Page 184 of Maksym

“Yes.”

“And Madelyn was Iron Valor.”

“Yes.”

“Different packs. Different regions. Different cultures in some respects.”

“Yes.”

Grace nodded once, as if placing the answer carefully beside several others the room had not yet seen.

“Tell the Council when you first spoke with her in a personal capacity.”

Sloan drew in a breath. Her gaze moved once toward Maddie, then back to Grace.

“It was the night after a demonstration on the main stage,” she said.

A movement passed through those who knew Obsidian and a sharper curiosity through those who did not. Pleasure clubs produced many kinds of demonstrations. Most were irrelevant to law. This one was relevant because people had been careless with a young woman’s humiliation.

Grace’s tone did not change. “What happened that night?”

Sloan’s mouth tightened. “There had been an on-stage demonstration. It went well. The room liked it. Maddie was working the floor after.”

“And Prince Nikolay?”

Nikolay did not move.

I did not look at him immediately. I looked instead at Grace, because she had chosen this wound deliberately. She had warned him she would not hide his failures. Still, hearing family shame made into legal scaffolding stirred something old and defensive in me.

Blood wanted loyalty to mean concealment. Justice demanded better.

Sloan answered carefully. “He dressed her down publicly.”

Maddie’s chin dipped by a fraction.

Grace let no sympathy enter her face. “In what manner?”

“He was cold. Sharp. He made it sound like she had embarrassed the house. Or herself. I don’t remember every word.”

The truth spell hummed faintly, not in rebuke. More like confirmation.

“But you remember the effect,” Grace said.

“Yes.”

“What was the effect?”

Sloan looked down at her hands. “She was hurt.”

Grace did not ask whether Maddie had deserved it. She did not allow the prosecution an opening to turn discipline at Obsidian into a debate over workplace conduct. She stayed with the point.

“How could you tell?”

“I’m a wolf,” Sloan said. “We scent emotion. Especially distress. She kept her face together, but she smelled like shame and anger. And grief, maybe. I don’t know how else to say it.”

The words struck the room oddly. Vampires smelled blood and lies, and fear with exquisite accuracy, but wolf testimony about emotion carried its own blunt intimacy. Shame had a scent. Anger. Grief. All the hidden things a body betrayed before a mouth could edit them.

Grace inclined her head. “What did you do?”