Go to Izzy! She needs us!
He couldn’t. He’d forced space between them. He wanted her to go home, especially now!
Izzy took a small step back, away from everyone. Away fromhim. It was what he wanted. And yet, he hated it. He was more alone than on the day his grandfather dropped him at the castle door and walked away.
I’ll fix this.I’llgo to Izzy.His beast rustled its wings, testing the boundaries, pushing to shift. And he held it back with a grinding, shuddering effort.
Shane stood slowly, looking more tired than Luka had ever seen him, and stepped toward Izzy.
Luka’s beast didn’t care that Shane was distressed. He took a meaningful step forward, moving between Shane and Izzy, watching Shane through hooded eyes. His beast roiled beneath his skin, ready for any sign of a threat. There was no question who he would stand beside if it came to it.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Shane held up his hands. “I’m not going to hurt her! You know that!”
“How can I know that?” Luka roared. “You did hurt her. You’re hurting her now!”
Shane drew his shoulders back, and Luka knew the next words out of his mouth were going to be both arrogant andinfuriating. The prince had never been good at apologies or conceding. If there was one thing King Soshan taught his son before he died, it was to always attack first. Shane would come out swinging.
Luka’s beast rippled through him, ready. ItwantedShane to say something hostile so that it could shove the words back into his mouth with a fist full of claws, whether he was the prince or not.
But Luka still had control, and he couldn’t let this spiral. “Don’t say it,” he hissed.
Izzy stepped up to his side, and his beast swung all its focus onto her.Pick her up and fly her to the mountain,his beast suggested.Before this gets worse.
Izzy didn’t even look at him. She focused on Shane. “I want to know everything. Right now.”
“There isn’t much to tell—” Cori started, but Izabel cut her off with a frown.
“Not from you.” She tipped her head toward Shane. “From him.”
Cori blanched, but she didn’t argue as Shane lowered himself back into his chair and rested his hands on the desk, fingers splayed. “There honestly isn’t?—”
“Stop lying to me.” Izzy stalked forward, cutting him off with a growl. Luka’s beast nearly lost its mind as she neared what it saw as the greatest danger in the room.
Shane leaned forward. “Thereisn’tmuch to tell.We thought there was a smuggling ring working from within the physik’s team. We didn’t know what they were carrying. It could be anything—mead, whiskey, dried skeleton-fig leaves for smoking, possibly weapons… anything. But trouble seemed to follow the border health checks. People died in suspicious circumstances. Others got rich. There were some strange deaths here in the city too.” He let out a tired sigh. “Rayan joined the teamto investigate, but he never found anything. Since then, Cori, Aiden, and Kai have been investigating at the border. But it’s been completely quiet. No more deaths. No more sudden wealth thrown around. It’s like they shut down completely after Rayan died.”
Izabel shook her head. “That’s not true though, is it? Rayan told you something. You knew he went to the clinic in Naos.”
“He told me he was going there, not what he’d found, and we tore that place apart! I personally watched the physiks team for months. I spent hours in the clinic for nothing. I realized that whatever it was must have come from the city. Captain Lydia’s been looking into it for months, but there’s nothing there either,” Shane argued.
“Why not just tell us the truth? Why play this whole game?” Luka demanded.
“Because then Shane would have had to admit that there was an investigation,” Izzy replied. “He would have had to explain that he was the one who sent Rayan to spy on the physiks. He would have to look us in our eyes and tell us he sent Rayan to his death.”
Shane’s jaw clenched—one tiny flicker of movement—but it was enough. Luka knew she was right. Izzy’s words sank through him like a rusty dagger thrown into a well, scraping and rattling all the way down. It made complete sense. God of Chaos. He’d trusted Shane. His prince. Hisfriend.Or so he’d thought. But he’d been wrong about everything.
Shane decided to run an investigation behind his back, and Rayan died because of it. Cori, Aiden, and Kai knew all along. They were all working against Luka, cutting him out, making decisions about his life without speaking to him. Making him vulnerable. “Why would you do this?” His voice had dropped to a wounded rasp, and he hated it.
“We wanted to investigate it quietly,” Shane admitted. “We couldn’t have castle guards rattling cages in the castle or the city. It would have been immediately obvious and risked the whole operation shutting down and moving, which is exactly what they did do.”
“No,” Luka growled. “I want to know why you didn’t tellme.”
Shane cleared his throat, eyes shifting away.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before, Shane?” Luka asked again.
“Rayan asked me not to. He wanted you out of it.”
“I’m the commander of the guard! That doesn’t make any sense!”
