His smirk fractures, slipping like a mask with a crack running down the middle. Fury blazes across his face, hot and jagged, a glimpse of the monster under all that polish. When he speaks, his voice is low, cold, final. Every word vibrating with venom, like he’s already carved our headstones.
“The game ends here, little mice.”
Before anyone else can speak, I step forward, anger burning ice-cold through my veins. My chest feels tight, but my voice comes out sharp enough to cut stone.
“We’re not your mice. We’re wolves. And we don’t run.”
The words taste like iron on my tongue, part battle cry, part promise. My pulse hammers, but I hold his gaze, daring him to laugh. Let him. I’ll make him choke on it.
It sounds badass. Inside, I’m trembling. But that’s the trick, isn’t it? Sound sharp enough, no one notices the cracks.
He chuckles, empty as bone. “We’ll see.”
Then he whistles.
Glass explodes inward, windows vomiting shards. The shifters tense before the rest of us catch up—the pounding rhythm of paws, the earth quaking with it. The ceiling groans, then collapses. Wolves, bears, coyotes, wildcats pour in, fur and claws and teeth, a nightmare tide filling the room. Easily a hundred strong.
The temperature in the room plummets. The air turns thin and brittle, fragile as glass, like one wrong move might make everything implode. Goosebumps rise across my arms, not from any draft—this isn’t cold you can fight with firewood. It’s him. His fury drains the warmth from the space, leaving nothing but the sharp, metallic taste of violence hanging in the air.
Great. As if we needed help making this place feel like a freezer.
Maximillian spreads his arms wide, chest heaving like he’s soaking in the screams the way other men breathe air. His face is a mask of twisted ecstasy, eyes gleaming too bright, lips peeled back in a grin that shows too much fang, too much madness. He looks drunk on it, drunk on himself.
“Do you see?” he roars, voice booming off the walls, shaking the chandeliers. “This is power.”
My stomach knots hard enough to hurt. And gods, part of me almost laughs, because he doesn’t look like a king. He looks like a lunatic auditioning for Tyrant of the Year, grinning too wide as the world burns around him.
Yeah, therapy would’ve been cheaper.
The floor trembles.
Boards splinter with a violent crack, rugs tearing back. Figures surge upward, clawing their way into the light. I sigh with relief when Serafina’s tribe start arriving. They rise like spirits from the earth, shadows shedding dust, solidifying into flesh and fury. Six warriors stand before us, eyes burning like coals stoked too long, weapons catching the light in deadly gleams.
For a heartbeat, even the chaos falters. They don’t just look ready for war, they look like war incarnate.
Maximillian flinches, a crack in the armor so fast, most would miss it. But I see it. And the sight sends a sharp, vicious satisfaction through me. For a heartbeat, he isn’t untouchable. He’s just a man afraid of what he doesn’t control.
Then, the mask slams back into place, his lip curling into that familiar sneer. “Six more won’t save you.”
Serafina stands tall, bow aimed steady. “That’s what you think.”
Her voice dips into a chant, low and ancient, each syllable vibrating through the air like it was carved long before walls or kingdoms existed. It snakes under my skin, thrumming in my bones, bigger than any one of us.
Max scoffs, lips curling, “Theatrics.”
Anything he can’t control, he dismisses. It’s easier to sneer than admit the ground just shifted under his feet.
Then, the witch kneels, fingertip glowing ember-red, the heat pulsing like a coal come to life. She presses it to the floor, and fire veins outward in jagged streaks, racing like lightning underour feet. The lines spread fast, hungry, crawling over marble and carpet until the chamber itself feels alive.
Blazing patterns knit into shape, Choctaw runes igniting one after another until the entire floor is a burning tapestry. The circle bathes the room in light.
For a heartbeat, I can’t breathe. Not from fear, but from the raw enormity of it. This isn’t theatrics. This is power. The kind that doesn’t ask for belief, it demands it.
The air vibrates, heavy, alive, pressing against my bones.
Maximillian roars. “Kill the vessel!”
And hell breaks loose.
