CHAPTER 3: A MAID'S DANGEROUS BARGAIN
ELARA
By breakfast, the palace believed I was the Alpha King's newest mistress.
The rumor protected his secret and destroyed what little reputation an omega maid possessed. Women in the laundry stopped speaking when I entered. Guards smiled as if they knew what happened behind Ronan's doors.
Tavi was the exception. She cornered me beside the linen press with two meat pies hidden in her apron.
“Tell me you chose this,” she whispered.
The question struck harder than the insults. Palace servants understood that a king's interest and a woman's consent were not always acquainted.
“I chose a bargain,” I said. “I am not sharing his bed.”
“Then why did Holt move your trunk?”
“Because someone tried to poison him and may now want me dead.”
Tavi handed me both pies. “That is somehow worse.”
I asked who changed the banquet assignments. She confirmed Holt delivered the order personally and dismissed Nessa before the older maid supposedly injured her ankle. The injury story had been invented afterward.
Someone had placed me beside the king deliberately.
When I told Ronan, he added Holt's name to a list already containing Darius, Malrec, Varick, the cellar master, and half the royal household.
“Efficient,” I said. “Arrest the palace.”
“I considered it.”
Nothing happened behind them because I locked them.
Ronan gave me the small room adjoining his suite and placed the key in my hand. “The connecting door locks from your side.”
“And the corridor door?”
“Also yours.”
I tested both.
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“No. Less dissatisfied.”
Ares laughed inside my head. *I like her.*
“He says he likes me.”
Ronan looked offended. “He once liked eating rabbits whole.”
*They were small rabbits.*
For an instant the king's mouth softened. Then the wall returned.
We met in his study with every curtain drawn. I set my terms before he could set his.
“I help you reach Ares. You investigate the murder of House Voss.”
“House Voss committed treason fifteen years ago.”
“I was five. I remember fire, my mother's blood, and royal wolves at the gate. If my parents were traitors, show me proof.”
“And if they were innocent?”
“You tell the realm.”
He did not promise vengeance. “I will open the sealed records and follow the evidence wherever it leads.”
“Including to your throne?”
“Including there.”
We wrote rules. I would repeat Ares's warnings about immediate danger and the conspiracy. I would not expose Ronan's private memories without permission. He would never use Alpha command to force me into the mental connection. No healer would examine me without consent. Either of us could end an experiment.
I added wages at four times a chamber maid's rate, paid into an account Holt could not touch.
Ronan read the figure. “Why four?”
“Hazard pay. Confidentiality. Damage to reputation. And because you can afford it.”
He changed it to six.
“That could look like you purchased my silence.”
“Then the contract states payment is for advisory service and continues for one year if you leave.”
We added independent access to Seraphine, a prohibition on retaliation against servants who spoke to me, and my right to keep copies of every document concerning House Voss.
Ronan asked for one condition: I would tell him when Ares's emotions overwhelmed mine rather than pretending nothing was wrong.
“To protect your bridge?” I asked.
“To protect you.”
The directness made me suspicious because I wanted to believe it.
We spent the afternoon deciding how the bargain would appear to everyone else. I would carry meals, maintain his fire, and organize clothing badly enough to remain believable as a newly promoted maid. In private, I would attend selected meetings and record changes in Ares's condition.
“I cannot write court shorthand,” I said.
“You read three languages.”
I stared at him.
“The prison inventory listed books found in your trunk.”
“You searched my possessions.”
“Dain did. He recorded them rather than confiscating them.”
My books were cheap translations bought from market stalls, but servants who read were often accused of stealing knowledge above their station.
“My father taught me,” I said. “Before the fire.”
Ronan opened a cabinet and gave me a blank cipher book. “Then create a notation no council clerk recognizes.”
We devised marks separating Ares's exact words from emotion, image, and my interpretation. A black triangle meant immediate danger. A broken circle meant missing memory. A line beneath an entry meant it required independent proof.
The work forced us close without intimacy. Ronan's handwriting was severe and narrow. Mine leaned left. When our hands reached for the same pen, both of us stopped.
“This is ridiculous,” I said.
“Caution rarely looks heroic.”
I took the pen first.
At the end, we created two identical books. I kept one in the locked room. Ronan sealed the other inside a wall safe whose combination he made me watch him change.
“If you alter your copy,” he said, “mine can expose it.”
“And if you alter yours, mine exposes you.”
“Mutual distrust.”
“A promising foundation.”
Ares sent a warm pulse through the link. *Better than blind faith.*
I wrote that down too.
Before supper, Dain brought news about Holt. The chamberlain claimed Darius chose me because omega scent calmed unstable Alphas. No record supported the claim. Nessa, the maid I replaced, had been paid to leave the capital that morning.
Ronan ordered riders to find her, but we agreed they would approach as neutral messengers rather than royal guards. If Nessa had been threatened, the sight of the crown might make her run.
Every answer created another person whose silence had been purchased.
“You expect me to sign this?” Ronan asked.
“Kings sign treaties with enemies.”
“Are we enemies?”
“Your soldiers killed my family.”
He signed.
That evening, Malrec arrived with a replacement medicine. Ronan pretended to drink while I poured it into a hidden flask. An hour later, his hands began to shake.
