Chapter 46: I’ll Take You

Naya laid the message beside a stack of older Ripley documents, comparing the seals under the lamplight. The one pressed into Godric’s note didn’t match anything she’d seen used in her lifetime, the design older, more ornate, a crest that had clearly fallen out of use generations ago.

"I’ve never seen my father use this," she said.

Ronan leaned over the desk, studying the imprint. "Part of this design matches something in the ancient records we found in the vault."

"Why would he suddenly use an obsolete family seal?" Naya asked.

Darius, standing nearby, considered the question carefully. "Perhaps he didn’t choose it. Someone else may have selected it deliberately, precisely because it predates your father’s leadership entirely."

Naya’s stomach turned at the implication. "You think this message isn’t actually from him?"

They examined the wording again together, and the more Naya read it, the less it sounded like her father at all. Godric gave orders, sharp and absolute, never bothering to soften them. This message read almost like a warning, careful in a way that didn’t match his usual tone.

"Someone inside Ripley territory may be trying to stop this investigation without revealing themselves," Naya said slowly.

"We shouldn’t assume Godric is the only person involved in any of this," Ronan said.

Naya nodded, something settling into place. "Then we need to find out who still holds authority under the old Ripley bloodline. Whoever that is, they know more than my father does."

The investigation had to pause that evening for a formal dinner Ronan had scheduled with several visiting Alphas, and Naya attended at his side, the tension in the room palpable the moment they entered. Rumors of the archive breach had already begun spreading through the court, whispered behind cupped hands over the appetizer course.

One of the Alphas, an older man with sharp, assessing eyes, brought it up directly partway through dinner. "Given the timing," he said, "one has to wonder whether the Ripley family can still be trusted with royal proximity."

The table quieted, waiting.

Naya set down her glass calmly. "The breach occurred inside the royal archive itself, secured under royal protection. Assigning blame to my family without a shred of evidence says more about your assumptions than it does about the truth."

Ronan didn’t intervene, watching her hold her ground with the same steady confidence he’d come to expect from her.

"The investigation remains open," Naya continued. "If you have actual information to contribute, the crown welcomes it. Speculation, however, wastes everyone’s time."

The Alpha’s expression tightened, but he offered no further challenge. Only once she’d finished did Ronan add his own agreement, backing her position rather than replacing it.

Later, as guests mingled after dinner, a younger Alpha approached Naya with an easy compliment on how she’d handled the council earlier that week. Naya thanked him politely, and when she glanced toward Ronan, she caught the sharp edge settling into his expression.

"You’re doing it again," she said once the Alpha had moved on.

"Doing what?"

"Looking like you want to remove someone from the room."

Ronan didn’t deny it. "I don’t like how interested he seemed."

"Are you jealous?"

"Yes," he said simply.

Naya smiled, something warm blooming in her chest at the honesty of it. There was no denial this time, no cold deflection or dismissal of what he felt.

Later, alone in their quarters, she asked him why his jealousy didn’t unsettle her the way it once had.

"Maybe because you finally know where you stand with me," Ronan said.

"Do I?" she asked.

"I don’t have every answer," he admitted. "But I know I want you."

He kissed her before she could respond, and she let herself sink into it, her fingers finding the front of his shirt as the kiss deepened. This time she was the one who pulled him closer, matching his intensity rather than simply meeting it, and for a few minutes the investigation, the letters, the missing records all faded into something distant and unimportant.

Eventually Ronan pulled back, smiling against her lips. "We’re supposed to be investigating your family."

"We can do both," Naya said, and he laughed quietly before finally letting her return to the desk where Darius’s notes still waited.

Darius arrived not long after with fresh findings on the old seal. "This crest belonged to a branch of the Ripley family," he said, spreading a set of documents across the table. "One that officially disappeared eighteen years ago."

Naya’s pulse quickened. "The same year I was born."

"The timing isn’t coincidental," Ronan said.

"They weren’t declared dead," Darius added. "They were simply removed from the records entirely, the same way your own birth entry was erased."

Naya scanned the documents further, her breath catching when she found the same mysterious bloodline designation listed beside the vanished branch’s name.

"This connects everything," she said. "The village, my birth, this seal. All the same thread."

She decided quickly, resolve settling over her. "I want to return to the abandoned village. The elder may know exactly what this old Ripley branch was, and why it disappeared."

"I’ll take you," Ronan said, without hesitation.

Darius looked between them, concern evident. "Someone already knows we’re investigating this. If they sent that message through an old family seal, they may be watching more closely than we realize."

"That’s exactly why I don’t want to wait," Naya said.

Ronan nodded once. "We leave at first light."

That night, Naya returned to her room to prepare, the old Ripley-sealed message still sitting where she’d left it on her desk. She reached for it absently, meaning to file it away with the rest of the evidence Darius had collected.

Then she stopped.

Beneath the original two words, in handwriting entirely different from the first, a new line had appeared.

They know you’re awake.

Naya’s blood ran cold. She hadn’t touched the paper since setting it down earlier that day. Nobody should have had access to her private quarters, let alone the ability to add to a message already sealed and delivered.

She heard the door open behind her.

Ronan stepped inside, his expression shifting the moment his eyes landed on the paper in her hands.