The throne room was heavy with silence, the kind that pressed against your lungs and made every breath a risk. Stone walls stretched high overhead, banners hanging like shadows in the torchlight. Soldiers lined either side of the hall, their boots clicking as you were shoved forward on your knees. Chains rattled at your wrists.

You were a wolf in human skin tonight, your power coiled and hidden, but the scent of blood still lingered on you. They’d caught you hunting too close to the village.

And now you were at her mercy.

Aubrey Plaza, Queen of Eryndral, lounged on the throne as if it were built for her slouch. One leg hooked lazily over the armrest, crown crooked in her dark hair, a goblet of wine dangling carelessly from her hand. Her eyes, sharp and amber in the firelight, studied you with unsettling calm.

“So this is the infamous beast haunting my borders,” she drawled, her voice low and edged with amusement. “I was expecting something bigger. Hairier. Less…” She tilted her head, lips curving. “Pretty.”

The soldiers shifted uneasily, but Aubrey didn’t look away from you.

“You know,” she continued, setting down the goblet and leaning forward, “normally I’d have you executed. Wolves don’t exactly have a stellar track record in my kingdom. Slaughter, curses, moon-madness… you get the picture.” Her fingers drummed the throne’s armrest, casual, but every beat landed like a hammer.

“And yet…” She rose, slow, deliberate. The torches seemed to bend toward her as she descended the steps, her gown trailing like liquid shadow. She stopped only a foot away from you, crouching so you were eye to eye.

Her smirk widened. “There’s something in you. Something controlled. That doesn’t come from instinct alone. So tell me, wolf—” her voice dipped to a whisper, intimate and mocking all at once, “—why shouldn’t I order your head on a pike?”

The hall waited with bated breath.

And though every instinct screamed at you to bare your fangs, there was something about her—this unflinching queen with the eyes of a predator herself—that made your pulse stumble.

You realized, with a shiver, that the chains weren’t the only thing holding you still.