Before the withdrawal worsened, we ran simple tests. I stood in the adjoining room while Ronan selected objects from a drawer. Ares could not tell me what he saw unless fear or pain opened the connection. I heard his impatience, not Ronan's thoughts.
Next, Ronan silently asked childhood questions. The wolf answered me through images.
“A blue ribbon and a frozen pond,” I said.
Ronan's expression closed. “My sister drowned there.”
Ares flooded me with correction: a laughing girl, cracked ice, Ronan pulling her free.
“No. She nearly drowned. You saved her.”
“She died of fever the next year.”
Memory and grief had fused. The experiment proved Ares was not infallible and I was not a perfect translator. We agreed to verify any message that could harm another person.
Then the sage began to burn.
*Withdrawal,* Ares warned. *They kept him between poison and pain.*
Ronan gripped the desk. “Tell him to stop pushing.”
“He says he is trying to keep you conscious.”
“He feels like claws behind my eyes.”
Outside, someone burned sage.
Ronan's pupils swallowed the gold. He crossed the room and tore the locked cabinet from the wall.
“Ronan.”
He turned toward me with no recognition.
*The north tower,* Ares said. *Give him the memory.*
I held up the wooden wolf. “You carved this at ten. You cut your thumb and hid the blood beneath the left ear because you thought it would make Ares real.”
Ronan advanced.
“Your mother found the cut. You told her it came from a sword lesson. She knew you lied but bandaged it anyway.”
His hand closed around my wrist. The other lifted a dagger from the desk.
“You waited thirteen years for your first shift,” I continued, though the blade touched my dress. “Ares says you were both afraid he would not come.”
The king froze.
*Tell him I came because he called me brother, not weapon.*
“Ares came because you called him brother.”
Recognition returned to Ronan's eyes.
He looked down. The dagger point rested over my heart.
He released it as if burned. Metal struck the floor.
“Did I hurt you?”
My wrist bore red fingerprints. “Not permanently.”
He backed to the far wall. “Leave.”
“No.”
“I nearly killed you.”
“And someone intended that. If I leave now, we learn nothing except their method works.”
I opened the window. A bundle of smoking sage hung beneath the sill, lowered from the roof by black cord.
Ronan cut it down and sealed it in a box. “Only the roof guard has access.”
“Then question him.”
“He has a wife and children. If he was threatened, arresting him warns the person above him.”
The monster from the palace stories was considering the family of a man who had just helped drive him mad.
“What do we do?”
“We let them believe it worked.”
He overturned furniture, shattered a mirror, and cut his own sleeve. When guards entered, I crouched in the corner and pretended terror.
Ronan performed madness with sickening skill. He seized Dain by the collar and demanded to know why an assassin remained alive. Dain held still, trusting a plan he had not been told.
Malrec examined the room. Satisfaction appeared for half a heartbeat when he saw my bruised wrist.
“The omega must be removed,” he said. “Her scent aggravates you.”
“She stays where I can watch her,” Ronan snarled.
He threw the broken chair beside Malrec. The physician retreated.
After everyone left, Ronan apologized to Dain. We then revised our rules. Three pulls on the bell would summon Dain alone. If Ronan picked up a weapon, I left regardless of Ares's advice. If shared memories confused me, Ronan ended contact.
Rules did not remove danger. They stopped fear from making every decision in the moment.
Malrec examined him, satisfied by the destruction. He never noticed the medicine remained hidden in my pocket.
After everyone left, Ronan found me washing my wrist.
“Our bargain should include compensation for injuries.”
“I want access to the Voss records.”
“Granted.”
“And no punishment for servants based on what happened in this room.”
“Granted.”
He waited beside the washstand. “May I see your wrist?”
The question mattered more than it should have.
I held out my hand.
His fingers supported mine without closing around it. He inspected the bruising and called for ice, not Malrec.
“This happened because I touched you,” he said.
“It happened because someone drugged you.”
“Both are true.”
Ares settled within the silence. For the first time since my family burned, I had made a bargain with power and placed its terms on paper.
Whether paper could restrain a king remained to be seen.
That night, I placed my copy beneath the mattress beside the bread I kept for Tavi's family. Ares noticed the hiding place and promised not to tell.
“You are part of the king,” I whispered. “Keeping secrets from him seems dangerous.”
*I am part of him, not his property. You will both need to learn the difference.*
It was an unsettling lesson from a creature most people considered instinct without reason.
I turned the key in my door. On the other side, Ronan's footsteps paused, then moved away without testing the lock.
The contract had survived its first night.
Morning would test it before witnesses. I was expected to dress the king for council, a task normally performed by two ranked valets. Ronan suggested keeping them. I agreed. Removing innocent workers to protect our secret would create resentment and confirm the rumors.
When the valets arrived, Ronan asked me which coat he should wear. I chose the plain black one with no ceremonial chain.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because Darius expects you to compensate for last night's weakness by displaying power.”
He wore black. During council, Darius spent half the meeting searching for the performance he had predicted. For the first time, our bargain changed more than survival. It created strategy neither of us could have built alone.
Neither of us called it trust yet. The word required time, and we had only begun earning it.