Chapter 36 Thou Shalt Not Bleed for Another’s Throne
Thou Shalt Not Bleed for Another’s Throne
Maddox
Ilean over the bench until the light catches the vial just right, and the color, the way it holds the dim light, it’s magical. It shivers like a living thing. Pale, but the rich substance reflects the light brightly. My liquid promise. I did it.
Blisters pepper my fingers, throbbing in a rhythm that matches the ticking of the clock.
Nights blur into dawns while powders shift under my hands, the mortar and pestle groaning like it’s part of my skull.
Every ratio reworked, every failure tasted in smoke and scorched skin.
I would never mention how much work went into this to anyone.
My gang knows the lab is off-limits; their questions never get past the door.
This vial… this one changes everything. It gleams with a promise that no formula before has dared.
Feed it to any half-dead infant, and it would drag a dormant sin screaming into life.
For a girl like her—sinless, long past the age of awakening—this is chemical violence distilled into liquid fire.
It should strike at whatever sleeps in her bones, wake it, make it roar.
My thumb rests against the glass, tracing the cool surface while an odd pulse of warmth hums beneath it, like a small creature breathing inside. Sentiment isn’t my habit, but the thing glows as if it knows exactly what it is. I built it. Made something that nobody else could make .
The eight-year-old inside me—the one shoved into a penthouse and trained to kill—licks his lips at the control in my hands, savoring how the world bends when I decide it should.
Another, quieter pulse in me stirs, tugging at something unspoken, a softness I never name: the urge to hold her back from harm, not because it serves me, but because it feels right.
I could pin a medal on the wall for this.
I don’t. Maddox West doesn’t chase applause; leverage is currency, and I collect it ruthlessly.
Still, my fingers press a little harder, my movements sharper.
She needs it. She needs me. And for the briefest flicker of a heartbeat, I want to be the man who can give her that.
“West.”
The voice slices through the extractor’s hum—clean, precise. I don’t flinch. I just lift my head like a wolf catching a shift in the wind.
Lucas stands in the doorway, hair slicked back, face carved from stone. My second at the academy. Reliable. Deadly. The kind of man who erases problems so efficiently you wonder if they were ever real.
“What,” I say. No need for extra breath.
He steps into the light, hands tucked in his pockets. He never wastes words. Waste is for people with the luxury of safety.
“It’s the new hacker,” he says. “Jason has news.”
The lab shrinks around me, the hum of machines fading to a murmur, as if even the walls are holding their breath.
My pulse thuds in my ears. Information from a kid who can make cameras blink and doors sigh open isn’t just news—it’s a weapon, and I can feel the weight of it pressing against my ribs, promising leverage.
“Talk,” I say, though my voice doesn’t ask. It orders.
Jason’s voice on the line is jittery. Good. Nerves sharpen people’s mistakes. “Sir, I did what you asked. I got into Amaya’s inbox.”
“Speak.” I don’t bother with pleasantries. I keep my eyes on the vial, thumb tapping the glass like a metronome.
“There’s…there are plans,” he says. “She’s coordinating something aimed at one of your strongholds- eastern Shandytown.
Detailed movements, times, names. She’s been in contact with a group nearby- probably bribed them for information.
It’s all time-stamped.” His words tumble out quick, like he wants them off his tongue before they rattle.
I let a slow exhale drag the syllables out. Amaya. Predictable as a leaky roof and twice as annoying. She isn’t subtle—never was. She’s been vying for Shandytown since I took it over. “So she’s going after Shandytown again?” I say, bored and sharp. “Figures. She’s a creature of habit.”
I hang up before he can babble an assurance. Lucas’s shoes are a soft echo behind me when I say, “Bring me the family cell.”
The cell phone I despise using. The only form of communication I use with this viper nest I call family.
He produces it without hesitation, like he’d expected the request. That’s Lucas—predicting me makes him indispensable and dangerous in equal measure.
I flip the heavy phone open and let Amaya’s face fill the screen on the second ring.
Her smirk is accustomed to being adored.
She answers with syrup and poison. “Little brother. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Cut the shit, Amaya.” My tone is bitter. “I hear you’ve been busy in Shandytown. Again. Curious?”
Her laugh is sharp. “Maddox, always so dramatic. I’m merely doing some small research to insure a valuable partnership. I had a venture proposal for you, but you had to ruin all the fun.”
“You know I don’t like other hands scratching at our borders,” I say. “Even for research.”
“Why are you so interested in old ruins, anyway? You have territory enough to keep your hands busy.”
This is business. Bloodlines and brick. “You move on Shandytown, you move on my people. I will come after you, full force, Amaya. Don’t mistake my presence at the academy for weakness. I’d never leave my territory undefended.” I say.
Her tone sours the air. “You call me and threaten me in my own home?”
