The Professor's Mate Clause novel Chapter 143

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Chopra 6

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Chapter 6

AURORA’S POV

The dinner is worse than I expected, and I’d expected it to be bad.

The great hall is packed with Ashveil nobility, long tables lit by torches instead of the sterile lighting I’m used to in Council chambers, and every single person in the room watches me the way you’d watch something that wandered in off the road and might be dangerous.

“You’re doing great,” Kai murmurs beside me, not remotely convincingly.

“I can feel them staring.”

“They’re definitely staring.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“I’m not here to be helpful. I’m here for moral support and free food.” He steals a roll off my plate, entirely unbothered by the hostile atmosphere in a way I deeply envy. “Also that guy at the end of the table has been glaring at you since we sat down. Might want to address that before he starts something.”

I follow his gaze to a broad-shouldered Lycan noble near the head of the table, arms crossed, expression somewhere between contempt and open challenge. When he catches me looking, he doesn’t glance away. If anything, his glare sharpens.

“Elder Voss,” a voice says at my elbow, and I turn to find one of Kade’s advisors, an older woman with silver-streaked hair, sliding into the seat beside me. “Don’t mind him. He’s been like that with every wolf who’s set foot in this fortress since your treaty was first proposed twenty years ago.”

“Every wolf, or every ambassador specifically?”

“Every wolf.” She smiles, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. “You’ll get used to it. Or you won’t, and you’ll go home in a month, and he’ll consider that a victory either way.”

“Comforting.”

“I try.” She studies me for a moment, something more curious than hostile in her expression. “You handled the summit well today. Held your ground without losing your temper. That’s rarer than you’d think, among Council delegates.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t say it as a compliment. I said it as an observation.” She sips her wine. “The last ambassador who came through here, years before your parents’ treaty, lasted three days before he stormed out calling us all savages. You might actually survive the month.”

Before I can figure out how to respond to that, the doors at the far end of the hall open, and the room’s entire energy shifts.

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Kade enters, and every conversation quiets by half. He’s changed out of his formal negotiating clothes into something simpler, dark and unadorned, and somehow that makes him look more like a king instead of less, like he doesn’t need the trappings to command a room.

He takes his seat at the head of the table, and his eyes find mine almost immediately, like he knew exactly where I was sitting before he even walked in.

I look away first. Again. I hate that it keeps happening.

“So,” Kai says, far too casually, leaning close enough that only I can hear him. “You gonna tell me why you’ve spent the last hour looking like you’re waiting for the ceiling to fall on you?”

“I haven’t.”

“You have. You did it during the toast, you did it when he walked in, you’re doing it right now.” He studies me, and for a second the teasing drops out of his voice entirely. “Rory. If something happened, you can tell me. I’m not going to freak out.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Okay.” He doesn’t push, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me, filing it away the way he always does, patient enough to wait until I’m ready. “Just – you know I’ve got your back, right? Whatever it is.”

“I know.” I squeeze his arm. “I promise, if there’s something to tell, you’ll be the first to know.”

It’s not entirely a lie. It’s just not the whole truth either.

Dinner drags on for another hour, full of stilted conversation and pointed silences, and by the time it ends I’m exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with jet lag and everything to do with the effort of holding my composure under two hundred sets of watching eyes.

I’m halfway back to the guest wing when the noble from dinner – the one who’d been glaring – steps directly into my path.

“Ambassador,” he says, and the title comes out like an insult.

“Can I help you?”

“You can leave. That would help most of us considerably.” His voice is low, controlled, but there’s real venom underneath it. “My name is Bram. My father died in the border conflict your parents’ Council did nothing to prevent, back before they decided isolation was inconvenient for their precious treaty.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say, and I mean it, even though I can already tell it won’t land the way I want it

“Save your sympathy. I don’t want it from a wolf.” He steps closer, and my security detail tenses behind me, but he doesn’t touch me, just crowds the space enough to make his point. “You think you can walk in here, smile at the King, and undo twenty years of history? You’re not the first Council pet to try.

“I’m not trying to undo anything. I’m trying to build something new.”

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“New” He laughs, sharp and humorless. “You sound exactly like your mother. I’ve heard the stories. Everyone has. The great Alpha Freya, who broke every rule and got everyone to applaud her for it.” His eyes narrow. “Some of us remember what it cost the rest of us. What it’s still costing us.”

“Bram

The voice cuts through the corridor like a blade, and Bram straightens immediately, some of the aggression draining out of his posture as Kade steps into view from a side passage, expression cold enough that even I feel a chill from it.

“That’s enough,” Kade says.

“I was simply welcoming our guest, Your Majesty.”

“You were threatening her in a hallway three doors from her quarters.” Kade’s voice doesn’t rise, doesn’t need to. “Go find something productive to do with your evening. Now.”

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