登入An hour later, we were alone in our private bedroom.The fire in the hearth was burning hot, warming the cold stone walls. The room was perfectly quiet.Cillian stood near the center of the room. He reached for the heavy leather straps on his chest plate. His fingers were stiff and tired from holding the reins for days. He struggled to pull the thick metal buckles loose.I walked over to him. I pushed his hands away gently."Let me," I said.I reached up and unbuckled the leather strap on his left shoulder. I moved to the right side and pulled the heavy iron pin free. Cillian stood perfectly still and let me work. I pulled the massive chest plate off his body and set it carefully on the floor. It hit the stone with a loud, heavy clank.I unstrapped his arm guards, his iron greaves, and his heavy leather belt. I took the torn wolf pelt off his shoulders and folded it over a wooden chair. I stripped the Warlord down until he was just standing in his dark trousers and his thin linen shir
[POV: Elian]My boots hit the stone stairs hard. I skipped steps, moving faster than I ever had in my life. I grabbed the iron railing to keep my balance and swung myself around the sharp corners of the stairwell. My lungs burned. My legs ached from lack of sleep, but I pushed the pain down and kept running.I burst out of the stairwell and sprinted down the long main hallway. A servant carrying a basket of folded clothes stepped out of a side room. I did not stop. I bumped hard into his shoulder. The basket fell, and the clothes spilled across the floor."Sorry," I gasped out, but I did not look back.I pushed past two Northern guards standing at an intersection. They stepped back quickly when they saw my face. They knew better than to get in my way right now.I reached the heavy double doors that led to the main courtyard. I threw my entire body weight against the thick wood. The doors banged open loudly, and I stumbled out into the cold evening air.The courtyard was complete chaos
[POV: Elian]The fire in the hearth had burned down to orange coals. I did not put more wood on the iron grate. I just kept walking back and forth across the stone floor of our bedroom. My boots made a quiet, steady sound against the rocks. It was the only sound in the entire room.It had been four days since Cillian rode South. Four days since he took his Lycan riders and marched toward the Eastern capital.A plate of cold meat and bread sat on the heavy wooden table near the door. A servant brought it up from the kitchens hours ago. I had not touched it. My stomach was completely tied in tight knots. If I tried to force food down, I would be sick.I stopped pacing and pressed my hands flat against the cold stone wall. I rested my forehead against the heavy rock and closed my eyes.Kaelen.I could not stop seeing his face. I did not see him as the King of the East sitting on a wooden throne. I saw the boy who took the beatings meant for me. I saw a man who loved no matter the odds.
"The rest of the council will fall in line now," Kaelen said, his breathing starting to slow down. "They are cowards. They only followed Varis because they thought he was smarter than I am. Now that he is gone, they will not dare try this again.""They will obey you out of fear," I corrected him. I stood beside the throne, looking out over the empty hall. "Fear is a good tool, but it is not loyalty. Do not turn your back on them. You cannot trust men who only follow you because they are afraid of the sword."Kaelen turned his head and looked at me. His dark eyes were bloodshot, but the sharp intelligence in them was returning."You saved my life," Kaelen said. He did not say it like a politician. He said it as a hard, absolute fact. "If you did not lock down the castle, the poison would have finished me. If you did not find the mercenaries, Varis would have blamed my death on the North. You saved my throne."I turned away from the empty hall and looked directly at him."I did not do t
[POV: King Cillian]"Get them out of here," I ordered.Commander Vane nodded. He turned toward the Northern guards standing along the walls and gave a short, sharp hand signal. The Lycan soldiers immediately stepped forward, moving away from the stone walls and walking directly toward the kneeling Eastern lords.The lords scrambled. The pure terror in the room was suffocating. They did not wait for my guards to touch them. They threw themselves toward the spilled gold on the floor.They did not look like the most powerful men in the Eastern Kingdom. They looked like starving beggars. Lord Torin dropped to his hands and knees, scraping the heavy gold coins off the stone floor and shoving them into the deep pockets of his expensive coat. Lord Kelan was crying silently, his hands shaking so violently he kept dropping the coins back into the dirt.They did not look at Lord Varis’s dead body. They did not look up at King Kaelen sitting on the throne. They kept their heads down, desperate t
I let the insult sit in the air. None of them argued. They just stared at me, waiting for death."By the laws of my Kingdom, and the laws of yours, you should all join Varis on the floor," I stated.The lords flinched. Torin squeezed his eyes shut."But I am not going to kill you," I said.Torin opened his eyes. Kelan dropped his hands. They looked up at me, completely stunned. They didn't understand. They couldn't comprehend why they were still breathing."Do not mistake this for mercy," I warned them, stepping closer. "I am not sparing your lives because I forgive you. I am letting you live because the Eastern Kingdom is massive. It needs an administration. Taxes must be collected. Roads must be maintained. The harvest must be stored. If I kill the entire council today, the cities will fall into chaos, and my brother will have to spend the next five years rebuilding a broken government."I pointed at the spilled gold on the floor."You are going to pick up that gold. You are going t
I was not given food or water.A few hours after Cillian left me in the dark, the iron door shrieked open again. Two massive Beta guards dragged me out by the chains, my bare feet scraping against the freezing stone. The sudden influx of torchlight felt like daggers in my eyes. My head was pounding
The first thing I felt was cold. A heavy, damp chill seeped straight into my bones, sucking the life right out of me.Where was I? I tried to move, and a sharp, metallic clink echoed through the darkness. My breath caught. I pulled my arms toward my chest, stopping short as heavy iron chains bit
Several people screamed. I slapped both hands over my mouth to keep from making a sound, biting down on my own palm so hard I tasted blood. My heart was beating so fast against my sore ribs that I thought my chest was going to split open. Panic. Blind, total, animal panic. My body got hot fast.
My ribs ached before I opened my eyes. That was how every morning started. Pain. A dull, steady ache burned on my left side where Alpha Thorne had kicked me two days ago. My crime? I hadn't scrubbed the blood out of the training mats quick enough. It wasn't just that my ribs ached. The screaming
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