Chapter Eighteen: Between Fangs and Fire

Ethan’s POV

He didn’t hesitate.

The moment Tiberius accused Silas, Ethan movednot as an Alpha, but as a mate.

He shoved aside the Crescent envoy blocking his path and stepped between Silas and the room’s rising heat.

“You accuse my Luna in my house,” he growled, voice low but lethal. “You better have more than theatrics and poison ink to back it up.”

Tiberius sneered. “You’ve blinded yourself with love, Alpha. He was Crescent’s spy once who's to say he hasn’t slipped again?”

Arden’s blade gleamed beside Ethan’s.

“You forget,” Arden said coldly, “that this ‘spy’ bled to save your peace.”

The room held its breath.

And then Silas spoke.

Silas’s POV

“I won’t apologize,” he said, voice clear. “Not for who I am. Not for where I came from.”

He stepped forward, past Ethan’s arm.

“But if anyone wants to test whether I’m still a spy… come try me. I dare you.”

The silence that followed was electric. Dangerous.

Silas locked eyes with Marcus across the room.

And for the first time since childhood, his brother looked… conflicted.

Marcus’s POV

He hated this.

Hated the attention on Silas. Hated the target painted on his brother’s back.

But most of all

He hated how right Silas sounded.

Tiberius’s game was obvious now. Destabilize the summit. Destroy trust. Spark war.

He had walked into this alliance with suspicion, yes.

But not sabotage.

And now?

Now he had a choice.

Nina’s POV – Elsewhere

She watched from her private quarters, a raven perched beside her.

Reports from the summit already flowed in.

Tiberius had moved. The Council was fractured. And Ethan’s authority? Wavering.

All she needed was the next spark.

The raven cawed once.

Nina turned.

And Elder Myra, a Crescent loyalist with ties to her late mother, entered the room.

“Are you ready to trade truth for chaos?” Myra asked.

Nina smiled. “Only if it burns them both.”

Silas’s POV – Nightfall

The summit dissolved.

No peace was signed. No war was declared.

But something had cracked.

Silas sat alone on the edge of the training field, his fingers tracing the edge of the burnt summit map retrieved after the eruption.

And beneath the ash, he found it.

A seal. Hidden under the Crescent symbol. Faint, but unmistakable.

His father's crest.

Silas’s heart froze.

His father, the former Crescent Alpha… dead by betrayal.

And now his symbol… embedded in the sabotage.

It wasn’t just political anymore.

It was personal.

Ethan’s POV

He found Silas an hour later, staring into the firelight.

“What is it?” he asked.

Silas held up the scorched map fragment.

“This,” he whispered, “might mean my father wasn’t just killed.”

Ethan’s jaw clenched. “You think he was murdered.”

Silas didn’t look away from the flames.

“No… I think someone inside my pack used him.

And now they’re using me.”

Because the truth doesn’t just burn bridges

It burns bloodlines.