Chapter 50
Chapter Fifty
LUKA
I stroll past trees with branches like fingers, the bright green buds appearing here and there. The steely sky above me stretches to infinity over the brick and concrete city. My city.
For now.
A text will go out to Edie’s sister later today. She’ll get free, and she’ll use the money to make a life. Live her dreams. Help her sister. She’ll use that money out of spite, if nothing else.
I never gave a shit about the future. I never planned for it. Until now. A woman got under my skin and made me weak. Made me strong in different ways.
It was good for a while. It was very, very good.
I turn the corner at Trevor Street, enjoying the crisp air and the din of traffic and birds and planes and the sense of the earth under my feet.
This is my domain, whether I live or die.
I feel it all with this strange ripple in my chest that might be gratitude.
And love. Both foreign concepts until her.
My heart is still full. It feels rare and strange and wild as a hurricane. Is it possible that there are people who walk around like this all the time? Full of love and gratitude? How do they function ?
I knew what I was signing up for, killing my brother and taking over the clan like I did. I set myself up as a king, and I accepted the risks. I took what I wanted. But it was worth it to me. A true alpha doesn’t hide behind facades.
The vengeance wasn’t really worth it in the end, but the path I followed to get there led me to Edie, and she’s worth it.
Orton’ll be the one to kill me, but it’ll be good to see him one last time all the same. A king couldn’t ask for a better knight. A truer man.
Even a false king couldn’t ask for better.
The bright beer sign flashes up ahead.
She’s still on my skin. Her taste on my lips. Her claim stamped into my very cells.
I take a breath and pull open the door, ready for death. I knew the deadly price if I was found to be anything less than a true blood, and deep down, I knew I probably wasn’t. But I claimed the throne anyway.
It takes a while for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The place is packed—more men than I expected. Figures hunched over tables, profiles edged in red neon from the beer signs. All Ghost Hound Clan. My clan, until they decide otherwise.
The conversation dies as I enter. A glass shatters somewhere in the back, and the sound of a shotgun being pumped punctuates the silence.
Men turn slowly. Eyes narrow. Jaws tighten.
Several hands drift toward waistbands or inside jackets. The air crackles with tension, like the moment before lightning strikes. I count at least twelve weapons already half-drawn.
I step further in. Somebody kicks the door closed behind me with more force than necessary, making sure I understand there’s no retreat.
“We wait,” somebody hisses from the darkness.
“Bastard,” comes another voice .
“We’ll have proof of that soon enough.” Gianni spits on the floor in front of me.
I turn toward him, keeping my expression neutral. “Gianni.”
His eyes are hard, glittering. “What kind of man pretends to be what he isn’t? What kind of rat thinks he can rule over us?”
So, the story has spread and taken root. Probably Bender’s doing. Zamir .
Someone else calls out, “Dead man.”
A blade catches the neon light. “Even your brother proclaimed it.”
I think of Edie handcuffed to my bed. Her face. The way the light caught in her hair. If I die here, at least she’s safe. That thought steadies me. I’ve protected what’s mine to the end.
“Orton is on his way with the proof. Any last words?” Gianni asks, weapon drawn.
I look around at the faces of the men I’ve led, meeting their eyes one by one.
“A false king who served true,” I say, voice hard as steel, “is better than a true king who serves false.”
The words hang heavy in the air.
West is at the bar, staring into his drink. Kress the Shadow, who’d follow me anywhere last week, now sits with arms crossed, face blank.
Orton’s shout cuts through the din. “The kyre is here!”
He pushes through the crowd, a folded paper clutched in his hand. Storm towers behind him, face like granite, hands gripping what I know are dual Glocks beneath his coat.
Orton stops a few feet from me. His eyes are unreadable. “The results.” He holds up a paper.
He’ll execute me himself. Fulfilling his oath to the bloodline. I can see it all unfold, clear as day.
“It’s true then?” I ask quietly, just for him.
Orton’s eyes flash. With what? Anger? Regret?
He turns to address the room, voice carrying to every corner. “I hold in my hand the DNA test results.”
A man near the bar stands. “Read it!”
Another voice, “Show us the proof!”
“Let’s end this tonight,” Iron Jaw Dardan snarls.
Orton unfolds the paper with deliberate slowness. The room is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Someone cocks a gun, not bothering to be subtle.
“The DNA analysis shows”—Orton pauses, his gaze sweeping the room—”that Luka Zogaj carries blood more ancient and more pure than any living Zogaj.”
Confusion ripples through the crowd. Men exchange glances.
He looks up, face dead serious.
I blink. Stunned.
It makes no sense to them.
It sure the hell doesn’t make sense to me.
“Bullshit!” someone calls.
Orton shakes his head. “A test was run in two different labs. The results are beyond conclusive. His blood carries markers consistent with a direct lineage to The First.”
A beat of stunned silence.
Orton continues, voice rising. “Not just a Zogaj—a direct descendant of the original kryetar himself. The First.”
Chaos erupts.
“Impossible!” Gianni pushes forward. “Let me see that paper!”
