A pressure point Rowan could keep pressing.
Somehow, Rowan’s leverage against me had become his son.
If Rowan chose not to deliver Saint’s attacker, Kellan wouldn’t be collateral. He’d be the leverage Rowan used to break me.
* * *
The call came in a few hours after the council cleared out.
I was back in my office staring at paperwork I hadn’t actually read once.
My phone buzzed.
Wraith.
I answered without thinking. “What.”
There was a beat of silence on the line. All I could hear was breathing. Like he was fighting for control.
Fuck it took a lot to rile Wraith up.
“Ember’s hurt.”
Everything in me went cold.
“How bad?” I asked.
“Not critical,” he replied. “But it wasn’t an accident.”
I was already on my feet.
I didn’t say anything else. Just got moving.
Grim was outside the council room when I stepped into the hall. One look at my face and he moved with me without a word. Slate fell in behind us halfway down the corridor.
Going after Ember was the wrong move.
She wasn’t just respected… she wasprotected. Beloved. Rowan had just put his hand straight into a hornet’s nest.
The infirmary door was open.
Grim stopped just outside it, arms crossed, jaw set.
“She inside?” I asked.
He nodded once. “And pissed.”
I stepped in.
Ember was sitting on the exam table, one knee bent, the other foot dangling. There was glass in her hair that hadn’t been fully picked out yet. Her sleeve was rolled up, forearm scraped raw and angry red, and a bruise was already forming along her jaw where she must have hit the steering wheel.
She looked up when she saw me.
“I’m fine,” she said immediately.
“I didn’t ask,” I replied.
She huffed but didn’t argue.
