I felt the air in the corridor turn thick, filling my system and choking me.
My father’s insult—the way he spat the word "bastard" like it was filth beneath his boot—made my skin crawl. But more than that, it was the silence that followed.
Caden didn't move.
He didn't blink.
He just stood there, a predator disguised as a servant, an ordinary assassin, and I could feel the violent hum of his wolf vibrating through the small space between us.
He was at a breaking point. I knew it.
For a heartbeat, I thought Caden might actually do it, that he might draw his blade and end the fifteen-year wait right here, in this narrow hallway, with my father’s guards as his only witnesses.
But Caden’s fingers, which had been curled into a white-knuckled fist, slowly unfolded. The lethal energy he
