However, it was Kaz who answered in his smooth baritone. “Handled.”
Viktor arched his brow. “Yeah? How’d you manage that?”
The orc’s smile was close-lipped and terrifying. “Trade secret, but let’s just say that going after one of ours is widely considered a poor health choice. No one is going to take that bounty. Trust me.”
He liked to think that he could be pretty scary when he wanted to be, but very few beings could claim the sheer menace of Kazimier Rione.
Camille laid her free hand on his thigh. He felt her anger and her concern throbbing through the bond they now shared. “We do, Kaz. If you say it’s handled, then it’s handled. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to worry, though.” Slanting a look at her cousin, she asked, “When do you think Alpha Seymour will—”
An urgent chime rang through the speakers on either side of the feed screen. Theodore looked down at the razor thin screen on his desk, checking the incoming alert, before he hovered his fingers over the projected keyboard below it. “That would be him. You ready, Vik?”
He lifted Camille’s hand to give her knuckles a lingering kiss. “Yes.”
When she nodded, lips pressed into a tight, bloodless line, he stood up and joined Theodore behind his desk. When he passed Margot, she hopped off the edge and gave his arm a gentle, supportive stroke. “You’ve got this.”
He shot her a crooked smile. “Thanks, sunshine.”
She moved to join Camille on the leather loveseat he abandoned. Margot reached for his mate’s hand and twined their fingers together. They wore identical expressions of grim encouragement.
Viktor held Camille’s eye for a heartbeat longer, but when Theodore answered the call, he was forced to turn his gaze toward the feed screen once more. The camera was angled at the desk, giving the impression that it was just Theodore and Viktor, side by side, confronting the de facto leader of the Alliance.
Lee Seymour’s face appeared on the screen. He was in what looked like a sleek, modern office and dressed in a crisp white dress shirt that stood out against his dark skin. His normally inscrutable expression was gone, replaced by one of dark anger.
His pale blue eyes shifted, taking in Theodore and Viktor standing side by side, before he said, “This is not how I wanted my morning to go.”
Viktor stuffed his hands in his pockets and arched a brow. “Yeah, well, join the club. You weren’t the one shot yesterday.”
“You’re looking pretty good for a man who claims to have taken a bolt.”
Theodore smiled, slow and sharp. “He has averygood healer.”
Lee shook his head. “I really don’t want to hear the story behind that confession, do I?”
“No,” Viktor answered, “but you have to.”
And he did, though Lee’s expression only got darker, stonier, as the details came out. When Viktor finished, Lee was silent for several long moments. His jaw ticked. “Well, fuck. I knew he had piss for brains, but I didn’t think he wasthatfar gone.”
“He trespassed on my territory,” Theodore added, tone as icy as Viktor had ever heard it. “And he shot atmycousin.”
Lee’s brow furrowed. “Your cousin? Who…”
Viktor pushed his shoulders back and stared hard at the feed screen, daring Lee to react when he answered, “My mate, Camille Dia Solbourne.”
He was so attuned to his mate that he heard her suck in a breath from across the room. Viktor couldn’t look at her, though. He didn’t want to see the dread on her face, the worry that she would be the reason their pack lost this chance. If they were rejected after all of this, it would be on him, not her — though he was smart enough to know that guilt did not follow lines of logic or responsibility.
Lee was experienced enough not to show any outward sign of surprise. “I see. When did this happen?”
“Recently.” Viktor did not feel the need to elaborate on justhowrecent their mating was. That was none of his business.
“And it’s official?”
In answer, Viktor simply tilted his head to one side and pulled down the collar of his t-shirt with a crooked finger. His expression was fiercely proud when he showed off his mate’s bite.
Icy blue eyes locked on the juncture of his shoulder for several heartbeats before Lee let out a breath and cut his gaze away. One large hand came up to scrub at his jaw. “So Ruben not only tried to have you shot on Solbourne land, but he also went after your mate, the sovereign’scousin?”
He wasn’t sure what Lee found more upsetting: that a mate had been targeted, or that one of his fellow alphas had brought the Alliance to the brink of war.
It was a cardinal sin to go after a shifter’s mate unprovoked. Losing a mate was the end. A done thing.
