Novels by Michael Ezike

"And we signed it," he said, not accusingly but with the rawness of someone still absorbing the full shape of what had just happened. "Because we didn't have a choice and because the alternative was worse and because Morgana is right that these conditions are manageable. I know all of that." He moved away from the window, crossing the room slowly. "I know all of it, Aria. And I still—"He stopped. Stood in the middle of the room with his hands loose at his sides, and looked at her with an expression that she had not seen on him before, not quite. Something past anger, past frustration, into a territory that was more personal and more difficult."I am going to have to share your children with the man who rejected you," he said. "I am going to have to watch them come home from visits with him and see his face in theirs and be—" He stopped again. "And be their father in every way that actually matters, every day, every moment, all the things that count and none of the things that are wri

The formal documentation took three hours.Nobody had warned her about that part. The winning part, she had imagined in the abstract, the relief, the release, the walking out of the chamber with her children still hers. What she had not imagined was what came immediately after the winning, the sitting in a side room with Council administrators and legal representatives and Morgana's sharp-eyed attention moving over every clause like a blade testing for weakness, while the afternoon light shifted slowly across the stone floor and her back ached and the twins moved restlessly and the words on the documents in front of her blurred occasionally at the edges because she had not slept properly in four days.Victory, it turned out, had an enormous amount of paperwork.The room they had been given was more comfortable than the antechamber. A proper table, several chairs, a carafe of water and one of tea that had gone cold an hour ago. A Council notary sat at the far end of the table, a slight

Not grief. Not relief, exactly, though relief was part of it. Something deeper and harder to name, the release of something she had been carrying since the moment she'd walked out of the Shadowpeak packhouse with divorce papers in her hand and two lives growing inside her and nowhere to go. The release of every sleepless night and every terrified morning and every moment she had doubted whether this was winnable, whether she was strong enough, whether love was enough to outweigh power and politics and the particular cruelty of a world that had tried very hard to tell her she was nothing.She pressed her fingers over her mouth and breathed.Landon's arm came around her, careful with the pregnancy, firm with everything else. His forehead dropped to her temple. She felt him exhale against her hair, slow and shaking, all that controlled steadiness finally releasing."You did it," he said, barely audible beneath the noise of the chamber. "Aria. You did it.""We did it," she corrected, her

The hour felt like a year.Aria sat in the small antechamber just off the main Council hall, her hands folded over her belly in a gesture that had become unconscious these last few weeks, something between prayer and protection. The room was sparse. Stone walls. A narrow window that looked out onto a grey courtyard where dead leaves skittered across the flagstones in the cold morning wind. A single bench, hard and unyielding, that she had refused to leave despite Landon's repeated suggestions that she lie down on the cot in the adjoining room.She couldn't lie down. She couldn't close her eyes. She could barely breathe.Landon sat beside her, close enough that his shoulder pressed against hers. He hadn't spoken much since the recess was called. He'd brought her water, which she hadn't touched. He'd spoken quietly on his phone twice, keeping his voice low, and she hadn't asked who he was calling. There was comfort in his stillness, in the way he simply stayed, no reassurances she would

"Seconded," Elder Ravencroft added.Elder Thorne looked troubled. "This is highly irregular. The money could have been planted, as Marcus suggests.""Or it could have been payment," Blackwood countered. "We can't know for certain. And when in doubt, we must err on the side of caution. Paid testimony has no place in these proceedings."The Elders conferred quietly. Then Thorne nodded reluctantly. "Marcus's testimony is suspect given these financial irregularities. While we won't strike it completely, we will give it less weight in our deliberations."It was a compromise, but it still hurt their case. Marcus had been their strongest character witness against Kieran. Now his credibility was in question.Kieran was smiling slightly. He'd successfully undermined one of their key witnesses."Are there any other witnesses?" Elder Thorne asked."I'd like to call Stone, head of Blackthorn pack security," Kieran said.Aria's blood ran cold. Stone was supposed to testify for them, to expose Kier

Then Kieran played his real card."I call Jenna, Thomas, and Sarah to the stand," he said. "The wolves who testified against me yesterday."Aria's heart sank. This was it. The moment Kieran would try to force them to recant.The three wolves approached slowly, their faces set with determination."Yesterday," Kieran said, his voice deceptively gentle, "you three made serious accusations against me. You described me as cruel, tyrannical, unfit to raise children. I'd like to give you an opportunity to clarify those statements.""There's nothing to clarify," Jenna said immediately. "We told the truth."Kieran's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Are you certain? Because I have sworn statements here from pack members who contradict your claims. Who say you left Shadowmoon pack not because of my leadership, but because you couldn't handle proper discipline.""Your 'proper discipline' broke Thomas's arm," Sarah said."An accident during training," Kieran countered smoothly. "Which I apologized fo