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She cast a helpless look to Broderick, one of the males who knew her father best, as if to ask whether any of it was true. Would he also view her differently? Had she misjudged what her ambition and hope would mean for the people she loved?
Have I gotten this all wrong?
Broderick merely took an uneasy step forward, closer to her father, though she didn’t know whether it was to defend him or restrain him.
“Clara,” Bronze warned. “Get behind me.”
“Yes,” she mumbled to herself, sensing the gravity of a mistake she’d not foreseen.
But she was far too slow.
The chair behind her father hit the floor before Clara had even lifted her foot out of the great desk’s shadow.
Then that very shadow transformed into one of fangs and claws.
When Clara looked up, her father’s gray wolf stood atop the desk. By the Moon Mother, he was huge. She’d forgotten how large and powerful he was. The howling snap of his jaw was a stark reminder, and the saliva that fell from his elongated fangs gave his message the ferocity he so clearly wished it to have.
Clara screamed as the wolf took flight. It leaped at her and scattered everything on the desk into a whirlwind of confusion. Teeth shot at her like a missile. She fell back against the rug and flung her arms over her face, bracing for her father’s bite?—
The roar that erupted above her was none like she’d ever heard before. A masculine cry of rage drowning out a predator’s growl. There was a yelp, a grunt, followed by a whoosh she couldn’t place, and then finally . . . heat.
“Up, lady. Up now!” Broderick’s hands were beneath her arms as he helped her to her feet.
Good thing, too, because she had no idea what she was witnessing and her limbs had frozen in shock.
No, that wasn’t true. She had words for all the components of the picture. The circle of blue flames. The snapping gray wolf in the center of them. The Aubusson rug reduced to embers where the flames touched it, though the fire, strangely, wasn’t spreading beyond the concentric circle.
Yes, she had words to describe all those things. Just none of the sense as to the why of it all.
And then Bronze stepped out of her peripheral vision.
Goodness, he was glorious . . . and terrifying. A hard mask of brutality stretched across the angles of his face like stones coming to rest into long-familiar settings. Every muscle on his body was strung taut and locked up tight, as if relishing finally being called into service. The blue flames of his angel fire, however, were the most brutal of all. Targeted, menacing, and under the complete control of her soul bond. It was the power that had been freed by their celestial connection coming into being and was a force that was immense in its fury.
“You got a dungeon or something? Cells? Some form of detainment?”
Broderick placed himself in front of Clara, ensuring she was out of the way of the flames. “Yes.”
“Throw him in there and keep this in the cell with him.” Bronze extinguished the flames encompassing his right fist, reached into his back pocket, and tossed a closed metal switchblade at the guard. “Make sure he can’t reach it, but keep it close to him. It’ll ensure he can’t shift.”
Broderick caught the blade and held it away from his body. Clara took a few steps back from it as well, despite being used to the close proximity of Bronze’s weapons. When she stepped back farther, however, her heel bumped against the edge of the desk, and she had to throw her hand out to right herself. Her pinky brushed the lip of a raised wax stamp, and the large wolf emblem upon it caught her eye.
It was a message bearing Lord Raff’s official seal.
More guards entered the room, with Bronze shouting commands while Broderick echoed the orders to his lycans. But it all faded into the blur of the background as Clara brought the note up to her nose to focus on the words that, though in a legible order, didn’t seem to make sense.
“Don’t feed him,” Bronze barked as he lowered the flames so Broderick and the guards could detain the king. “Unless Lady Clara allows it.”
Vaguely, she heard her name. That was her name, right? Possibly. Though with how badly her hands were shaking, she didn’t think she could put much stock in anything she’d previously taken as a certainty.
The words before her were succinct. No flowery language or unnecessary adjectives. Just pure brutal facts from a purely brutal warlord.
Clara’s hand flew to her stomach, and she waited for the truth to hit her, for the sky to open up and declare that what she held in her hands was a fallacy crafted by the king to ensure further dominion. Another manipulation. Something.
But the seal was real, and the note was dated the morning of the final trial. It had been written by Lord Raff before he died.
“This can’t be. No. No no no . . .”
The commotion in the room began to die down as the guards took her father away. Pascal had gone to accompany them at some point or see to whatever matters the old male needed to see to. Moon Mother knew he’d have much on his plate to clean up.
