Lucian remained on one knee until Evelyn ordered him to stand.
The recovered red hunting mantle spread across the snow behind him. Men from Greyhaven, Blackcoast, and Vesper had all stopped to watch a defeated Alpha offer his life as if it were a weapon laid at her feet.
“I did not accept your life,” Evelyn said.
“The debt exists whether you accept it or not.”
“Then carry it without turning it into a claim.”
Something sharpened in his eyes.
He rose anyway.
The descent took hours.
By the time the palace gates opened, the mountain had become bloodstained bandages, broken equipment, and a prisoner walking between six armed guards.
The court gathered in the lower hall before Evelyn crossed the threshold.
Marcus entered beside her with a staff beneath one hand and a Vesper officer clo
