Alex’s smile sharpened. “See?” he said, “not just me.”
Chase inhaled, and Arthur shot him a look.Don’t.
“You’re worried I’ve forgotten who I am,” Arthur said, “who we are.”
“You’re sleeping with the thing we were raised to fear,” Alex said. “You brought more of them into our territory. You invited Volnoye to stand on the ridge and watch our backs. It’s fair to ask if Alpha still fits the male making those calls.”
A few heads dipped, reluctant agreement.
“It’s also fair,” Alex went on, “to remember there are old laws. When an alpha endangers his pack, when he leads us toward ruin, he can be challenged. Replaced. For the good of all.”
There it was.Replaced.
Arthur’s wolf rose, cold and lethal, “You challenging me, Alex?” he asked softly.
Anticipation flickered in Alex’s scent. Ambition, dressed up as duty.
“Not today,” Alex said. “Today, I’m reminding you there’s more on the line than your witch and your guilt. You make the wrong call out there, it’s our people in the ground, not yours alone.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Arthur snapped. Wolves flinched at the crack in his control. “You think I allow this summit, these strangers, for fun? We’re in danger. All of us. The hybrids will not stop, and we cannot fight them alone.”
“And the witches?” Alex asked. “You dragged them here because they’re useful? Or because you couldn’t let one go, so the rest of us get dragged along for the ride?”
The words bit.
Arthur saw Dani in his hallway, fire floating above her palm. His own involuntary flinch.
“Both,” he said, because he was finished lying, “Dominic was right. We need witches. We need their magic. And I wasn’t leaving my mate and my daughter to face this alone.”
Discomfort rolled through the room.
Alex’s mouth curled. “There it is,” he said, “you put them first.”
“He didn’t,” Chase cut in, voice gone flinty, “he said with us. There’s a difference.”
“You’d follow him into a volcano,” someone muttered.
“He’s my brother,” Chase said.
Arthur took a slow breath. “I am not putting witches above Nordan,” he said, “or Volnoye above Nordan. I’m putting the war above my pride. You want an alpha who makes callsbased on old grudges instead of what keeps you breathing, you should’ve voted for my father’s ghost.”
A few short, unwilling chuckles.
Alex’s chair thumped down on all four legs. “We want an alpha who remembers who bled for him,” he said, “who doesn’t forget his own when a Salem witch bats her eyes.”
Arthur lunged, and Chase barely caught his arm, restraining him.
He wanted to fight. To rip Alex’s head clean from his shoulders. To remind them allexactlywhy they called him the Ice Bear.
Before he could break free, a new voice slid into the room.
“I think we’ve all heard enough.”
Every back went rigid.
Julian stepped out of the shadow by the back corridor, coat buttoned, dark hair neat, expression carefully neutral.
“Julian,” Chase muttered.
