The air inside the chamber was warm and slow like breath caught between parted lips. Candlelight bled down stone walls in amber rivulets, casting long shadows that moved like watching eyes. The space thrummed with unspoken things—power, hunger, old laws folded into muscle memory.
Jasmine stood at the threshold, a column of black silk and bare skin, framed in firelight. Her heels clicked softly against the flagstones as she stepped in, each movement deliberate, each sway of her hips a punctuation. She did not bow. She did not announce herself. She simply entered, like smoke curling under a door.
The court gathered in tiers. Wolves, all of them. Male and female. Alpha and elder. They sat like predators disguised in silk and gold, every face turned toward her, every gaze sharpened to a blad
