“Maltraz does what he wants. We serve. That’s the order,” rumbled Adramal. He sounded less like a demon now and more like an exhausted middle manager.
“You heard what he did. In front of all those wolves. In front of a King’s goddamn daughter. There were humans there! If you think the Council is going to look the other way…”
A heavy thud, like someone punching a wall. “I’m not paid to think.”
Nazek hissed, “You’re not paid at all. If this goes sideways, they’ll wipe you out first. They always do. The King is obsessed with his precious rules. You know who was in that room? Archon’s spawn. And the Angel King himself was in Dairyville not twenty-four hours ago.”
There was a pause, then the soft clink of chains. I could picture Adramal pacing back and forth, jaw clenched, hands curled into clubs.
“Maltraz said this was supposed to be a snatch-and-grab. Not a fucking production. Now, every wolf in the south will come for us. Iron Valor will burn the world to the ground.”
“Don’t forget, fucking Menace Hardin that new fucking Midwest King is former Iron Valor too. You think he won’t bring an army also?” Nazek was in full panic mode. “If they can find us.” His voice trembled a little less certain now. “Maybe we kill the girl before they get close. Maybe we blame it on Otero.”
Adramal snorted. “You kill the mate, and Maltraz will use your bones to pick his teeth.”
“He’ll use my bones no matter what,” Nazek snapped, and for a second there was real fear in his voice. “You think he cares what happens to us?”
Another thud, louder this time. “He cares about the Plan. We make the Plan happen. Or we die.”
Nazek fell silent, then spat a glob of phlegm onto the floor. “I’m going to see if the perimeter is holding. If not, we run. If he asks, you say I was here the whole time.”
There was the scrape of feet on stone, then Nazek’s shape flickered across the edge of my vision as he slunk away, hunched and muttering. Adramal lingered, standing just inside the doorway, arms folded. Even in the dark, I could feel him watching me.
I let my head hang forward, hair covering my face, and tried to look as limp and broken as possible. But every sense was dialed to the max. They were scared—really scared. Not just of Maltraz, but of the bigger, scarier things waiting above him. If the Council found out what they’d done, there would be no hiding, no deals, no mercy. It was the same way my old art teachers talked about the “gallery system”—all power at the top, everyone else just fodder for the grinder.
I rotated my wrists in the cuffs, feeling for play. The metal was too tight, but I thought I could maybe, just maybe, slip the right wrist out if I brokemy thumb first. I’d need a distraction, or maybe to catch Adramal in a good mood. I filed that away for later.
For now, I listened.
Adramal sighed, a noise so human it made my skin crawl. “You shouldn’t have mouthed off to Maltraz,” he said, not to me, but to the empty room.
I kept my mouth shut, but when he didn’t leave, I risked it.
“What’s it like?” I whispered. “Working for a guy who’d take your soul to make a point?”
He looked at me, those black eyes bottomless. “Is it different for you? You follow your Alpha. You fight his battles. When he loses, you die.”
I shook my head, ignoring the lurch of pain. “We choose our Alpha. If he fucks up, we can challenge him if we think we’re strong enough to take him out.”
Adramal considered this. “We’re not wolves. There is no choice. Just power. Just survival.”
I nodded, then flexed my wrists again, hard enough that one of them bled fresh. “Yeah, well, wolves bite back.”
He snorted, then pushed off the door and walked over. His boots splashed through a shallow puddle and stopped an arm’s length away.
“Maltraz will keep you alive as long as you’re useful. If you want to survive, you’d better figure out what that means. Fast.”
He turned and stomped out; the door slamming so hard it rattled the chair I was sitting in.
I waited until the echoes died, then set my jaw and twisted my right hand, pushing my thumb down and in until the bone strained. The pain was blinding, but it was better than doing nothing. If I could get free, even for a second, I could run. Or fight. Or at least die on my feet.
Out in the corridor, I heard Adramal’s voice, low and urgent, talking to someone else. I caught the name “Otero,” and then a phrase that made my blood run cold:
“If he can’t kill the mate, he’ll break her instead.”
My vision went red for a second, but I made myself focus. Breaking was a wolf thing. You couldn’t break someone who was already in pieces. I’d been broken and glued myself together so many times, I barely noticed the cracks.
So I waited, and I listened, and I learned.
