Chapter 31
Elias
Ashcroft didn’t get back up.
For a second, the only thing I could hear was my own breathing and the high, harsh sound of his last attempt at one. Then even that cut off, leaving the hall full of ragged gasps, choked sobs, and the drip of blood onto polished wood.
Tamsin was still standing where she’d finished him, shoulders rising and falling, the knife her parents had given her clutched in her hand. Her dress was torn, smeared with blood—his and hers. A cut on her forearm leaked down to her wrist in a slow, steady line.
My chest unclenched just enough for me to move.
I shifted back to human form and stopped close enough to steady her if she swayed.
“You with me?” I asked quietly.
She dragged in a breath, met my eyes, and nodded once. “Yeah.”
“Good,” I said. My gaze flicked to her arm. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s a lie,” I said, but there wasn’t much heat in it. “We’ll deal with it. Can you stand?”
She snorted. “I’m standing right now.”
“All right then,” I said. “Let’s keep it that way.”
Around us, the hall was tilting toward full panic. People pressed against the walls, clutching at each other, eyes fixed on the body at our feet. Dane lay a few meters away, throat torn out, his blood pooling into a dark, sticky halo around his head.
Griff shifted back to human form along with me. He staggered once, then caught himself and grabbed a cloth napkin.
“Give me your arm,” he told Tamsin.
“I said I’m—”
“Humor me,” he said, already wrapping the cloth around the gash, tying it off with a firm knot. “We’re not giving these people the satisfaction of watching you bleed to death.”
She huffed out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh.
I turned to the rest of the room.
“Everyone stay where you are,” I said, raising my voice just enough to carry. “Guards, lower your weapons.”
A few rifles wavered, barrels still halfway up, caught between reflex and orders. I stepped toward the nearest two, letting them see my eyes, letting them feel the commanding weight of my attention.
“You shoot in here and you’ll hit your own people,” I said, calm as I could make it.
One guard swallowed and lowered his gun. The others followed, one by one, like that was all they’d been waiting for.
“Nox,” I called.
He was already at one of the side exits. Always prepared, that one. I appreciated that about him.
“Keep people from trampling each other,” I said.
“On it,” he said, turning to the jam of bodies. “You heard the man. Slow it down. No one here is interesting enough to die in a pile with.”
Mirae appeared near one of the side doors, as composed as if she’d stepped out of a meeting instead of into a slaughterhouse. Her eyes skimmed the scene—Ashcroft dead, Dane along with him—and her posture relaxed just the slightest bit.
“Well,” she said quietly as she reached us. “That escalated quickly.”
“Your timing’s impeccable,” Nox called from the exit.
Her mouth twitched. “And yet, here we all are. Alive.”
She stepped carefully around a broken glass and looked down at Ashcroft’s body. “You did that?” she asked Tamsin.
Tamsin’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”
“Good work,” Mirae said simply.
Within the hour, we had all found fresh sets of clothes, covered the bodies, and herded the shaken attendees into smaller rooms to be questioned and accounted for.
By the time we left the hall, the floor was still stained, the air still ripe with blood, but the chaos had calmed.
Tamsin walked beside me, quiet. I let my hand rest between her shoulders as we stepped back into the cooler corridor beyond.
“You did well,” I said.
She snorted softly. “You did too.”
Two days later, I stood against the back wall of a smaller chamber and listened to Bishop tell the story again.
This room wasn’t made for show. It had plain walls, a long table, and rows of benches instead of gilded railings. The lamps were functional, not decorative. The air smelled like ink, old coffee, and nervous sweat.
At the head of the table sat a cluster of councilors, a few high-ranking officials, and two representatives of whatever passed for the new security committee.
Mirae sat off to the side, legs crossed, expression politely blank.
Tamsin was beside me, arms folded, face unreadable.
Eamon sat near the front with a leather folder in front of him, as if this were any other medical briefing.
Bishop stood alone.
“…I followed Dr. Voss into the lower facility,” he was saying, voice calm and true. “I saw the wolves held down there. I saw them being drugged. I saw Ashcroft order a feral wolf released into the room with me. I was bitten. I was sedated. I woke up in Ireland.”
His father sat among the councilors, looking like he’d aged another ten years in two days.
One of the officials cleared her throat. “You understand these are serious accusations.”
Bishop’s mouth quirked, humorless. “Yes. That’s why I’m making them.”
“And you’re certain about Ashcroft’s role?”
“I watched him give the order,” Bishop said. “I watched him watch it happen.”
I could feel the ripple of discomfort move around the table.
“And the serum?” another asked, turning to Eamon. “You’re satisfied it works as described?”
“Yes,” Eamon said. “It stabilizes wolves forced into ferality by the stimulant. When given beforehand, it blunts or prevents that effect entirely. We tested it on our own people before this assembly. You saw the results.”
They had.
No one in this room had forgotten the sight of Ashcroft tearing through Dane and his men, nor the way our wolves had remained in perfect control amid the chaos.
“You asked me here for a statement,” he went on.
“Here it is. I was bitten and declared dead because it was convenient. I was dumped in a place you use as a dumping ground and left there alone, confused, and unarmed. And this has happened not just to me, but to countless others before and after me.”
A councilor cleared his throat. “You’re asking us to dismantle existing security measures—”
“I’m asking you to stop sentencing wolves to exile or death before they even have the chance to live,” Bishop said.
Mirae looked almost pleased.
The questioning went on in circles for a long while. Hours of officials probing and trying to find a way to trim the edges off what they’d seen. Bishop and Eamon answered clearly and concisely without giving them any room to wiggle.
Eventually, someone said what needed saying.
“The feral exiling program is, as of now, suspended,” one of the councilors finally declared.
“Thank you,” Bishop replied and the rest of us nodded along with satisfied smiles.
After the session adjourned, people filtered out in pairs and trios, voices quiet as they talked together. Eamon gathered his folder, looking a bit tired. Mirae ghosted away to wherever she’d come from.
Bishop stayed where he was.
His father approached him slowly, as if unsure whether Bishop would bolt or bite. Neither seemed particularly likely, but I understood the hesitation.
“I don’t know how to… begin,” his father said.
“Try with the truth,” Bishop replied.
“I believed them,” the older man said. “When they told me you’d died, I believed them.”
“I know,” Bishop said.
His father flinched. “I should have asked more questions.”
“Yes,” Bishop said. Then, after a moment, “You still can.”
His father’s shoulders sagged. “Can you forgive—”
“It’s going to take some time,” Bishop replied, gentle but firm.
His father nodded once and stepped back.
Tamsin touched my arm. “We should go,” she murmured.
I looked around the room, at the officials still pretending not to be shaken, at Bishop standing straighter than any of them, and at the space Ashcroft wasn’t occupying anymore.
“Yeah,” I said. “We should.”
We stepped out into the corridor together, the air cooler, the city humming beyond the stone.
We hadn’t fixed everything. Not even close.
But the lie London had been built on had died on that floor with Ashcroft, and in this room, we’d just made sure it stayed dead. The rest, we’d handle one piece at a time.