Moira knelt, finger to his throat. She nodded, satisfied. “It’s done.”
I stepped forward, careful to avoid the lines of salt and the crust of drying blood. I gripped the king by the back of his neck and hauled him upright. His head lolled. Then his gaze snapped into focus, hard as a diamond. He looked up at me with pupils so wide there was almost no blue left.
He flexed his hand. It cracked like dry wood. Then he grinned, feral, and reached for the metal goblet on the table. With a flick of his wrist, he crushed it to a wad of tin and let it clatter to the stones.
“I can feel it, Declan,” he hissed, his voice a grate dragged over wet stone. “I could tear Menace limb from limb with my bare hands now.”
“You may have to,” I said. I let him stand on his own, watching his balance. He trembled, but with the excitement of a dog straining at a leash, not from weakness. “Do not overplay your hand. The first minutes are critical. They’ll expect you to fight like awounded animal. Give them what they expect, then break it off in the wolf’s throat.”
Dominic nodded, still flexing his fingers. “You want his head, or should I rip out his heart?”
“Both. And you will make it memorable. The Council needs to see the old law reasserted. But above all, you must finish him. Leave nothing for the scavengers.”
Moira lingered behind us, cleaning her blade with a scrap of salt-stiff linen. “It is not permanent,” she said, her voice hollow. “He will be strong for a little over an hour tonight. Then the body slowly starts to weaken. If you want it to last, you will need to repeat the ritual. Or accept the consequences.”
Dominic didn’t even look at her. “I only need an hour.”
I dismissed Moira with a flick of my hand. She gathered her things and faded into the dark. I’d already resolved to have her killed once this was over. Menace was a problem, but witches with debts to my family were a liability that grew teeth in the dark.
Dominic rolled his shoulders. The wounds on his chest had already stopped bleeding. His skin was hot to the touch, his pulse rapid as a hummingbird’s. I handed him a cloak, the old kind, thick and black, the lining stiff with velvet. He shrugged it on, wincing as it settled over his raw flesh.
We walked together up the corridor, away from the salt and blood and wet stone. At the foot of the stairway, I stopped him. “When you go out there, you’ll be watched by every king and traitor who did not stand with us. Do not let them see your fear. Remember, you are more than a king tonight. You are a weapon.”
He smiled, teeth sharp as razors. “I am.”
“And what of Savannah after?” he asked, not as an afterthought, but as a man considering the problem of leftovers from a particularly rich meal.
“You will keep her sedated until the bond is cleanly gone. We cannot have her running, or killing herself in a fit of romance. Ifyou win—and you will—you will hold her, and you will let her see what her choices have cost.”
Dominic licked the blood off his lips. “And the witch?”
I didn’t hesitate. “She must be eliminated. No one can ever know what we’ve done here today.” I made a note to call Callum later. He was always best at cleanup.
Dominic laughed, the sound gone ragged with the echoes of agony. “Let the Council try to prove it. The witch will be dead before dawn.”
He started up the stairs, climbing two at a time, the black cloak flaring behind him. I let myself smile. Relief that I’d have my miserable daughter under my control in a matter of hours and secure not only the Eastern territories but the Midwest as well.
I lingered a moment in the quiet, then followed. By the time I reached the top, the sounds of the arena were already pulsing through the walls: the drums, the howl of thousands, the promise of violence waiting for us above.
Whatever it took, whatever it cost. My kingdom would remain and expand.
The corridor from the chamber to the arena was a throat lined in bone. The stone overhead sagged with the weight of two centuries’ worth of challenge, every inch scarred and pitted from the passage of kings and killers. The guards who met us at the foot of the stairs did not speak. They wore the livery of the Council—silver on blue, hoods up, faces shadowed—but their heads dropped as we passed, the deference automatic, the kind of obedience you only get when everyone believes you capable of anything.
Dominic walked ahead of me, the black cloak trailing in a wake of velvet, the edges already sticky with old blood and the sweat of the condemned. The silver chains that bound the front were thick, heavy, but they did not slow him. If anything, they seemed to amplify his stride, each step a slow-motion violence.He flexed his fingers as he went, the new runes beneath his skin itching for release.
“Remember, they’ll be watching for the change,” I said, low enough that only he could hear. “Don’t let it take you too soon. If you lose control, you’ll go feral before you ever reach Menace.”
Dominic rolled his neck until it cracked, then shot me a grin. “I can hold it, Declan. I’ve never felt more alive.” He meant it, too; the usual tremor in his hands was gone, replaced by a tremor in the air itself.
We reached the final landing, the iron gates that divided the underground from the stage above. Two more guards waited here, armed with pikes that glittered with a fine dusting of silver. They stood aside when I nodded, their eyes fixed firmly to the floor. The rules were the rules: at this point, the king’s word was as good as law.
Above, the crowd was already a living animal, its voice a thousand-headed thing that vibrated the mortar loose. I could smell them—sweat, wolf, vampire musk, the ozone of demon magic. Every great house had sent an envoy. The cameras would be streaming to every territory. I watched as one of the guards checked Dominic’s wrists for forbidden weapons, then drew back, confused to find nothing but bare skin, the runes all but invisible under the darkening flesh.
I stepped close, straightening his collar, readying it to fall away with his shift. Dominic bore it like a child suffering a final fuss from an overbearing mother. But when I touched his jaw, I felt it: the furnace heat under the skin; the heart drumming triple-time. He was ready.
“This is not just a fight,” I whispered. “It’s a reckoning. If you lose, your line ends. If you win, no one will dare question the old laws again. Do you understand?”
He nodded. “Of course I do. Remember, I am also a king, Declan.”
