The blade shook in Bastián’s hand, and everyone in the council chamber held their breath.
I stood frozen at the center of the stone floor while ancient pack law closed around my throat like a tightening chain. The silver edge of his weapon reflected the chamber lights faintly as he stared at me from several feet away, jaw locked hard enough to c***k bone.
Kill her.
The order still hung in the room. It was meant to be simple, final, and necessary because every wolf present believed it.
The Bond pulsed violently beneath my skin now, reacting to the storm tearing through him. I felt it all through the pull: the rage, the duty, the instinct, the fear, and beneath all of it something dangerously close to panic.
It wasn’t the fear of me, but the fear of what killing me would do to him.
Bas
