C6

"Get your hands off him, you absolute bastard!"

Mirelle Voss's screech ripples through the upper gallery as she lunges across the stone dais toward Tahlia's collapsed form. Her ceremonial headpiece shatters against the basalt floor, silver pins scattering like teeth. In her frenzied panic to shield her bastard child, Mirelle drives her shoulder violently into my flank, deliberately trying to force me over the drop.

I am balanced on the narrow edge of the wooden ritual stage, my ankles locked into the five-inch silver Uoman Lanka combat boots. The sudden, unweighted impact snaps my center of gravity completely sideways. I am plunging off the platform toward the jagged stone floor below.

Instinct takes over. I tuck my chin and cross my forearms over my throat to absorb the concussion of the fall. If my skull cracks against the basalt, the Vinqlo guards will shred my inner wolf before I can shift.

But the impact never comes.

A massive, slate-hard forearm bolts out of the darkness, striking the center of my back like an iron beam. Before my boots can even touch the floor, another thick hand wraps around my ribs, hoists me entirely off my feet, and wrenches me back against a chest that feels like solid granite.

The suffocating, raw-meat scent of a prime Apex Alpha fills my senses.

"Why are you running around a den of vipers in ceremonial court armor if you cannot even maintain your balance?" David Duskbane growls down the back of my neck, his voice a gravelly vibration that shakes my teeth. He sets me down on the flagstones but keeps his palms locked into the leather of my waist, his pupils flared wide with lethal protective instincts. "Are you trying to break your neck before you finish your business here, Franklin?"

"I was doing perfectly fine until the old crone decided to use her weight," I snap, twisting out of his grip though my heart is slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird.

I want to tell him to back out of my personal space, but the truth is my bones would be shattered on the floor right now if his reflexes weren't supernatural. I swallow the venom in my throat, opening my mouth to give a brief nod of acknowledgment when Cedron Sterling shoves his way through the panicked crowd.

"Franklin! My central heir!" Cedron yells, his face a twisted mask of false devotion as he reaches out with trembling hands. "The pack was just about to intervene, but the Supreme Commander was swifter than my own guards... Lord Duskbane, your attentiveness to my boy is truly exceptional!"

I look at my father's face and feel a wave of pure nausea. He doesn't even glance toward the back stairs where two omegas are currently dragging Tahlia's limp, unconscious body away.

It is a fascinating display of pack dynamics. For a second, I almost believed his display of grandfatherly worry. What I cannot fathom is why my birth mother, Mcqueen a woman whose tactical journals described her as an unmatched strategist would ever choose a weak, treacherous mate like Cedron.

There is a rot at the foundation of this manor. I came back to unearth it, and I am not leaving until I dig up the secret that ended my mother's life.

"I am unhurt, Alpha Cedron," I say, keeping my expression perfectly smooth and serenity-blank, hiding the desire to tear his throat out. "You should accompany your mate upstairs. Tahlia looks completely drained from her transformation. It would be a tragedy if her wolf core sustained permanent damage tonight."

The submission in my tone makes Cedron’s chest swell with satisfaction. He truly believes ten winters in the Ashgrove Wildlands turned me into an obedient, easily manipulated tool for his council negotiations. He looks as though he thinks he is the luckiest master in the northern territories.

"You speak with excellent pack wisdom, Franklin," Cedron says, nodding rapidly as he backs toward the upper chambers. "I will handle the inner den matters and leave you to entertain our supreme guest. Lord Duskbane, the Sterling archives are open to your house. Use the manor as your own!"

David's jaw tightens until the skin over his cheekbones turns white. Use the manor as my own? his scent radiates an icy, lethal disgust. Does this minor regional lord truly think our houses walk the same hunting grounds?

He glares at Cedron until the old man flees up the stairs, then turns his dark amber eyes back to me. "I did not remain in this wretched valley to consume ritual meats with vassals. I waited only to confirm if your mind had changed regarding your extraction request. Is there a dynamic wish you require from the Duskbane Keep, or do you intend to stay in this pit?"

I look at him, feeling a sudden wave of exhaustion. Before my longship was destroyed, my scouts had only gathered tactical logs on the Vinqlo border forces; I knew nothing of the massive geopolitical shifts in the central city. But the Duskbane name is a law unto itself. You do not need intelligence reports to know that the man standing in front of me rules the entire northern continent.

