Rebecca’s POV
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The fur was scratchy.
That was the first thing I’d noticed, two weeks ago when Magnus had deposited in this chair like I was so kind of prize he’d won. The pelts that covered it were old and poorly cured, stiff in so places and weirdly soft in others, and they slled like animal and mildew and the particular unwashed musk of n who had stopped caring about basic hygiene sowhere around the ti they decided civilization wasn’t for them.
I sat in it every day.
I sat in it straight-backed, chin up, Vixen perfectly composed under my skin, projecting every ounce of Silver Fang authority I had left. Because if I slouched for even five minutes, one of these animals would take it as an invitation.
There were thirty-seven of them.
Uncounted rogue wolves, ranging from young and feral to old and feral, housed in a converted warehouse complex sowhere in the outer ring of the territory. No windows worth ntioning. Leaking ceiling in the east wing. Cooking slls that would have made any reasonable person lose their appetite entirely.
I was the only woman here.
I was aware of this fact constantly. Every hour of every day. The way you’re aware of a thorn in your shoe — not always screaming, but always *there.* The looks they gave were the particular kind that n who have spent too long outside of any social structure give to anything female that wanders into their orbit. Calculating. asuring.
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The door banged open at half past two.
I heard Magnus before I saw him. That particular heavy tread, the one that announced itself. The sounds of the n in the outer space stirring, shifting, the instinctive animal awareness of the apex predator returning to his den.
I set down the comb I’d been dragging through my hair and stood up.
Composed my face.
He ca through the doorway like he owned everything, which he believed he did. Magnus Blood Crown at sixty-two, stripped of his title and his territory and his legitimate authority, exiled by his own son — and sohow still managing to take up more space than any man I’d ever t.
His red-gold eyes were bright.
He was in a good mood.
That should have been a relief. It was not.
"Rebecca." He crossed to in four strides. His hands found my waist before I could manage so much as a greeting. He pulled against him, and I went — of course I went — and then his mouth was on mine.
I kissed him back.
I made myself kiss him back.
His hands were too tight on my waist and he slled like blood and unwashed skin and the faint tallic undertone that always clung to him now, that rust-and-iron scent that Tyrant — his inner wolf — wore like a coat. He tasted like whiskey and violence and I kept my hands flat on his chest and my face perfectly still and I kissed him back.
When he finally pulled away, he was grinning.
"You should see your face," he said. Like he found sothing delightful about .
"I’m looking at you," I said. Sweetly. "My face looks exactly the way it should."
He laughed. He liked that. He liked things that had edges, liked to think he’d t his match, liked the performance of it.
Good. Let him think that.
He settled onto the fur-covered chair — *my* chair, technically, the one I occupied during the day — spreading himself across it with the loose-limbed confidence of a man who had never in his life questioned whether he belonged sowhere. His long legs stretched out in front of him. He reached for the bottle on the table beside it.
"Sit," he said.
I sat on the arm of the chair. Close. The way he liked.
"Tell ," I said. "You look pleased."
"Pleased." He rolled the word around. "Yes. I am pleased." He took a long drink. Set the bottle down. "The eastern checkpoint."
I kept my expression warm and interested. Just the right amount of eager. "I heard the commotion earlier. The n were excited about sothing."
"They should be." He leaned back, satisfied with himself in a way that filled the whole room. "Two of Kael’s periter warriors dead. A third hanging on, last I heard. And the boy knows it was — that’s the beautiful part." He pointed at his chest. "I made sure of it. Left sothing for him to find."
"Smart," I said.
"Of course it was smart. I trained him. Every instinct he has, every tactical move he makes — I built that." He looked at . "And I know every counter to it."
I nodded slowly. "So you’ve mapped their defenses."
"Better." He tapped his temple. "I know who’s in them. The fourteen n with access to the rotation schedule — I have three of them. Three, Rebecca. In my pocket. In his own inner ring."
His free hand ca up and covered mine. His thumb moved across my knuckles, slow and deliberate, the gesture of a man marking his territory.
"Soon," he said. "A few more weeks. A few more positions established. And then—" He spread his other hand open in front of him, like he was envisioning a map. "We move on the main compound."
"And Kael?"
"Kael will be dealt with." The words were light. Dismissive. The way you’d talk about an inconvenient obstacle, not your own child. "He’s strong. I’ll grant him that. But strength without information is just energy spent poorly." He glanced at sideways.
"And Aria?" I asked.
His expression changed.
Not darkly. He wasn’t threatened by her — not yet, anyway, and I’d been watching for that particular tell since I arrived. He didn’t understand what she was. He didn’t understand what Kael was becoming because of her. He still thought this was about territory and power and bloodlines.
He didn’t understand that it was about sothing much harder to defeat than any of that.
"The Oga?" He made a dismissive sound. "She’ll be handled."
"How?"
He looked at . A slow, assessing look, the kind that was always half a test.
I kept my expression open. Curious. Just a woman asking a question.
"The boy cares about her," he said finally. "That makes her useful." He shrugged one shoulder. "And after she’s served her purpose—" He left it unfinished. The way he always left the worst things unfinished. Like he didn’t need to say them out loud.
"And when it’s done?" I asked. I let my voice go lighter. Let the question carry the particular tone of a woman who has been waiting for sothing. "When you’ve taken the compound back. When Kael is—" I paused. "—handled. What happens then?"
Magnus turned to look at fully.
And smiled.
That smile.
"Then," he said, "everything I promised you."
He set the bottle down. Stood up, slow and deliberate, and turned toward , and I made myself hold still while he did it.
"You want to be Luna." He said it like he was offering sothing magnificent. "You’ve always wanted it. That boy—" His lip curled. "My son was too stupid to see what he had in you. Too distracted by a Shadow Moon Oga with pretty eyes."
I kept my face perfectly still.
"I’m not my son." His voice was quiet. Almost gentle, the way it got when he was at his most dangerous. "I understand ambition. I understand wanting the thing you were made for." His hand ca up, and he pressed two fingers under my chin, tipping my face up. "You help take this back. You prove your loyalty. And I will put you on that throne myself."
"Luna," I said softly.
"Luna," he confird.
His fingers stayed under my chin. Not hard. Just there. A reminder of how easy it would be for them to be hard.
"And if you’re loyal—" He said the word with a particular weight. "—completely, utterly, wholly loyal. Not just to the goal. To ." His eyes t mine, and there was nothing warm in them at all. "Then you’ll have everything."
He lowered his hand.
Let the silence sit.
Then he said, very quietly: "But Rebecca. If I find out you’ve been keeping things from . If I find out you’ve been talking to anyone you shouldn’t. If I find out that pretty little head of yours has been working on sothing behind my back—"
He didn’t finish the sentence.
He didn’t need to.
He just looked at , with those red-gold eyes that his son had inherited the color of but none of the coldness, and let fill in the rest myself.
I looked back at him.
I held his gaze.
I nodded.
Slow. Obedient. Perfectly perford.
What an absolute, delusional, power-drunk madman.
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