ログインThe interior of the Fortress was nothing like I’d expected. From the outside, it looked like a medieval castle frozen in time, but inside? It was unexpectedly high-tech, like stepping into some kind of military command center disguised as historical architecture.
Screens of different sizes covered the walls, displaying everything from news feeds to what looked like surveillance footage to complex data visualizations I cou
Sage.“I don’t like the way you…use her,” I muttered as I watched the same trio of men carry out the dead demon. The specialists as Dominic had called them.Aurora was battling a big bowl of apple flavored ice cream and she looked like she was enjoying herself.“Trust me, she got more out of it than I did,” Circe replied dismissively. She was staring intently at something that I could not see in front of her. “And this is what she should look forward to.” I frowned a little as I looked at her. “What do you mean?” “She is a predator, Sage and there would be other different predators li
Sage.Sixty million. Twice.That was the amount of bounty he put on the head of his enemies and the funny part was that, he did not even now their faces.“And so, the killing begins,” Argos said to me. “It is always like this whenever he returns.”“Being a prince of Black Crest means that he has to deal with a lot of assassination attempts and usurpers.” Argos added.I was still reeling from the large sum of money he just casually called. That was someone’s net worth. Was this how money flowed easily around here?The lift opened and Dominic walked in. He gave his long coat to Argos and went to the cabinet. He fixed himself a drink’“Lord Baron, I presume,” Argos said. “He is working with some people and I intend to find them out.” Dominic said.“But is such an amount not too much for them?” Argos asked.“Lord Baron is worth exactly that amount.” Dominic answered. “I wanted him to know that his wealth is not anywhere near mine, nor will it ever be.” “You must have crippled his ego.”
DominicThe hotel went quiet beneath my voice, not silent, never silent in a place this alive, but quiet in the way a room goes quiet when something important is about to be said.“Ladies and gentlemen. Werewolves, demons, witches, and every other creature of the dark currently enjoying my hospitality.” I let my voice carry the particular weight I reserved for moments that mattered. “I am Prince Dominic of Black Crest.”I felt the attention of the entire building shift toward me at once, every floor, every table, every cage and corridor and private room, all of it turning in the direction of my voice the way iron filings turn toward a magnet. Lord B
Dominic“You may be the Alpha,” Lord Baron said, leaning back in my chair with the relaxed insolence of a man who had badly miscalculated his own importance, “but in here, you are just another debtor.”I showed nothing on my face.There was an art to that, to letting a man talk himself further into the grave he was digging, to giving him just enough rope and just enough silence that he mistook my patience for uncertainty. Lord Baron had never been intelligent enough to recognize the difference between a predator that hesitates and a predator that waits.He was a low-ranking Beta, noble by birth and a failure by every measure that had ever mattered to me. He had been born into privilege he had done nothing to earn and had spent his life since compensating for the fact that he had never once proven himself capable of holding power through anything other than money. The result sat in front of me now, overweight in the particular way of men who substitute appetite for ambition, his chin f
Dominic.I watched with interest as a demon was brought out of its glass cage and made to kneel before Circe. My specialist nodded to me respectfully and left.Demons were like rodents in Silver Crests. They were many, deceitful and mischievous. They had human features but what gave them away was their ears which was pointed and fangs on their upper teeth.They came in all colors. Red skinned, green skinned or even normal human skin. They were also magical creatures which means that they had magical origins. What demons knew how to do best was grant wishes.This is one in my prison was captured by me because he failed to grant me one wish after he tasted of my blood.Demons were addicted to Alpha blood due to the powerful essence it held. Like Aurora, they fed on energy but theirs was through blood and not sex.“Prince Dominic,” the demon purred and smiled desperately. “It has been a while since I have laid eyes on you." "Trickster,” I replied. “As of this moment, you are no long
SageHe stumbled away without speaking.I watched him go. The crowd did not fill the silence the way crowds usually fill silences, with noise, with movement, with the instinctive covering-over that groups do when something uncomfortable has happened in their midst. Instead they stayed where they were and stayed quiet, and the quiet had a texture to it. The weight of people recalibrating.They had felt it. All of them within range had felt the magic, and the feeling of it was written across their faces in different combinations of the same essential ingredients, unease, fascination, the particular wariness of people who have just encountered something they do not have a category for.A werewolf with magic.I understood the reaction. I had spent long enough being the thing people didn’t have a category for to recognize it on sight.“Perhaps Lady Sage would prefer somewhere private.”Argos materialized at my right side with the timing of someone who had been watching carefully and had ch
What I saw made my blood run cold.Heavily armed men were moving through the crowd like wolves through sheep. I recognized them immediately, High Guards of the Council, their black unifor
SAGEThe wretched and broken stayed here. That’s what everyone said about Mountain Back, and they weren’t wrong. This place was home to the lowliest of the low, the forgotten ones, the castoffs, the wolves who didn’t fit into Silver Crest’s pristine vision of itself. Here, crime rates were high eno
“How many incidents this week?” I asked Dominic as we walked to the area of emergency.“We stopped counting,” Dominic said with a grim expression on his face. “After three years we lost count.”We were led to a briefing room with different screens showing all the areas the attack had taken place.“
There were three arms of the council, each with their designated role in the governing of Silver Crest. The Executive held the most power, making the crucial decisions that shaped our world. The Legislature came second, tasked with writing the laws that supposedly bound us all. The Judiciary inte







