LOGINAldric Blackthorn's POVThe man who came to see me did not look like someone running from anything.He sat across my table with the ease of a person who had decided that losing was temporary and was already planning the next move, and he looked at me with the particular attention of someone who had studied me before walking in and was confident he knew what he was going to find.I did not like him immediately. That was fine. I did not need to like someone to do business with them."You know who I am," he said."Lucien Draven," I said. "The man who had a kingdom and lost it to a wolfless girl from a disgraced pack." I picked up the cup on the table in front of me. "Sit down. You are already sitting. State your business.""You have a private army," he said. "Eighteen months of building. Funded partly by Richard Ashwood, partly by your own pack revenues, currently sitting in your eastern territory with nowhere to go." He held my gaze. "Richard is in Lycan custody. Your funding source is
Drake's POVI had been riding for six hours when Lucien found me.I did not know who he was at first, just a rider pulling alongside on the eastern road, keeping pace without speaking, which was the kind of thing that either meant nothing or meant something and you did not know which until they opened their mouth."Drake," he said. "Future Alpha of Blackthorn Pack."I looked at him. He was well-dressed for someone on a road at midday, unhurried, with the face of a man who was not used to being the one who had to explain himself and was adjusting his approach accordingly."Who are you?" I said."Someone with a proposition," he said. "And a common problem.""I do not know you," I said."You know of me," he said. "Everyone does, at this point." He held my gaze. "Lucien Draven."I pulled my horse up.He stopped beside me without urgency, like he had expected this reaction and was prepared to wait through it."You are the man who tried to take the Lycan Kingdom," I said. "Who had the counc
Selena's POVI found Kael in his study with the letter in my hand and Dave already there, which meant Nia had told Dave before she told me, which meant everyone in this palace moved faster than I gave them credit for."You read it," Kael said, looking at the letter."Yes," I said, and set it on the desk between them.Dave picked it up and read it and set it back down without a word, which was how Dave communicated that something was significant and he needed thirty seconds to process it before he had anything useful to add."The Moonveil line was declared extinct to protect it," Kael said. "Not to erase it.""That is a different story than the one the Oversight Council told," I said."Yes," he said. "It is." He looked at the letter. "Which means either whoever wrote this is telling the truth and there is a faction we did not know about that has been protecting the bloodline from the outside — or they are telling us what
Selena's POV We rode back at dawn. The fires at the formation had burned out completely by the time Thorne's unit finished the documentation, leaving six scorched circles in the earth and the particular stillness of a site that had held something significant and now held only its absence. The allied packs had already begun dispersing — quietly, with the subdued energy of people who had witnessed something they were still processing and needed distance from to do it properly. Richard Ashwood rode in chains between two of Thorne's soldiers, three horses behind me. I had not looked at him directly since Thorne put the restraints on him in the formation. I had been aware of him the whole ride — the specific awareness you have of something you are deliberately not looking at — and for the first two hours I let it stay that way. Then I pulled my horse back until I was beside him. He looked at me when I came alongside. His face did the blank thing. The nothing that had always been wor
Chapter 63: The Hunt BeginsKael's POVThorne found me two minutes after Lucien said it was over."He is moving," Thorne said quietly, close to my ear. "Eastern edge, on foot, using the freed wolves as cover. If we move now we can cut him off before the tree line."I looked at Selena. She was still at the center of the formation, the white fires burning lower now, the ritual fully inverted and releasing. She caught my eye and I gave her one look, stay — and she gave me one back that said she understood and also that she was not happy about it."Dave," I said. "Stay with her.""Alpha—" Dave started."Stay with her," I said again, and turned to Thorne. "How many?""Ten," Thorne said. "Fast ones. He is not running yet, he is walking, trying not to draw attention. The moment he realizes we are moving he will run.""Then we do not let him realize," I said. "Go."We moved along the eastern edge of the formation in the shadow of the outer ring, keeping the freed wolves and the surrendering p
Kael's POVWe heard the fires change before we saw them.Not the sound of them — the quality. The particular shift in the air that happens when something burning stops burning the way it is supposed to. Thorne registered it at the same moment I did and his hand went to his sword without him deciding to."She is in," I said."Alpha—" Thorne started."Faster," I said. We rode harder.The perimeter came into view two minutes later, wolves stationed at the outer line, but they were not looking outward at us. They were looking inward, toward the fires, toward the center of the formation, toward whatever was happening inside it that had made every one of them abandon their post facing outward and turn."They are not fighting us," Thorne said, pulling up beside me."No," I said. "They are watching her."We broke through the outer line unopposed, the perimeter wolves stepping aside without a command, their eyes still on the center. Not hostile. Not suppressed. Alert. Present. The specific al







