Next Move

Knox

We stand inside his study. It's the study he uses when he visits the academy. A desk, a lamp, a few chairs. He shuts the door and turns to face me.

I keep my left hand behind my back. The burning has stopped, but the mark is still there.

"Go on."

"Your men have been following him for months. He knows. He has never tried to lose them."

"He doesn't care that they're there." I choose my words carefully. "You didn't like that. You never said it, but I noticed."

His face doesn't change. "So you decided to make him care."

"Yes. The girl was the one thing he couldn't ignore."

"A wolfless girl. In front of the whole academy, in front of the council."

"Yes."

"Then you should have done it properly."

His voice stays flat for that sentence. It doesn't stay flat for the next one.

"That's one reason," he says. "Give me another."

"I'm your heir."

"Heirs can be replaced."

The room goes quiet.

"You had the headmaster bound," he says. "You had the council seated. You had everything you needed to finish it in one afternoon." He steps closer.

"And you stopped. The elders tell me you shouted. They tell me you sent everyone out like a boy who lost control of his own game."

"Father—"

"Do you know what they saw today?" He is shouting now.

"They saw an Alpha who can't finish what he starts. They saw the next king stop in the middle of a punishment and clear the yard!"

I say nothing.

"Why did you stop?"

"I made a mistake."

"That is not an answer."

"It's the one I have."

He stares at a point just past my shoulder. His jaw works. He doesn't push it.

That worries me more than if he had.

I clench my teeth until they hurt. I hate him. I have hated him for years, and I've gotten good at hiding it. One day I'll be stronger than him. Until then I say what he wants to hear.

"I apologise," I say.

The words taste awful.

Darius pauses. Then he walks up to me, slowly, and puts his hand on my cheek. The same cheek he hit. His thumb rests under my eye.

"Don't disappoint me again," he says.

There's nothing warm in it. When I was younger, this used to confuse me. I thought it meant he cared. Now I know what it is. It's another way of holding the leash.

"I won't," I say.

He drops his hand. "Blessing Night is close."

"Yes."

"What preparations have you made for your mate?"

Mating and Blessing Night is the one night the Moon Goddess gives wolves their mates. She picks them by her own will, or her own mood. It depends on who you ask. Nobody has ever worked out which.

Men like my father think she can be persuaded. Offerings, favors. The right words said at the right altar. They think she can be bargained with like a council member.

I think she does what she wants. I don't trust anything that decides a person's whole life based on how she feels that night.

And I don't want a mate. A mate is one more weight on me. One more person to protect and answer for. I have plans, and she would only get in the way.

My father waits for an answer. I give him nothing.

"Even at your age," he says, "I still have to do everything for you."

He turns and walks to the desk. He doesn't search. His hand goes straight to a stack of files, runs along the edges, and pulls one out.

He holds it toward me.

"Take it."

I take it. "What is this?"

"A new student is arriving soon. Everything you need to know about her is in there."

I frown. I don't like where this is going. I don't interrupt.

"She is the daughter of the Ice King," Darius says. "He is powerful and well connected. We need him."

He doesn't say why. I don't ask.

I open the file. A single name is printed at the top of the first page.

Nynx.

Darius comes closer. He stops right in front of me, his pale eyes fixed somewhere beyond my shoulder.

"You will make her your mate,".