I let it hang. “Consider it a friendly reminder that my patience is thin and my reach is long. Drop your toys at Shandytown. Pull your people back. Or you can move this game to my doorstep, and we’ll fight it out for territory. You’ve seen firsthand how that ends.”
There’s an anger she doesn't hide. “Cut the theatrics, Maddox. Fine. For now. But remember—there’s only so far you can shove before everyone shoves back.”
I let the line go dead on her parting breath. The dial tone hums like a hunting insect.
I look at Lucas. “Prep an extra team to go to Shandytown. Just in case. Clean, small, surgical. No banners, no grand processions. I want them there tonight.”
Lucas nods. Moving quickly, I can tell he already has the list in his head.
This has to get to Arwen, then back to the rest of my plans. Stepping out of the lab, the path to her dorm stretching ahead. The vial slides into my jacket, warm against my ribs, a small humming promise. I made this. Did the impossible for one girl. For Arwen.
Funny how a person grows on you. Not in the soft, sentimental way—no—like an irritation that becomes necessity.
Her mouth that never shuts, the way she flings a barb like a thrown knife and then gets on with the day.
The fire in her bones. The first time I met her in that classroom—Universe — she had the nerves to go toe to toe with me.
She didn't plead or hide. She didn't melt and flirt.
She spat and tried to punch me. I admired that.
I still do. She's a creature who refuses to be small, even when the world insists she should be.
The last flight of stairs creaks under my boots, each step measured, like moves on a board I’ve studied a thousand times. Two… three… then freeze. On the landing, a strike I didn’t hear coming.
I press back against the wall, shadowed, eyes locked.
Atticus drapes an arm across her shoulders, perfect calm etched in every line of him.
Arwen meets his gaze, soft, nodding at something he says—and it cuts through me sharper than any blade.
They’re a rehearsed scene of tragedy: him, the ordered protector; her, the thing he’s polished, the fragile piece he parades.
Fists clench at my sides, nails biting into skin.
Jealousy doesn’t touch this. It’s betrayal.
I warned her about the potion. She swore she wouldn’t use it on Atticus, promised me.
And yet… she did. She chose him. Didn’t trust me to finish what I’d said I would.
She turned her back and let him in. My chest tightens, a fire stoked hotter than any fight I’ve had with blood on my hands.
For a beat I let my brain invent explanations that are kinder—maybe she thought Atticus safer, maybe she panicked and figured his father could help her with the Council—but the facts are bone-simple enough to hurt: she used someone else when I bled for this. She hid it. She lied.
And the calculations step in, cold and precise. She’s not just Arwen. She’s the single most dangerous anomaly I’ve ever heard of—one hundred percent power rating. If she manifests her power and aligns with Pride, under Atticus’s reach, the balance could shift dangerously.
My father’s teeth gleam at the thought of taking more land; Atticus’s father would take that power and sharpen it into a blade at the world’s throat. War follows that kind of advantage. Borders will burn. Families die. My people could end up in the ground if I hand the enemy a weapon that powerful.
Protecting her is becoming a problem with edges that cut both ways. I don’t save people without ledger entries. Every mercy cost something. Every favor is currency. If I bail her out now, I could be buying a favor for Atticus’s house.
My pulse drums at my temples. Anger tastes like hot metal, but so does the idea of handing the Pride coalition a weapon.
I stare, warring with myself as Arwen laughs low, a sound quick and private.
For a second I think of stepping forward, of putting the vial on her palm and saying, Take it.
Regardless of the consequences. I can save this girl, who has warmed something inside of the heart that died a long time ago.
The rope of consequences coils in my mind: Atticus’s father smiling, my father maneuvering, the map redrawn with my people stranded on the wrong side of someone else’s greed.
A war unfolds in thought, leaving nothing but corpses and ash in its wake.
The vial hums now, too loud, like an animal desperate to be freed.
My throat works. I can taste words—bitter apologies, excuses—but none steady the ledger.
I turn my back. The step creaks under my foot like an accusation. They don’t notice. They’re in that private world.
I move down the stairwell like every step is a promise I might break.
The vial thunks against my ribs, heavy, urgent.
I wanted to be the man who saved her—not because it was owed, not for leverage, not to add another tally to my name—but because it felt like I could be…
different. Better than the bastard my father raised me to be.
Better than the empire of knives and teeth I’ve spent my life building.
I wanted an act that didn’t leave a mark on anyone but me. No theft. No blood. No debt. Just the raw, fleeting warmth of doing something… human.
I don’t know if that Maddox West exists. Maybe he never has. Maybe he never will.
The warmth from the potion curdles into something colder: strategic denial. I fold that warmth into a fist and bury it. My loyalty is to my people. I can’t gift the universe a god and pretend there won’t be a cost.
The vial stays under my jacket, a secret I keep from everyone and perhaps the worst kindness I can offer.