Chapter 2 #2
Kael’s mouth twitches. He turns back to me. “A meeting. But first, the formal part.” He straightens. “The Alpha says it’s time to invoke the Hidden Accords. He says to tell Lord Maximus that wolves don’t ask twice.”
The Hidden Accords. Every supernatural species is bound by one rule above all others. Humans do not discover us. The compact has held without formal invocation. If Erik is invoking it now, the crisis has crossed the line that no single species can handle alone.
“How bad?” I ask.
“Three feral incidents in pack territory in the last two weeks. Our wolves had to put them down before they hit a hiking trail.” Kael’s nostrils flare.
“The last one was fifty yards from a campground. With families. Kids.” He rolls his shoulders.
“Erik’s been cleaning up after your kind quietly because the alternative is worse.
But the frequency’s picking up, and the next one his trackers don’t catch in time may make the evening news.
Humans have cameras. You know how that ends. ”
“Your people are putting down ferals,” Celeste says. “How long has Erik been handling this without telling us?”
Kael looks at her again. Longer this time. “Long enough to be done asking nicely.”
I study him.
“Where does he want to meet?”
“The Wax and Wane. Tomorrow night. Neutral ground.” He glances around the courtyard. The breach. The fractured stone. “Looks like you could use friends.”
“We’ll be there,” Celeste says.
“Tomorrow. Don’t be late. He hates late.”
Kael pulls his shirt over his head and drops it on the ground. Kicks off his boots. His hands go to his waistband, and he pauses, glancing at Celeste. “You can watch if you want. I’ve been told the shift is impressive.”
My hand is around his throat before the last word lands.
I don’t squeeze. I don’t need to. Five fingers resting against a pulse point. Kael’s eyes widen, but he stills. His pulse ticks up under my palm.
“That was a joke,” Kael says. His eyes very carefully on mine.
“I know,” I say. “This is my sense of humor.”
“Maximus,” Celeste says. “We need him breathing.”
I hold for one more second. Then release. Kael’s hand goes to his throat, rubbing once. The grin comes back, smaller now.
“Fair enough.” He strips off the rest without commentary.
The shift takes him, bones cracking, body reforming, until a brown wolf stands where the man was.
He turns without a gesture and runs, clearing the ward line in two bounds and disappearing into the tree line.
His clothes in a pile on the courtyard stone.
Celeste looks at me. “Sense of humor?”
“He’ll remember it.”
“He’ll tell Erik.”
“Good.”
Her hand catches mine.
I allow it. But we have some unfinished business to address.
We walk back inside.
The courtyard is lit by the emergency floodlights Caleb’s team installed after the compound assault.
The eastern wall still carries the witch strike’s scars, stone fractured in patterns that follow the magic they channeled.
The wards hum above us, Seraphina’s architecture reinforced by Lanthar’s power.
Daylight is long gone, but she still carries it. No vampire has any right to smell like sunlight. She does.
Past the conference room. Four faces turn when we walk by. Julian already has contingency frameworks on the table. He doesn’t look up.
Celeste stops at the doorway. “I’ll brief Julian on the shifter meeting. Get his read on the Accords.”
“Good.”
She lets my hand go slowly. Then she walks into the conference room, and I watch her take her place at the table beside Julian. She asks a question before she’s fully in her seat. He pulls a document toward her without looking up.
I go to my study. Close the door.
The room is dark. I don’t turn on the lights. I sit behind the desk, put my hands flat on the surface, and breathe.
Time passes. I don’t track it. I sit with it and let it settle.
Then her steps in the corridor. She enters my study.
“Julian’s drafted three contingency frameworks for the Accords activation,” she says from the doorway. “Ranked by risk.”
“Of course he has.” I look at her. “And the supply numbers?”
“Isabelle walked me through them. We're already down eighteen percent across the network. The new Charlotte reserve hub is still clean. If it goes, it’ll be six weeks before we run dry.” She pauses.
“Konstantin doesn’t need to win a battle.
He just needs to starve us until cooperation looks better than principle. ”
“The lords will start breaking. The desperate ones first, the territories already running thin. He’ll offer them his solution and they’ll take it because the alternative is watching their people go feral.”
“His solution being the farms.”
“Yes.”
Celeste crosses the room. Sits on the edge of my desk.
She reaches for my hand. Her fingers close around mine. Her thumb moves across my knuckles.
“I love you.”
I feel it from her.
Her jaw tightens. Her gaze stays on mine.
I reach up and press my thumb to the empty place at her throat where the chain used to lie.
“When I get it back,” I say, “it goes here.”
Something hardens in her expression. “When I get it back. He took it from me.”
“We’ll get it back.”
She holds my gaze.
I let my thumb trace the hollow of her throat, the bare skin where the chain should be. Her breath catches under my hand. Her pulse quickens under my thumb.
She’s here, and she’s looking at me like that. I’m done with patience.
I close my hand around her knee and pull.
She slides along the desk until she’s directly in front of me, legs falling open on either side of my chair.
I take her in from this angle. All of her, the line of her throat, the rise and fall of her chest, her eyes on mine from above.
I reach up and hook my fingers into the waistband of her leggings.
She lifts her hips without being asked, and I peel them down her legs and off, dropping them to the floor. Her underwear follows.
I pull her forward to the edge of the desk and she lets out a breathy gasp.
I run my tongue over her in one long, unhurried stroke, tasting her.
She makes a sound above me and her hand goes to my hair.
I do it again, slower, deeper, and her thighs shift apart, and her breath comes faster.
I take my time here. Long, slow strokes, the tip of my tongue tracing her while she tilts her hips forward, trying to direct me where she wants me. I don’t go where she wants me. Not yet.
I circle her entrance and press inside just enough to feel her clench, then pull back, unhurried, and she makes a frustrated sound. Her grip in my hair turns sharp.
“Maximus.”