course it does," I muttered. "I was starting to relax."
Dorian's phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and showed me: a live feed already cut, Liora crying beautifully into three microphones.
"She's good," I said.
"She's dangerous," he corrected.
We hit the ramp to the surface street. The SUV hummed—smooth, expensive, a predator wrapped in steel. My fingers found the habit of checking gear: blade at thigh, backup at ankle, safety on, mind calculating routes and reflexes I've never had to explain to anyone who wasn't fighting with me.
"You didn't have to do that," I said without looking at him.
"The speech?" he asked.
"The hand," I said. "In front of everyone."
He was quiet. "I didn't do it for them."
I hated the way that line slid past my armor. I hated even more that my wolf hummed like a struck wire.
"Don't use me to tame and control them," I said.
"I'm using myself to protect you," he said evenly. "They think they can shame you back into the shadows. I'm reminding them who cast the light."
"That's almost poetic," I said. "Did you rehearse that with your mirror?"
He huffed a low laugh. "No. I was busy not sleeping while watching you breathe."
I turned my head. He looked at me like I was both a problem and a prize, and he was very good at both.
"Eyes front," Cassian said mildly. "We've got our maybe turning definite. Right-side sedan, three back, no plates."
"Rafe?" Dorian asked.
"On it," came the reply. "If they blink wrong, I'll pluck their eyelashes."
"Language," I said automatically.
"Apologies, Your Highness," Rafe deadpanned. "I'll knit them a sweater instead."
We cleared the last of the hospital blocks and hit the parkway. The press tails peeled off, denied the spectacle they wanted. The unmarked sedan didn't.
"Window," Cassian said.
"Don't," Dorian warned, but I was already cracking the bulletproof gap just enough to scent the wind.
Metal. Oil. Something clinical and wrong. My scars remembered it before my mind did.
"Echelon," I said. "They're sampling the air for bond resonance. That's how they found us in the underpass."
"Copy," Cassian said. "I have drone eyes… now."
The console had screens lit. Overhead, our drone mirrored the sedan—two in front and one in back. The driver's posture was too calm, and the rear passenger's arm was too still.
"Gun," I said.
"Confirmed," Cassian replied. "He's waiting for an opening."
Dorian's hand found my thigh—not possessive; anchoring. "You're not the shield today."
"I'm always the shield."
"Not to me."
Kelly did a lazy roll in my head. Say thank you. Then tackle him later for fun.
"New plan," Dorian said. "We take the river cut and switch to convoy two."
"Ten seconds to the cut," the driver said.
The sedan blipped its lights. My neck prickled. Rear window rolled down a slit; sunlight hit the metal muzzle of a long barrel.
"Down," Cassian snapped.
I moved at the same time the world decided to detonate.
A crack of sound—sharp, spiteful—split the air.
Red bloomed across the windshield in a perfect circle where the bullet tried and failed to take out our driver. The SUV shuddered; the convoy surged. Cassian cursed. Dorian dragged me across the seat, covering me with his body as glass dust sprinkled like confetti.
"Still think I'm not the shield?" I hissed into his shoulder.
"You're the reason I wear one," he said, and his voice had that growl that made promises to my pulse.
"Two more in the pipe," Cassian warned. "We need cover now."
We dove into the river cut. Light vanished; concrete swallowed sound. Tires screamed. The sedan followed, engine howling like a thing that wanted to be a wolf and wasn't.
"Rafe," Dorian said.
"Say please," Rafe replied.
"Rafe."
"Fine," he sighed. "Dropping a present."
On the screen, a small object tumbled from under our tail—the size of a hand grenade.
The sedan rolled over it.
The tunnel lit white.
"Brace!" Cassian barked.
We rocked, slammed, and kept moving. In the rear cam, the sedan pinwheeled into the wall, a flower of flame blooming.
Silence thundered in after the ringing left.
My heart pounded. Dorian's did too, synced so tight with mine it felt like one drum.
I pushed off his chest, breathless and shaky and furious and more alive than was probably healthy. "So," I said, voice thin, "dusk?"
"Dusk," he said. "You and me. The palace. The truth."
"And if the truth doesn't save us?"
His mouth tilted, dangerous and fond. "Then we let them watch what hell on earth looks like when it bleeds."
The SUV burst back into daylight. Sirens wailed behind us, too late and too human. Ahead, the city rose—glass and steel and a crown waiting to be fought for.
My phone vibrated with an unknown number. A text popped onto the screen: SUBJECT B. WRONG TWIN. RIGHT BULLET. Then, a location ping near the palace square.
Cassian saw it and swore. "Trap."
I smiled without humor and pulled my cap back down. "Good. I was getting bored."
The bond hummed hot between us. Dorian's hand closed over mine—just once, just hard enough to be a promise and not a prison.
"Stay with me, Nyx," he said.
"Try and stop me," I answered.
Outside, the palace banners snapped in the wind like impatient wolves.