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"You're not real."
Kael's voice was soft. Too soft. The kind of quiet that made you listen harder.
Sienna slammed the blood file shut. The metal clasp echoed in her empty chambers. "Get out."
"Sienna Hale." He stepped closer. The desk between them felt like paper. "Daughter of High Judge Marcus Hale and his purebred mate Elena. Born under the full moon at the Silverwood estate. Graduated top of your class. Appointed youngest chief justice in Tribunal history."
He flipped the file open again with one finger.
"Except Marcus Hale's real daughter died in a car accident when she was nine. You showed up six months later. New adoption papers. New birth certificate. Very clean. Very expensive."
Her wolf snarled inside her chest. The bond pulled, a hot wire strung between them, and she tasted blood where her canines bit the inside of her cheek.
"I said get out."
"Who were you before?" He leaned on the desk now, close enough that she could smell him. Leather and cold air and something darker, something that made her wolf pace and whine. "What bloodline did you crawl out of? What massacre did you survive?"
She was on her feet before she meant to be. Her chair hit the wall.
"You don't know anything."
"I know enough." He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "I know the Moonsworn Council doesn't seat half-breeds. I know they sure as hell don't let bastards wear the judge's chain. And I know if this file lands on Speaker Lockwood's desk, you'll be out of that robe and into a cell before sunset."
The bond flared, sharp and vicious. Her ribs ached with it. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to grab his collar and shake him until that smug mouth bled.
She did neither.
"What do you want?"
"A retrial." He straightened, pulling the file back across the desk. "You reopen my case. You clear my name. I keep this to myself."
"You're blackmailing a Tribunal judge."
"I'm asking my fated mate for help."
She laughed. It came out sharp and ugly.
"We're not mates."
"Tell that to your wolf." His gaze dropped to her hands. She'd gripped the desk hard enough to crack the wood. "Tell it to the bond that's burning a hole through both of us right now."
She forced her hands open. Forced her breathing steady.
"You slaughtered seventeen civilians. Women. Children. I saw the photos. I read the depositions."
"You read what they wanted you to read."
"Four eyewitnesses—"
"Four liars." His voice went hard. "Paid liars. And you know what's funny? Three of them are dead now. Car crash. Suicide. Hunting accident." He tilted his head. "Doesn't that seem strange to you, Judge?"
It did. She'd checked the records last night after he left. She hadn't slept.
"The fourth witness?"
"Marcus Dane. Still alive. Still hiding." Kael tapped the file. "I've got a safehouse address. He'll talk to you. He won't talk to me."
"Because you'd kill him."
"Because I'd make him tell the truth, and someone really doesn't want that." He pushed off the desk, pacing now, restless. The bond tugged every time he moved. "I didn't touch those people. I was framed. Someone in your precious Council needed a scapegoat, and I was convenient."
"That's insane."
"Is it?" He stopped in front of the window, backlit by the gray morning. "You of all people should know how far they'll go to keep their bloodlines clean. How many laws they'll break. How many lives they'll bury."
Her throat tightened.
"Don't."
"Fifteen years ago," he said, still watching the street below, "an entire pack was slaughtered in the southern territories. Men, women, pups. Every single one. The Council called it a rogue attack and closed the case in a week."
She couldn't breathe.
"What does that have to do with—"
"Everything." He turned. His eyes were too bright, too sharp. "Because you were there, weren't you? You survived. And six months later, you were Sienna Hale, purebred darling, future judge. Tell me I'm wrong."
She bit her lip until she tasted copper.
"Tell me," he said again, softer now, and the bond pulled so hard she swayed.
"It doesn't matter what I was."
"It matters if the same people who buried your pack are the ones who framed me." He crossed back to the desk in two strides, close enough now that she had to tilt her chin up to hold his gaze. "It matters if we're both on someone's kill list, and you're too proud to admit it."
Her pulse hammered in her throat.
"You want me to throw out your conviction on a conspiracy theory."
"I want you to look at the evidence. Really look. Not at what they handed you six years ago. At what's actually there." He set the file on the desk between them. "One week. That's all I'm asking. You dig into the case. You talk to Dane. You see for yourself."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I walk into the Council chamber tomorrow and tell them exactly who you are. Or who you're not." His jaw tightened. "I don't want to do that."
"Because I'm your mate."
"Because you're the only judge in this city who might actually give a damn about the truth."
She hated how much that landed.
Hated how much she wanted to believe him.
The bond pulsed between them, a living thing now, coiled and waiting.
"If I do this," she said slowly, "and I find out you're lying—if I find one shred of proof that you're guilty—I'll bury you so deep you'll never see daylight again."
His mouth curved. Not quite a smile.
"Deal."
She pulled the retrial order form from her drawer. Her hand was steady when she signed it. She didn't let herself think.
"Dane's address?"
Kael scribbled it on the back of the file. His handwriting was sharp, slanted.
"I'll meet you there tonight. Eight o'clock."
"No. I go alone."
"Not a chance." He straightened, and his voice dropped, rough and low. "You're mine now, Judge. Mate bond or not. Someone's killing witnesses, and I'm not letting you walk into a target zone without me."
Her wolf stirred, traitorous and warm.
"I don't need—"
Her phone buzzed. She glanced down.
The message was from Leah, her clerk. Three words.
*Dane is dead.*
Sienna's blood went cold.
"What?" Kael read her face.
She turned the phone around.
He went very still.
"When?"
She scrolled. Leah's second message loaded.
*Found an hour ago. Locked safehouse. No forced entry. They're calling it a heart attack.*
Kael swore, low and vicious.
"Heart attack." Sienna's voice sounded far away. "In a locked safehouse."
"They knew." He grabbed the desk hard enough to crack it. "Someone knew we were coming."
She looked up at him. The bond thrummed, wild and desperate.
"Who else has that address?"
"No one. I kept it off the grid." His gaze locked on hers, and for the first time, she saw something like fear. "Unless they've been watching me since I got out. Unless they're watching you."
Her office door was still closed. The hallway beyond was silent.
Too silent.
Sienna reached for her desk drawer, where she kept the silver-loaded piece she never thought she'd need.
Kael caught her wrist.
"Don't."
His grip was warm. Too warm. The bond sang where his skin touched hers.
"Someone just killed the last witness," she said. "In a locked room. That means—"
"That means we're both dead if we stay here." He pulled her toward the side door, the one that led to the private stairwell. "Move. Now."
"I'm not running from—"
The window exploded.
Glass sprayed across the floor. Sienna hit the ground, Kael's body covering hers, heavy and solid and smelling like smoke and fury.
A red laser dot danced across the wall where her head had been.
"Still want to stay?" His breath was hot against her ear.
She shoved him off, crawling toward the side door, and he followed, low and fast.
They made it into the stairwell. The door slammed shut behind them.
Kael's hand was still on her wrist.
The bond screamed.
Sienna looked at him, her heart slamming against her ribs, and saw her own reflection in his eyes.
Trapped.
Hunted.
Mated.
"Where do we go?" she whispered.
His smile was all teeth.
"Somewhere they won't look."
He pulled her down the stairs, and behind them, she heard the office door splinter open.