“How could his mother have—” another begins.
The room teeters on the edge of violence. I stand rooted, as surprised as any of them. This wasn’t the end I expected.
“It’s a trick!”
Orton’s voice thunders above the din. “ You question the blood? ”
The room falls silent.
Orton is a true believer—everybody knows it. He’s like a fire-and-brimstone preacher, a Crusader clutching his cross on the battlefield .
Orton holds up a fist. “I swear by this ring, a relic preserved for generations in my family. Science confirms what the prophecy foretold!”
Men cross themselves instinctively. Some make the old gesture against evil.
Orton’s face is flushed with fervor. “The true king has been revealed! A bloodline purer than we imagined!”
“It’s not possible,” Florian argues, but his voice wavers. “How could the kryetar’s blood?—”
“Do any of you claim to understand the workings of fate?” Orton’s voice drops and takes on an almost mystical quality. “Do you presume to know how the unseen powers move through generations?”
The atmosphere in the room shifts, almost imperceptibly at first.
Orton would sooner cut off his hand than question what’s written in the ancient texts.
To lie about something like this?
Unthinkable.
My pulse races. What. The. Fuck.
“Our ancestors foretold this day,” Orton continues. “A king whose blood reaches back to The First, who would restore the Clan to glory.”
I feel the change in the air. The hostility gives way to something else. Uncertainty. Then awe.
Storm steps forward. Without speaking, he sinks to one knee before me.
One by one, others follow. First the older men—those most steeped in the old ways. Then, the younger ones, pulled by tradition.
West, still hesitating, finally slides off his stool and drops to a knee.
“The promised king,” Orton says, voice thick with emotion .
A man approaches, takes my hand in both of his and bows his head over it. Then another. And another.
“Luka!” someone calls out. The name ripples through the crowd, building into a chant. “Luka! Luka! Luka!”
I catch Orton’s eye over the heads of the kneeling men. There’s something in his gaze—a glint of fierce protectiveness. Of loyalty deeper than blood.
He knows something about the test that I don’t.
What?
But right now, surrounded by men who minutes ago were ready to riddle my body with bullets, all I can do is play my part.
“The promised king,” Orton repeats, dropping to one knee himself. “Gezuar!”
“Gezuar!” the room echoes.
Bottles appear. Raki flows. The Chant of the Brotherhood rises.
And somehow, impossibly, I’m still alive.
Later, when the men come back to earth and stop treating me like Zeus descended from the mountain, or at least once the men tone it down a little, I turn to Orton.
“I’m directly descended from somebody four centuries old?” I lower my voice to a harsh whisper. “I’m telling you, my mom wasn’t running around fucking mummies.”
Orton leans closer, his eyes intense. “You don’t understand how much these men want to believe—in you.
In the specialness of the clan. They’re making sense of it already.
Some are saying perhaps your mother crossed paths with another true bloodline—one hidden from our records.
Others...” He gestures toward the celebrating men.
“They see this as confirmation of the old prophecies. A king with blood more ancient than we knew.”
“That’s crazy,” I mutter.
“Is it?” Orton’s voice drops further. “These men follow power, but they crave meaning. A bloodline connecting you directly to The First? It gives them something holy to serve.” He taps his glass against mine.
“The impossible blood of a true king is a far better story than a leader who earned his place through blood and willpower alone. Men die for stories, Luka. They always have.”
I give him a hard look.
“The unseen powers work in mysterious ways.” He throws back his raki.
It’s then I see it—the dull shine of the stone in his ring. The smoothness. “Your ring looks different.”
“What?”
“Your ring. It was beat up, but the stone was always shiny. But now it looks so dull. And wait... it had a chip on the side of it?—”
Orton grabs his glass, effectively moving his ring out of my sight. “The men need you to speak. Some of them need reassurance you won’t be angry. They moved to kill you when they thought you were not true blood.”
“Is that even your ring?”
He stiffens. “I think I’d know my own ring.”
I grab his arm. “That’s not your ring. It’s a fake.”
“Stop.”
I look into his eyes. “What have you done, old friend?”
“Nothing.”
I squeeze. “What. Have. You. Done?”
Orton puts his hand over mine. “I serve the kyre. You are the kyre.”
My heart pounds in my chest as the pieces of the puzzle fall together.
“You faked the test?” I hiss.
Orton frowns. “How could I? I had no access to the test. The results were certified and sent all over the place.”
“No, the samples. You broke your ring to get at the ancient hair. You offered that ancient hair to Bender.”
“Madness,” Orton hisses.
“You told him that the ancient hair from your ring was my hair.” Orton rolls his eyes, but I know I’m right. Bender said that one of my own men offered up my hair for use in DNA testing.
That man was Orton.
Orton pried open his treasured heirloom relic ring and took it from there. His relic ring that was passed down through generations.
He probably ended up destroying his beloved ring to get the hair out.
“Orton,” I say.
Orton fixes me with a hard gaze. “I serve my king. I am loyal to my king. You are the true king.”