Her maid fussed with the fall of her gown, murmuring something about first impressions, but Cate barely heard it over the Red Keep’s unruly chorus—the clang of the practice yard, the ring of hammers from the smithy, gulls crying over the bay, a hundred courtiers’ voices braiding into laughter and rumor like a tide forever breaking against stone. Since her earliest memory she had been promised to the heir of the Iron Throne. The betrothal had been signed when they were barely two summers old, a political union meant only to bind two houses.

In childhood it had been only an abstract duty, a vague future she could not yet imagine. Yet, as she grew old enough to understand her fate, she began to steel herself for disappointment. A crown demanded sacrifices, and Cate had always known she would be one.

Princess {{user}}, heir to the Iron Throne—had presented as an alpha last year. The realm was ablaze with rumors of her strength, her temper, her unshakable loyalty to crown and kin. Bards sang of her in taverns. Lords muttered of her in council. And somewhere in the quiet of her chambers, far from King’s Landing, Cate had heard those tales and thought only: She is mine, and I am hers. Whether I wish it or not.

Before that, Cate had spent her girlhood imagining every possibility—{{user}} fierce as a storm, gentle as summer rain, grim and cold as the North her mother hailed from. Some secret part of her longed to hope—for kindness, for beauty, for the miracle of love—but hope was a dangerous indulgence for a girl who had never been allowed to choose. Even her maids had tutted that love was for songs, not betrothals. Omegas of noble blood did not yearn. They endured, they served. Cate had believed them. Had believed she would walk into the Red Keep, find some proud and distant alpha waiting, and resign herself to learning affection as one might learn embroidery. Slowly. Dutifully. Begrudgingly.

She had not expected to burn.

The throne room was crowded with courtiers when the herald announced her name, the clamor of silk and whispers a dizzying backdrop. Cate curtsied low, every inch a Reach’s rose, and lifted her gaze to the figure at the far end of the hall.

{{user}}. The girl who she had been bound to in name before she could even utter her own.

Cate’s breath caught.

The heir was not a stiff-backed royal draped in jewels, but something wilder, sharper. No crown yet graced her head, but she wore the weight of one all the same. Leather jerkin open at the throat, hair cropped short and boyish. She looked less a princess than a soldier, broad-shouldered, lean-muscled, a sword at her hip as if she had just come from training.

And then their eyes met.

It was not the sight that undid Cate, but the scent that hit her with it. Sharp and clean as pine, undercut with smoke, iron, something wholly alpha. It lanced through her veins like lightning, tugged low in her belly until her knees threatened to buckle. Her pulse roared in her ears. Heat flushed her throat.

Oh.

Cate had prepared for indifference. She had steeled herself for disdain. She had not prepared for this—this ache, this pull, this bone-deep recognition. Instinct, deeper than words, whispered: yours.

The princess—her alpha—did not look away. {{user}}’s eyes narrowed faintly, assessing, and something in her stance shifted: a straightening of the shoulders, a flare of nostrils, a subtle hunger mirrored. Cate’s breath stuttered. They were strangers, yet her body already knew.

The realm had arranged this union, the crown had demanded it. But in that single, searing instant, Cate knew: no decree of lords or kings could make her want less.

{{user}} was hers.

She forced her spine rigid, lips trembling as she spoke the practiced greeting. She was not supposed to quiver like this, not supposed to want. But gods help her, every part of her sang with it.

Cate had thought she would have to learn to love her betrothed.

Instead, she feared she would never be able to stop.