I had only acted as a survival medic on Skullmoon Isle. I drew the silver venom from his flesh because he was my ticket off the rock. Nothing more. Except for that single midnight in the cave where our skin met to fight the frost—but my wolf would rather pretend that primal resonance never happened.

"David, I recognize the power behind your offer," I say, my voice steady as I look him dead in the eyes. "But I do not require a patron. The Sterling business is mine to settle."

If there is blood to be spilled here, I am fully capable of drawing it myself. I have never relied on a foreign pack lord to fight my battles.

The line of David's mouth goes hard, his aura expanding until the fire-orbs flicker. "Omega, do you comprehend the scope of what you are dismissing?"

He has never had a request denied in his entire existence. To him, my refusal looks like a structural malfunction in my brain.

The sheer gravity of his frustration actually makes the corner of my mouth twitch. For some absurd reason, his massive pride is amusing. I shrug, leaning back against a stone pillar. "Then enlighten me, Supreme Leader. What exactly am I turning down? A place in your royal vanguard? And for the record, my designation is not 'Omega'."

"What do the wildlings call you then?"

"They call me klinton." It was the name my mother whispered before the Raiders took me.

"Klinton," he tests the name, his voice dropping an octave. "You still have not named your terms for the blood debt."

Seeing his absolute obsession with balancing the ledger, I let out a dry, sarcastic chuckle. "If your house is so desperate to clear the debt, why don't you... claim me as your mate before the council?"

David goes completely rigid. The air in the grand hall turns to absolute ice as his expression shifts through three distinct layers of complex, dark calculation.

The silence grows too heavy to breathe. I clear my throat, my ears burning slightly as I try to pull back the boundary line. "It was a wildland joke, Duskbane. Drop it. There is nothing I need from your vaults."

"I can execute those terms," David says suddenly.

"What?" My boots nearly slick against the floor. "What did you just say?"

David draws himself up to his full, terrifying height, his mask of cold authority returning flawlessly. "I can fulfill the mating request. However, the lineage alliance requires a formal presentation before the Duskbane high elders, as it involves the territorial succession of the north. It is not my decision alone."

"Wait... stop," I stammer, my eyes wide as I stare at his massive shoulders. "You cannot possibly be taking that seriously. I explicitly stated it was a tactical jest!"

"The wild forces often mask their true objectives behind humor, klinton."

"But I am telling you it was a literal joke! I have absolutely no interest in entering your den!"

David looks genuinely lost for a fraction of a second, his brow furrowing in deep, instinctual confusion. "Why? Every high-born lineage in the Condex districts has spent a decade begging to anchor their bloodline to my seat."

"Then go mate with them! I am not part of your grand assembly!"

"Regardless," David says, his cloak catching the wind as he turns toward the exit. "I shall deliver my house's formal response once the elders are notified. Rest well within these walls, Franklin."

He marches out before I can even lift a claw to stop him, his personal guard line instantly falling into a tight, black-clad wedge behind his shoulders.

"Hey! Get back here!" I yell, sprinting after him across the courtyard. "We are not finished with this discussion!"

Two massive Duskbane enforcers step into the archway, their silver-plated shields blocking the path with immovable force. "Our apologies, young master. Without the Commander's direct authorization, no one approaches the craft."

I slam my fist against the iron shield, but the line doesn't waver. No one crosses David Duskbane. It is the reason the city elites look at him like a god and the reason the regional packs use his name to scare their cubs.

I can only stand on the gravel, my chest heaving with sheer frustration as the Duskbane Shadowcraft roars to life, its dark rotors cutting through the night sky until it vanishes over the mountain peaks.

The silence returns to the courtyard, but my mind is spinning. There is no historical record of a modern High Alpha accepting a sarcastic mating joke as a binding political treaty. He has to be playing some deep, psychological game to keep me off-balance while I investigate my family.

I rub my face, letting out a rough breath. Let him play his games. I have more immediate wolves to hunt. I turn back toward the heavy oak doors of Sterling Wolf Manor, my eyes tracking the crest carved into the lintel.

What did Cedron do to my mother's line? How did the ancient Moore bloodline get entirely wiped out and replaced by this Vinqlo garbage? The answers are inside these stone walls, and I will tear them out stone by stone.