CHAPTER THREE
871 Words
CHAPTER THREE
Darius
No one had ever given me conditions before.
I dismissed my beta, who stayed hidden in the shadows with a look. Lyra didn't show any surprise at a huge shifter slipping out from the walls.
The doors closed.
The silence stretched between us — long enough to be uncomfortable, long enough for most people to start hearing themselves and pull back.
Lyra Valen didn't pull back.
She stood in the center of the chamber with dried blood on her knuckles and the wounds in her side she was pretending didn't exist, as she looked at me like she had nowhere else to be.
I moved away from the table. Not toward her — but not away.
"Destroy the Valen family," I said. "That is your condition."
"That is my condition."
"The Valens are already disgraced. Implicated for treason. Stripped of most of their territory — all they have left is an empty title." I turned to face her.
"There is nothing left of them worth the effort of destroying."
I had let the Valens be when they were willing to destroy themselves in my efforts to take control of the Western pack.
I was now rethinking that choice.
A live Valen with something to trade was considerably more dangerous than a dead one with nothing left to say.
"That depends on how much trust you have in these pack leaders," she whispered.
I stopped.
She held my gaze without flinching, or filling the silence, any of the things people did when they were flustered and realized they may have put their foot in their mouth.
She simply waited — patiently, giving me nothing. She asked that simple question — directly, without cushioning it, like she had decided that softness was a currency she couldn't afford.
"Explain that," I said.
"You can't really believe that the whole court is happy you are the alpha king."
"There will always be someone in your court," she said, "who is quietly biding their time to build their legacy on a foundation that does not belong to them."
She let that sit for a moment. I didn't give her the satisfaction of reacting.
"After all, forbidden fruit has always tasted sweetest."
"So you're saying the compliance you have now is a facade — that the Valen alpha and his accomplices were implicated falsely."
The room was very quiet.
"That is quite the claim," I said.
"You said it yourself. Not me," she shrugged.
"And you expect me to take it on faith, I assume. This half-baked claim of yours."
"I expect you," she said, "to ask yourself who in your court has benefited most from a disgraced bloodline, your cleared territory, and a political vacuum that appeared at exactly the right time." She paused.
"I'm not asking for faith. I'm asking you to think."
I looked at her for a long moment.
She was good.
Painting a pretty picture with just enough to make me question everything.
She was dangling it, and we both knew exactly what she was doing, but she was doing it well enough that I was already thinking.
"You won't tell me who until you have my word," I said.
"Correct."
"And if I give my word and what you bring me is nothing?"
For the first time, something moved at the corner of her mouth.
It wasn't really a smile.
"Then you'll have lost nothing you weren't already losing. Someone in your court is lying to you, Alpha King. You can use me to find out who, or you can keep me chained to your bed and wonder about it for the rest of your reign."
I crossed the room.
I had chosen her for convenience.
While the Valen family's alpha had caused me a lot of trouble, exterminating the whole clan when they were willing to clean house by themselves had seemed a bit too much.
So I had let them be.
I was now rethinking that choice.
"I could have your uncle killed — all his mutts too — and breed you for the legitimacy," I whispered into her ear.
It was why I chose her.
Her family name was noble — and expendable. Nothing more.
I stopped in front of her. Close enough that most Omegas would have already looked away — simply from the pressure that came from being in proximity to me.
She didn't look away.
I let the Alpha call rise.
I raised the pressure of the call without even trying. Still nothing. A smile pulled at the corner of my mouth — I wanted to see how far I could push her before she broke.
Then I increased it intentionally — all that alpha pheromone aimed at a single target, the kind that had dropped Alphas to their knees when I'd had reason to use it.
Submit. It echoed.
I watched it hit her.
Her breath shifted — barely, she quickly gained control. Her jaw tightened. Something moved behind her eyes that she locked down almost fast enough for me not to see it.
Almost.
She was not immune. Just better at fighting against the Alpha's call.
I pressed harder.
Her chin came up and she snarled at me.
I laughed.
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