Her life was mine to dictate. Her future was already decided, and no alliance, no empty threats would keep her from it. I was a force of nature, and she was a fool.
I picked up the scattered letters.
Savannah’s blood ran in my veins, and I would see it drained before I saw it cold. Before I saw it running free. She was a coward, and I would hunt her like one. Her choices were ashes, and my will was iron. She’d face me at last, and I’d have the last word.
My son Callum entered the room, too much like myself for either of us to stand it. His smile bordered on smug as he lingered in the doorway, eyes catching the remnants of my shattered resolve. My heart beat savage and quickly as we stood apart, daring the other to give in first. I wasn’t sure we could have been called kin at all. Our blood felt too thin, too cold, too dangerously like my daughter’s, the daughter I refused to name. Callum and I were bound by stubborn arrogance and by a shared desire to see her brought back in chains. He stayed near the door, feigning respect. But I knew him. Knew the way his eyes lingered on me, the way they caught on glass shards and whiskey stains. I would break him next, if I had to. I let the thought go. He was not Savannah, not the ghost that haunted me, and I held his gaze while the room spun. He finally looked away, claiming her name with that same smug smile.
I turned my back, steadying myself with the rage that never seemed to leave me. It burned brighter when I faced him, when I remembered how close to the edge she had pushed us.
“Father,” Callum said. His voice was smooth and unflinching. “The situation with Savannah is growing worse. You’re aware, of course, that the Midwestern pack will hold us accountable.”
“Do you think I fear their judgment?”
“I think,” he said, staying close to the door, “that they’ll push until we break. Unless we act quickly.”
I felt a ghost of the rage I’d thrown at the stone fireplace. A ghost of the daughter who dared defy me. I stayed near the window, daring him to think my back was a weakness.
He wouldn’t. He knew me better than that.
“I plan to take care of it,” I said, words harder than iron, more biting than the air between us. “There are specialized hunters ready to leave this afternoon. They’ll bring her back. At any cost.”
“And what cost do you expect?” he asked. He stayed near the door, distance calculated. Too much like my own.
“Any cost.”
He nodded, approval mixed with that infuriating self-satisfaction. I knew that look. Knew it too well, and I hated him for being so much like me. “What if it’s not enough?”
“Do you doubt my ability to control this?”
He finally stepped further into the room, acting as if he owned it, owned us, owned the damn situation I refused to acknowledge. “I’m not sure she’ll come willingly,” he said.
I turned to him, caught the smugness before it spread, captured it with words I knew would shatter the space between us. “No daughter of mine will defy me and live to tell about it.”
He had the sense to flinch. The nerve to recover quickly. “It’s just,” he said, the haughtiness returning, “that this was never supposed to be difficult.”
“Then increase the bounty. Get your hands bloody if you need to. It makes no difference to me.”
He let the moment pass, let his own fear catch up to him. His confidence drained and was replaced by something more useful. He was smarter than I gave him credit for. I almost admired the boy.
“I’ll spread the word,” he said, no longer questioning me. “She can’t hide forever. We’ll have her.”
I let his words echo, my own distrust of them weighing heavy on my heart. It wasn’t that he believed them. It was that I wasn’t sure I did.
“Do that,” I said.
He paced slowly, the soft steps of a man too confident, too assured. Too young to know that he would not last in the shadow of my rage. The shadow Savannah threw across this family, this house, this kingdom. He looked at me with a smug approval I couldn’t bring myself to crush.
Not yet.
Callum believed in this. In us. In what it meant to have a king for a father. He didn’t see the curse of it, not like the coward who ran from it all. I couldn’t afford his naïveté, but I needed him for now. For this. He left me alone in the study, alone with thoughts that circled back to her. That dug deep into my chest and took the breath from me.
Savannah’s defiance was a betrayal too raw, too real to hide. She’d pay for it with blood and tears and a lifetime of silence. We would have her back.
The pressure in the room grew heavy, unbearable. Like the last months, like the countless nights and countless hopes gone shattered. I steadied myself with the thoughts of how to ruin her. How to ruin the weak pack that thought to threaten us.
Her rebellion was a mark on us all. It scarred me, scarred her brother, scarred what remained of our power. Callum couldn’t see it. Not yet. But he would. I’d make sure of it. And then I’d break him too, if I had to.
I waited for him to return. Waited for him to be as stubborn as me, for him to share this burden like it was his own.
