KNOX'S POV
Elder James closes the door behind us with the pitch of a sealed coffin.
The private chamber is designed with portraits of previous council elders staring down with judgment frozen into oil paint.
It's the kind of room where careers are destroyed and reputations are buried, where power brokers come to feast on the carcasses of men who made the mistake of showing weakness.
James thinks I'm about to show weakness.
He's wrong.
"Drink?" He moves toward a crystal decanter without waiting for my answer, pouring two glasses of whiskey that probably costs more than most wolves make in a month. "We have matters to discuss. Man to man. Alpha to alpha."
I don't take the glass he offers. I don't sit in the leather chair he gestures toward.
I stand in the center of his carefully orch
