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Like roaches caught in the light, the crowd began to scatter. Women slipped from the stage one by one, except her. She stayed locked in his hold, her shock plain, her body rigid beneath his touch.

I didn’t expect the next reveal. When the woman beside him drifted off, their companions now exposed, one of them turned out to be Mark. His hand lingered boldly on a blonde woman’s ass as she passed him, laughter rumbling from his chest, until he saw me. His smirk died. His whole body went still. The man beside him stood and filed out with the others, leaving only a small cluster in the room: a few men lounging at the stage’s edge, Bomani and Kleitos advancing fast, and the guards flanking the platform, blocking their path.

William’s voice broke the silence, casual and venomous all at once. “Well, now… what do we have here?” He didn’t take his eyes off me. “I thought you said you’d only spotted regular purebloods from the Red Vale here in town this week. But the way you two are looking at each other…” His hand slid up her sides, fingers grazing her shoulders before settling at her throat. He squeezed, not hard enough to choke, but enough to claim.

She looked like a deer caught in headlights, big, doe-like eyes blown wide as she tried to speak.

“I told you exactly who I said,” she pleaded, voice thin and strangled. “I didn’t know who they were.”

William shook his head, standing and dragging her up with him, her body still crushed tight against him. In one sharp motion, he twisted her toward Mark. “Do you think Penelope told us everything she needed to tell us?” His voice dripped venom.

Mark laughed, the sound low and ugly, and shook his head. My gaze snapped to him; disgust etched across every inch of my face. He was co-signing this, mocking a woman, and I’d never seen this side of him before. He caught the change in my expression and met it without shame. “Let her go. What’s wrong with you?” My voice cut through their amusement. “Do you have no mother? No sisters? What the hell is wrong with you?” My feet moved on their own, carrying me forward.

“Ah, don’t come too close, Alexander,” William mused, turning with Penelope still locked tight in his arms. “This is merely what we kings have to do, right?” His voice dropped lower, colder. But the way he grouped me with him, as if we were equals, sent a warning flare through my mind.

What did Mark tell him?

My eyes slid past William, locking onto Mark with a glare sharp enough to pierce bone. “What did you just say?”

William’s gaze softened, almost reverent, as he spoke, not to me, but to her. “Oh, you have to make hard decisions… and this is a hard decision. Because, Penelope… I loved you.” The air snapped. The sound was small, but it ripped straight down my spine. And then her body hit the floor with a sickening thud.

My stomach lurched, bile burning the back of my throat.

I wanted to lurch after him, for the girl I barely knew, but I couldn’t watch her die like this. Her body twitched on the floor, fighting for the last scraps of life. No sound escaped her crushed windpipe. William made sure of it, slamming the heel of his boot into her once-perfect face. Bone cracked, blood streaking across the stage in a violent spray that stained his clothes.

He wasn’t just cruel. He enjoyed it. The way he savored the violence sent a chill through me deeper than the coldest night in Eari. And Mark… he didn’t even flinch.

The sight hollowed my stomach, but I forced it down, steadying myself. I sprinted toward William, only for Mark to throw his hand out, flame erupting from his palm. Fire roared over her body, swallowing her where she lay, releasing that sickly-sweet scent of burning flesh into the air.

Freezing, heat licked my face. William laughed behind the blaze, safe in the shadow it cast.

“So eager to fight. Maybe you are that bitch queen’s son after all. Rage in your eyes, ready to burn the world.” His gaze slid past me to the men still blocking the stage from Bomani and Kleitos. “And you brought friends. I should’ve known.”

The fire stayed contained; Mark’s focus was exact. He burned only her, keeping the flames from touching anything else. When all that was left of her was ash, he let the blaze die, the air heavy with lingering warmth.

William’s voice dropped to a calm that cut colder than his violence. “What do we owe this pleasure? Here to take my child again?” He tilted his head, almost curious. “Because you can’t have him.” His eyes flicked to Mark, then locked on me.

“You mean the man who adopted me? That is my father. You have no right to him.” My snarl carried across the space between us. There was no rational thought in my mind in that moment.

“Oh, maybe once he was,” William mused, settling back into his seat like a man in control. “But he is my proudest creation.” He motioned for Mark to come stand beside him. Mark obeyed without hesitation, like a loyal dog. The sight twisted my stomach.

I’d met Mark’s parents before. My grandmother and grandfather were some of the kindest people to be around, at least in the short time I knew them. Mark always claimed they were overcompensating for the way they’d messed him up, trying to make it right through me. Looking at him now, I knew this… this version of a parent in William was far worse.

“You tell him, Mark. It’s the least you can do. Let the boy understand before we send him on his way. I’ve no more tolerance for this tonight.” William’s tone was dismissive, dripping with the entitlement of a man who dared call himself king. His casual command, the way even the slowest coward in the room bent to him, stirred something deep and dangerous inside me. This was what Draco had warned me about. Something primal, buried, was clawing its way to the surface. And William was testing it.

I could feel it. He wanted me to play into his hands, to look weak. I suspected Mark had already painted me as a child who would roll over the moment William summoned him to his side.

They were about to learn otherwise.

Throwing a glance over my shoulder to Kleitos and Bomani, I wanted to make sure then seen the look in my eye. Both looked ready to tear through the guards without breaking a sweat, but I shook my head, just a fraction, telling them to give me a moment longer.

Mark’s warm brown eyes found mine again, scanning each of my features before his voice broke the silence, cool, measured. “What would you like to know?” he asked softly.

My brows drew tight, my nose flaring at the infuriating calm in his question. “What the hell is going on here? How do you know these people, Mark?”

“I already told you, Alex. I did this for you.” His tone was final, like the matter was closed, and he had no intention of saying more.

Shaking my head, frustration rose in me like a fever. Every time he spoke to me lately, it was with the same quiet entitlement, as if I owed him something. It was nauseating. “Fuck all that! Tell me how you know him. William, right? How do you know him?” I stepped forward, but William’s hand rose in a silent warning. It took every bit of control I had not to rip that hand from his wrist and lodge it down his own throat. I inhaled sharply, forcing myself to still.