Chapter Four

Max’s POV

The Council chamber is designed to remind you of your place.

I always feel it pressing in the moment I enter. Its stone walls are veined with old sigils, their persistent magic vibrating low under the skin

An ancient stone table occupies the center of the room, surrounded by blackwood chairs carved during the Blood Accords. Polished smooth by centuries of bodies that believed power lived in posture. Here, the ceiling arches too high, forcing the neck to tilt, the spine to bow. An attempt, I suspect, to make even kings feel small.

I smirk. The thought always amuses me.

There is also that signature smell. Subtle. Incense and iron. A ceremonial blend meant to evoke reverence and obedience.

Has never worked on me.

I look at those in attendance.

Five of them. All half-bloods or hybrids, as they refer to themselves now. Each one distinct. Each one trying very hard to sound steady. Their human hearts playing a staccato tune in my ears. Each Sanguinari house is represented.

“The line cannot remain vulnerable indefinitely,” Lord Virel speaks, without raising his voice.

One of the original Sanguinari offspring. An Aldercrest. He has survived long enough to know volume is a liability. He was old when my grandfather ruled. Old enough to remember when silence carried more authority than speech.

Over eight centuries but looks more like an aristocrat at sixty five.

“You are not vulnerable,” I say. “Nor is the House of Aldercrest.”

“That is not what I meant,” he replies, thin lips curving. “You know precisely what I meant.”

I do.

They all do.

The issue of succession sits between us, unspoken but heavy. Dead weight.

“You are both blood regent and Crimson heir. Have been for almost a century now.” Lady Carrow says. Her fingers are steepled, knuckles pale with the effort of stillness. She avoids my eyes at first. “The last untainted line. You understand what is at stake. Your father’s restraint was… admirable. Yours, less so.”

I lift my gaze slowly.

When our eyes meet, her breath hitches. She drops her gaze almost immediately. I can sense her fear even with the power she wields. Her need not to offend in any way.

“Meaning?” I ask, brows arched.

Her gaze slips sideways, betraying her intent. To the empty seat beside mine. A space that has never been filled.

“A consort would ease much of this concern,” she says.

“An heir would silence all of it.”

Ah, there it is.

An heir.

The word lands with the dull thud of something dropped carelessly onto stone. Too simple. Too easy.

“You have been presented with candidates,” Virel continues. “Sanctioned pairings. Proven bloodlines. Hybrid women conditioned for compatibility".

Bred.

The word tightens something low in my chest. I do not react outwardly, but the room does. The air thickens, subtle and immediate. One heartbeat “And yet,” he adds carefully, “you have rejected them all.”

“I did not reject them,” I say. “I simply declined the arrangement.”

A distinction they understand perfectly. And resent deeply.

“You cannot afford sentiment,” Lady Carrow snaps.

I lean back in my chair, one ankle carelessly resting on the other knee.

"You speak of sentiments and yet there was not a single Olderman or Aldercrest amongst those presented."

I watch her face pale. Lord Virel shifts in his seat and there is a general stir in the room.

"They were carefully selected. Each one understands the implication of birthing a royal. They are willing to make the sacrifice. Besides, Purebloods do not mate on impulse.”

“No, we don’t,” I say quietly. The sound carries anyway. “We mate on instinct. Which is why such an arrangement will not work.”

Silence settles. Heavy. Uncomfortable.

My bloodline traces back to the first originals. Strong. Powerful. Dangerous. Apex predators not just by strength alone. Our bodies know before thought interferes. Instinct tells us what can sustain our blood. What will fracture under it.

Instinct that has kept my bloodline pure and undiluted.

“You speak of instinct as if it is infallible,” Virel says. “Yet your instincts have led you nowhere.”

I lean forward, slow and deliberate. Forearms rest on the table. Palms flat. Open.

If I wanted, I could make him kneel. Compel muscle to betray mind. Will lungs to forget how to draw breath.

The knowledge hums beneath the surface of the room. Sharp. Restrained.

“Perhaps a demonstration would set the record straight. A reminder of who you address so carelessly." I let my gaze settle on their faces one by one.

A ripple moves through the chamber. Someone swallows too hard.

"My instincts,” I say, “have kept our line intact while others diluted themselves into irrelevance.”

“Your father produced an heir,” Lady Carrow presses.

What she does not say is that my mother was human. Yes, human but an abomination. Unfortunately, for them, I turned out a pureblood, not hybrid. And with my powers magnified making me the strongest pureblood in history.

“My father bound himself to a human woman who survived pregnancy only because she was altered,” I reply. “And paid for it in ways you prefer not to remember.”

Forbidden alchemy. Blood rituals that bent law until it screamed.

Eyes lower. Spines stiffen.

“We are not asking you to repeat his mistakes,” Virel says. “Only to fulfill your duty.”

A quiet, humourless laugh escapes me.

“By using a woman chosen by committee? A woman chosen to die for the sake of an heir?”

Silence filled the chamber. They knew that being a hybrid did not guarantee success. My father's experience was lesson enough.

Pureblood pregnancies were rare. Brutal. The female body had to be reinforced. Altered. Prepared.

Every hybrid female who carried a royal child died shortly after giving birth, the child as well.

They know this.

“You would only need to succeed once. Perhaps if they drank from you...”

Something in me stills.

I rise to my feet. The chair scrapes softly against stone. The sound is small. The effect is not. Several heartbeats jump despite their owners’ discipline.

“You misunderstand,” I say. “If I take a woman, it will not be once. It will not be calculated. It will not be something I can turn off."

I stop to gaze into every one of their eyes before I continue.

" And I, will be the one, doing the drinking.”