The silence that follows Heidi’s accusation is heavy enough to crush the lungs of a lesser wolf. It stays in the air like a thick fog, damp with the sll of Grayson’s cooling blood and the sharp, tallic tang of the weapons the guards are currently pointing at Heidi’s throat.
Tobias doesn’t explode into a rage. Hell, the man doesn’t even roar.
Instead, he lets out a sound that is far more terrifying. It’s a dry chuckle that sounds like dead leaves skittering over a tombstone. He steps down the final two stairs.
"Execute my own son?" The man asks, his voice smooth as aged bourbon and twice as intoxicating. He spreads his hands wide, gesturing to the sprawling, opulent estate behind him, the empire he built on a foundation of bones.
"Heidi, dear, your grief has clearly curdled your brain. Why would I ever kill a heir of the blood? Why would I destroy the very legacy I’ve spent years perfecting?"
He stops just a few feet from her, close enough that she can sll the expensive cedarwood cologne and the underlying scent of ancient, rotting power.
He looks down at her as she shivers under Amias’s cloak with the sa expression one might give a stray dog that had just tracked mud onto a Persian rug.
"I will admit to one thing. I did send rogues tonight. But I sent them for you. You are a defect, a Moon-blessed anomaly that has done nothing but sow discord among and my sons. I wanted you removed from the equation. But Grayson? My youngest? My pride? Five versions of you wouldn’t equal the value of a single hair on that boy’s head." He purrs.
"You were the target, Heidi. If Grayson is dead, it is because you drew the fire. Or perhaps, you killed him yourself. A little act of vengeance for the man who dared to try to punish you for ruining the life of a girl whose family accommodated you. You killed the son to spite the father."
"You liar!" Heidi screams, the sound tearing from her throat like a physical jagged edge.
She tries to lunge forward, but her legs are like wet noodles, and the cloak slips, exposing a shoulder stained with the literal lifeblood of the man Tobias claims was his ’pride.’
She turns around, eyes flicking toward the courtyard that is now filled with almost all the workers within the estate. Outside the mansion gates, pack mbers were also gathered, eager to be a witness to the spectacle.
"Maybe you thought sacrificing your weakest son was necessary to drive the others ho. You’re a man whose breath reeks of ego, Tobias! Even after exiling us, you still couldn’t stand the fact that you lost despite winning!" She screams at the top of her lungs, every vein in her body throbbing.
"Enough!" Amias commands and steps forward.
He isn’t looking at Tobias; he’s looking at the guards, his eyes burning with a protective energy. "She didn’t do this. Heidi could never kill Grayson. She loved each of us more than she loved her own life. If she says you were involved, Father, then there is a conversation we need to have that doesn’t involve blades at her throat."
"Amias, shut your mouth," a sharp, feminine voice interjects.
Lira steps out. She moves with the grace of a Queen as usual. Heidi watches as she walks over to Amias and places a firm, proprietary hand on his arm, her nails digging slightly into his skin.
"Is she your wife, Amias? Or am I?" Lira’s voice is a cold splash of water. "Because the last ti I checked the ledgers and the Luna’s scrolls, I am the one who stood before the elders with you. I am the one who carries the weight of the Alpha’s line. This... thing... cos here naked and covered in your brother’s blood, accusing the King of a cri so heinous it borders on insanity, and your first instinct is to play the knight? Have you no respect for our marriage? Or for the body of the boy on the floor?"
The word marriage hits Heidi harder than the border guards’ shoulders ever could.
The world tilts. Heidi looks at Amias, her eyes searching his face for a denial, a joke, a ’Heidi, it was a political move,’ but all she sees is the crushing weight of guilt and the exhaustion of a man who has been forced to make a choice he hated.
He doesn’t look away, but he doesn’t move Lira’s hand either.
The bond—the one that had felt like a vibrant, golden cord just an hour ago—feels frayed and tattered. Grayson is dead. Morgan and Darien are... sowhere else. And Amias? Amias has a wife. He has a Luna. And she isn’t Heidi.
Heidi feels a laugh bubble up in her chest—a hysterical, broken thing. Well, she thinks, her inner voice sounding remarkably like Morgan’s for a second, at least the hotel jasmine slled better than this betrayal.
"It’s always the sa with her," Ines sneers from the top of the steps.
Her face is full of aristocratic disdain, though her hands are trembling as she looks at Grayson’s body. "Chaos follows her like a plague. First, she seduces our sons, then she leads them into the woods to be slaughtered. I only hope she hasn’t done anything to Darien. If my son is hurt because of this... this pestilence..."
"And Morgan," Lira adds, her eyes flicking toward the dark tree line. "Morgan was with them. If she killed Grayson, who’s to say she didn’t leave Morgan for the crows too?"
The ntion of the other brothers sends a ripple of fresh anxiety through the gathered wolves. The guards shift their weight, their grip on their spears tightening. The air is a powder keg, and Heidi is the match.
Just as the tension reaches a screaming point, the sound of heavy footfalls echoes from the main gate.
Two figures erge from the darkness of the driveway.
Darien is in the lead. He looks like he’s been through a war. His shirt is shredded, his chest is stained with the sa gore that covers Heidi, and his eyes are bloodshot and wild. But it’s the man behind him who draws every eye.
Morgan.
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