Chapter 8: The Sole Tribute

Cassian

The Great Hall stank of fear and treachery.

Every breath I took filled my lungs with the pure, intoxicating scent of my mate—moon lilies, crushed pine needles, and celestial iron. But layered beneath that divine sweetness was the sickening, oily stench of rot coming from the blonde girl at the table.

Now I understood why Camilla's aura had felt like a disjointed patchwork.

She was a thief.

She had been feeding on the blood of the sovereign Dark Moon line, swallowing the celestial ichor drop by drop to keep her own rotten core from collapsing into ash. And this coward of an Alpha—this posturing dog wrapped in velvet—had turned the rightful heir of the empire into a scullery slave.

My beast paced behind my ribs, his claws raking against my consciousness. *Kill them all. Burn the packhouse. Drown them in their own river.*

"No," I told the beast, forcing the red haze back from my eyes with sheer, iron discipline. "Not yet. She is too weak to survive a battle. We take her first."

I kept my left arm wrapped securely around the small, trembling body pressed against my ribs. She was so light. Her spine pressed against my forearm through the coarse homespun wool of her dress like a ladder of dry sticks.

Tyler slowly lowered his hand, his mouth working silently for several seconds before he managed to scrape together a fawning, oily smile.

"Lord Regent," Tyler stammered, wiping a film of cold sweat from his forehead. "Forgive me. The girl startled me. She is... she is an idiot orphan from the backwoods. A mute stray we took in out of the goodness of our hearts. She has no manners. She doesn't understand the court."

"An orphan?" I repeated, my voice flat, cold, and dead.

"Yes, Your Grace!" Beatrice chimed in, stepping forward with a nervous flutter of her hands. "A diseased wretch. We have fed her and clothed her for ten years, but she is simple in the mind. She cannot even shift! If she offended your senses with her clumsiness, we will have her taken to the yard and whipped—"

"Silence," I said.

The word was not loud, but it carried the full, crushing weight of the Northern Throne.

Beatrice's jaw clicked shut. She stumbled back a half-step, her throat working as the invisible pressure of my aura pressed against her windpipe.

I looked down at Tyler.

"The annual tribute ledgers are on the table, Alpha Tyler."

Tyler blinked, completely thrown off balance by the change in topic. "Yes! Yes, Lord Cassian. Fifty wagon loads of winter wheat, twenty tons of forged iron from our mountain mines, and five hundred silver marks for the garrison's protection. The tallies are all verified by my council."

"Burn them," I said.

Tyler's eyes went wide. "Burn... burn them? My Lord, surely Riverfang’s loyalty—"

"I have no interest in your wheat," I said, my gaze cutting across the room like an iron blade. "I have no need for your brittle iron, and your silver marks are worthless in the high peaks."

A flicker of panic crossed Tyler's face, quickly followed by a sharp, calculating gleam. He looked past me toward Camilla, who was sitting with her back straight, batting her thick eyelashes, trying desperately to project the image of a desirable, high-born bride.

"Of course," Tyler said, his chest swelling with sudden, arrogant confidence. "The North seeks an alliance of blood, not trade. My daughter, Camilla, is the pride of the southern valleys. Her lineage is proud, her beauty renowned across—"

"I do not want your daughter," I cut in, not even bothering to look at the painted doll.

Camilla gasped, her mouth falling open in humiliating shock.

Tyler's face turned crimson. "Then... then what does the Northern Throne demand for border peace? If not trade, and not an alliance of marriage, what tribute will satisfy the Lycan King?"

I looked down at the tiny, shivering girl in my arms.

Her silver eyes were wide with exhaustion, her pale lips parted in faint, shallow breaths. She was leaning all her weight into my chest now, her starved body simply unable to hold itself upright any longer.

"Her," I said, pointing directly to the girl in my arms.

The hall fell into a silence so absolute that the crackle of a single pine needle in the hearth sounded like thunder.

Tyler stared at me as if I had spoken in an ancient, dead tongue. "Her? Sera?"

"Her," I repeated, my tone leaving no room for argument. "The servant girl. She is the sole tribute Riverfang will pay for the next ten years. Give her to me, and the Northern garrison will guard your borders without taking a single grain of wheat or an ounce of iron."

A slow, disbelieving laugh began to bubble up from Tyler's throat.

He looked at Beatrice, who was staring at me with naked astonishment. Then he looked at Kael, standing near the pantry door, who had to bite his lip to keep from grinning.

To them, I was a madman trading an empire's fortune for a bucket of dirty water.

Tyler thought he was unloading a dying, diseased runt who had set fire to his roof that very morning. He thought he was cheating the Great Duke of the North out of thousands of gold pieces in exchange for a girl whose veins were so dry she likely wouldn't survive the three-day journey through the high pass.

"Done," Tyler said instantly, his hand slamming down onto the oak table before I could change my mind. A wide, triumphant grin split his graying beard. "She is yours, Lord Regent! Take the wretch! Riverfang surrenders all claims to the stray!"

"A wise choice, Alpha," I murmured, my lips curling into a cold, lethal smile that made the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

Tyler thought he had just won the greatest negotiation of his life.

The blind, arrogant fool had no idea he had just given away the only thing keeping his pack alive.