I dropped to my knees in front of Savannah, hands shaking as I reached for her. She gripped me back, knuckles white, her scent flooding every sense. My wolf settled, finally. The world went quiet.
Behind me, the chamber erupted in shouts and arguments and the mad scramble of a hundred old wounds opening at once. But for a few heartbeats, nothing mattered but the woman in my arms.
She pressed her forehead to mine. “Don’t let them take me.”
I kissed her, gentle as I could, but my hands were bruising her arms, refusing to let go. “They won’t,” I said, and meant it.
For the first time since this nightmare started, I believed it.
The Chairwoman spoke again. “The Council members will be given the test results. Study them well. Take them to your respective leaders for consultation and we will reconvene in 48 hours for a vote on the matter. Mr. Hardin, Miss Calloway, you will be provided with an apartment here in the Council tower. I strongly advise you not to leave the confines of the building. Alpha Baucaum, you and your Luna will also be provided an apartment. You will all be on the same level as your king.” King Rafe looked at me and nodded.
I helped Savannah out of the chair, and we both bowed our heads in reverence to the Chairwoman.
Chapter 19
King Declan Calloway
Night in the Council Tower had its own peculiar geometry. The world above and below fell away, replaced by stone, shadow, and the reek of ancient ambition. My boots found no purchase on the ice-polished marble, only left a fleeting print in the candlelight before the air ate it whole. I stalked the hallways without urgency, a wolf with no need to hurry, because in the end they would all come to me.
The echo of my gait was the only company. No guards, not tonight; the Council had learned better than to tail me after sundown. Even the servants scurried with averted eyes. I let the cold seep in, let it congeal around the bones, because warmth was a weakness in a den of predators. The doors here were heavy, forged from a black wood found nowhere on earth, lacquered so thick it repelled even magic. Each had a sigil, a scent: sulfur for the demons, rosewater for the vamps, burnt honey for the southern wolves. Mine had no marker but the blank, silent threat of absence.
I paused only once, to brush a speck of dust from the brass nameplate that bore my own crest: Calloway, King of the Eastern Territories. It gleamed like a blood clot in the flicker of gaslight. I let my fingers linger, as if by contact I could assure the old bastardinside that nothing had changed. That the world still belonged to those strong enough to seize it.
Inside, the room was a study in discipline. Not a book out of place, not a single chair left unpushed. The carpets were crimson, but only because red did not show the stains. I moved to the window and poured myself a finger of whiskey from the decanter—a habit from a grandfather I’d despised but had become, in some twisted sense, the closest thing I had to God. The liquor caught the moonlight, turned it to amber, and I watched it shudder in the crystal before bringing it to my lips.
The roster was on my desk, bound in rawhide and sealed with three separate chains. The first was symbolic, the second practical, the third a formality. I snapped them all with one hand and let the parchment fan out. Each name was inked in a different hand, a parade of egos and titles so bloated it was a miracle any decision ever passed. But I knew the secret: with the right leverage, the rest followed like sheep to slaughter.
Five votes. That was the game.
Five would tip the balance, enough to override the goddamn charade they called a “fated mate bond.” Even after the spectacle that had just played out in the main chamber—my own daughter, blood of my blood, testifying like a common whore that she wanted the wolf who had marked her—I still had options. The evidence was damning, but evidence was only as strong as the hands that wielded it.
I let my gaze fall to the first name on the list:
Shasta Tierney, High Flame Caller of the Emberthorn Witches. Her obsession with tradition was so severe she’d once had her own sister executed for a breach of ritual. She wore purity like a badge, but I knew the rot in her line. She was already on my side; she just needed to be reminded what she risked if her coven ever fell out of favor with the East; a sure thing for the final push.
Next: The Mistress of Shadows, whose real name was buried deeper than the bones of her enemies. A creature of appetitesand secrets, she held power over the Gloamreach covens. I knew her weakness—her “daughter,” a changeling she’d raised in secret, kept off the Council’s census, a crime so flagrant it was a wonder she’d lasted this long. I had the documentation. I had the leverage. I would enjoy watching her squirm.
Then, Wyrdmother Elaina of the Verdant Hollow. A tree-witch, old enough that she remembered when men still believed in gods. She owed me, though she would never admit it. Years ago, when the Southern packs tried to root her coven out, I’d arranged a stay of execution—a single phone call, a single bullet. She would repay me, or she would find herself with a new generation of enemies.
Maltraz, King of the Demons. An utter brute, but practical to a fault. He cared nothing for the politics of mating, only for the balance of power and the contracts that kept his kind from being exterminated. I had promised him a corridor through my territory, a lifeline for his lesser imps. All he had to do was show up for the vote, grunt “no,” and enjoy the next century of safe passage. Easy.
Finally, Varic Otero, the vampire king of the Western Territories. This one was trickier. He’d only recently taken the throne after the previous king’s “suicide,” which I’d arranged with a little help from my friends in Low Town. Otero wanted legitimacy, wanted to be the ruler history remembered. I could offer it, but I would make him crawl for it. He’d oppose the bond, just to cement his own position. He’d hate me for it, but I’d outlive his hate.
My hands shook as I ticked the names, not from fear but from the violence of what was coming. I poured another whiskey. The glass hit the desk with a clink, and I watched a droplet slide down to the surface, stain the roster, then vanish into the grain. I thought of Savannah, her face pale but resolute, the flash of her mother in her jawline. How had I missed it? How had I allowed her to become a liability, a fracture in the line?
I’d seen it coming, of course. The way she’d clung to her music, that insipid fixation on being “happy” when she shouldhave been preparing for her role. The late-night phone calls, the refusal to do as she was told. The fucking piano recitals. Her mother enabled it, pretended not to notice the scent of rebellion that hung over every word. And when she ran and hid. Of course, she wound up in a prison being treated to torture and who knows what else in that lab in the jungle. The thought of it makes me smile. If ever there was an irony, that was it. Except that fucking mutt had to be the one to find her and secret her away. And she’d taken joy in rubbing my face in her rebellion.
Tomorrow, I would begin. Shasta first, then Mistress of Shadows. One by one, I would tighten the noose. I would not sleep until every name on the list owed me a vote, a debt, or a life.
Five votes. Five names. That was all it would take.
I turned back to the window and watched the city tremble under the moon; the towers jutting up like the ribs of some ancient beast. I could hear the howls from the lower wards, the laughter of the damned, and in it, a single thread of music: the sound of my daughter’s will, trembling but unbroken.
Let her play her final note. Tomorrow, I’d bring the house down.
Emberthorn lay east of the Council tower, beyond the railroad yards and the salt flats where nothing grew but thornbrush and the bones of animals too dumb to escape the border wards. Even at a distance, you could see its spires: a crown of fused stone and living flame, jagged against the dusk like the teeth of a dead god. The witches had built it as both fortress and cathedral, a place where every wall doubled as a ward, every parapet a pulpit.
I arrived on foot, as custom demanded. Wolves were forbidden to approach in car, bike, or beast form—anyone who tried ended up a pile of smoking ash, and the witches kept the skullsnailed to the outer gates as a warning. I wore my best suit, black silk tailored to hide the bulk, with a single red thread at the collar as a sign of mourning. Even if Shasta didn’t notice, the junior priestesses who manned the doors would; it was always the little things that got you killed or crowned in the end.
