She nodded. “I trust you,” she whispered, so quiet I barely heard it.
I didn’t trust myself. But I trusted the voice that had spoken to me. The voice of every ancestor who’d ever fought to keep what the world tried to steal.
I would win, or I would die. There was no third path.
I looked at Dominic and smiled a toothy grin. I saw him sweat.
Chapter 23
King Declan Calloway
Menace’s snarl echoed in my skull for hours after the Council adjourned. Even now, alone in the second-floor study of Dominic’s estate, I felt the vibrations of that inbred mongrel’s arrogance rattling the marrow of my bones. The moon hung low and bulbous over the lake, casting its leprous light through the room’s stained glass and painting the shelves with black and crimson bars. I stalked the perimeter of the office. A wolf denied a kill, trailing the scent of rage with every step.
Dominic Madison—King of the Midwest Wolves, but less a ruler than a parasite in a bespoke suit—sat hunched behind his desk, shoulders bunched, fingers spidering over the edge of a leather-bound folio. He hadn’t spoken since the Council’s gavel struck. Not a word, not a cough, just the rhythmic twitch of his cheek muscle, a tell that grew more pronounced with each minute of silence.
I slammed my fist against the corner of the bookcase, sending a rain of dust from the top shelf and nearly toppling the bronze bust of Dominic’s own face. It caught on the edge, rocked back and forth on its chin, then settled, staring at me with dead, perfect eyes. “There must be a loophole,” I growled, barely aware of the words tumbling from my mouth. “No shifter of common bloodcan challenge a king without consequence. It’s anarchy. We are not animals.”
Dominic flinched. His hand went to his throat, fingers resting on the pale flesh where his mate mark should have been. The absence of it radiated through the room like the stink of a rotting carcass. “You heard the Council. The invocation was ancient law. The Council can’t override a direct challenge before so many witnesses. Especially not after Lucia and Kozlov backed it. The vampires live for this sort of spectacle.” He said it like a prayer, but I could see the despair in his eyes.
I reached for the next shelf and ripped a thick volume free. The gold-embossed title, The Law of Challenge and Ascension, glinted in the lamplight. I flipped it open, the pages brittle as old snow, and skimmed the index for any precedent to undo this farce. “You do realize,” I said, “that if you lose, not only will you die, but your line, your Council seat, your territory—all of it passes to that mutt. I will not watch the Midwest fiefdom bequeathed to a Texan nobody with nothing but a birthmark and a service medal.”
Dominic winced. The words ‘service medal’ always stung; he’d never served a day in his life, though he’d worn more than a few uniforms for ceremonial photographs. “Declan, I… there is still time. He’s just a brute. We’ll have days to prepare. You could bring in the twins, or Callum, or… gods, anyone else with teeth. I know how to fight. I’ve won my fair share of tournaments.”
I laughed, a joyless, cracked sound that bounced off the oak paneling and died in the velvet drapes. “It is a ritual challenge, you simpering little twit. If I sent in an assassin, even a half-wit like Rafe would see through it. Besides, you’re the one who wanted this done ‘by the book’. Well, now the book is writing your obituary.” I flung the legal tome onto the desk, scattering the neat stacks of Dominic’s correspondence.
He snatched at the papers, trying to restore some semblance of order, but his hands shook so badly that he only succeeded in shuffling the mess around. “Maybe… maybe there’s something inthe Codex of Challenges. The addenda. The devil is in the footnotes. You always said that.”
I prowled to the window and stared down at the lake. On the far shore, I could see the shimmer of black SUVs parked at the curb, the glitter of security glass. “You know what the real devil is, Dominic?” I said, letting my breath fog the windowpane. “It’s that you spent your entire reign buying votes and selling favors, and now you’re surprised when the rest of the world moves your pieces for you. This was supposed to be an arranged marriage. A transaction. Instead, you let a nobody with a Southern accent and a hard-on for my daughter throw your kingdom into open challenge.” I turned, letting him see my teeth. “You make me sick.”
He tried to meet my gaze, but his eyes kept drifting to the pile of lawbooks on the table, or to the empty glass of whiskey at his elbow. “She’s not worth it,” he said at last. “Savannah. She’s a liability, always has been. I could align myself with another house.”
“Savannah is my blood,” I said. “She may be a miserable disappointment, but she’s a Calloway, and we will have this merger of our houses. And I will not let the Calloway name be sullied by that white-haired trash. Not after everything I have built. It’s too late for anything else anyway. You accepted his challenge.” I circled behind the desk, looming over Dominic. He sat defiantly, knowing I was right.
I reached for another book and slammed it onto the blotter. The Codex of Royal Succession. I thumbed through it, ignoring Dominic’s protests, until I found the passage I wanted: “Any King, when challenged by a lesser, may invoke trial by proxy, should his own fitness be in doubt.” I jabbed the page. “Here. We can name a proxy. Callum will do it. He’s young, but he has the training. And the strength.”
Dominic shook his head. “That’s only if the King is physically incapacitated. If I even suggest it, the Council will demand a medical review. They just saw me today. Clearly, I’m in perfect health. They’ll know.”
I spat onto the floor, hating his lack of fighting skill more than I hated Menace’s impudence. “Then we find another way. We prepare you. We get you stronger. We make sure that when the day comes, you are more wolf than man. For fuck’s sake, you are a king! You come from generations of the strongest alphas known to wolfdom! Just because you’ve allowed yourself to become soft doesn’t mean your DNA isn’t up to snuff.”
He looked up at me, hope and terror warring in his eyes. “Could it be done? In three days?”
I considered the question. Dominic had allowed himself to become soft, yes, but he still had the bearing of an alpha. He was still powerful. With the right training, the right enhancements, the right threats—anything was possible. I nodded, letting him see the steel in my conviction. “You will win, Dominic. You will not embarrass the royal houses. But we won’t stop looking for another solution we might find as well.”
I stood surveying the room. The library was a fortress of paper, every wall lined with treatises and manifestos and thick, leather-bound histories. But it felt as brittle as a mausoleum. All this knowledge, and none of it had saved us.
I crossed to the sideboard, poured myself a glass of whiskey, and downed it in one long swallow. The burn was nothing compared to the bile that rose in my throat every time I thought of Menace’s sneer.
I walked to the far wall and pulled a slim volume from between two dictionaries. The binding was black; the title embossed in silver: Rituals of Augmentation and Debasement. I traced the runes on the cover, felt their chill seep into my fingertips.
If there were no loophole, I would make one.
This was my world. I would not lose it to a mutt and a daughter too proud to kneel. Not after all the blood I’d already spilled to build it.
After hours of looking at the books in this room, I realized it was futile.
“This is wasted effort. The answer isn’t in here.” I slid my gaze to Dominic, letting him see the calculation on my face. “It’s not in the open.”
He stared at me, then the lightbulb moment happened. He straightened in his chair. He finally seemed to realize he was king, and managed, “You mean the archives.”
