Chapter 21 - Quinn
Chapter 21 - Quinn
The war room is cold.
I don’t know if it’s the draft slipping through one of the narrow slits in the stone wall or the mood inside the room itself, but I can feel it in my bones. That creeping kind of cold that feels like a warning. The kind that curls under your skin and makes your stomach sit tight and high like you’re about to be sick. I fold my arms tighter, nails digging into the sleeves of the oversized black shirt Kieran gave me, the same one he claimed as mine last night while pretending it wasn’t a claim at all.
I sit in the corner, not shoved there—no, he brought a chair in himself and set it down like I was supposed to be a guest, not a prisoner. But no one in this room sees me that way.
Not Killian, who hasn’t stopped glaring since I walked in. Not Kellan, whose easy charm feels coiled and fake now. And definitely not Kieran, who stands at the head of the long oak table like the King he is, all calm control and unspoken threat. He hasn’t looked at me in a while, but I can feel him.
“Voss was never stupid,” Kellan says, leaning forward, his elbow propped casually on the table, but there’s tension in his voice that doesn’t match his posture. “That’s what pisses me off. He knew what that kind of betrayal meant.”
“Did he?” Killian scoffs, pushing back in his chair just enough to let it creak. “Because to me it looks like he thought he could walk out of here breathing. He’s not stupid, just arrogant.”
“He was both.” Kieran’s voice cuts through. He doesn’t raise it, doesn’t slam his hand down or growl it out, but the weight of his words is enough to make the back of my neck go tight. “And now he’s nothing.”
The table goes silent. No one wants to ask the question out loud, but it’s in the air. What does that mean? What did Kieran do to him if he wasn't executed? And why does no one want to say it?
I stare at a crack in the stone floor, heart thudding so hard I can feel it against the base of my throat. My breath comes quieter now, even though every instinct in me wants to stand up and run. Just bolt right out the door and into the woods and never stop moving. But I don’t. Because the moment I do, I know Kieran will chase me, and if he chases me, he’ll catch me—and I don’t know what happens after that. I don’t want to know.
He said he wouldn’t hurt me. But I wrote what he does to people who betray him. And the terrifying thing is… I’m not even sure what counts as betrayal anymore.
“So what’s the plan?” Kellan asks, glancing toward the far end of the room where a map is spread open across the wall. It’s hand drawn, inked and brutal, marking territories in shades of red and gray. One section is circled three times in red. “Without Voss, the southern watch is weak. Do we push forward or wait?”
“We don’t wait,” Kieran answers without hesitation. “We replace him.”
“With who?” Killian asks. “No one’s earned that rank. Not yet.”
“Then they’ll earn it fast.” Kieran’s tone never shifts, but there’s something colder in it now. “We don’t slow the war because one man forgot where his loyalty lies.”
That’s when the realiation hits me: This isn’t the plot I wrote. None of this is.
In the story, Damien Voss was supposed to die, and the betrayal would have turned Kieran into a monster that Killian and Kellan had to take down. The wrongness settles deeper in my chest, and it’s not just Damien. It’s all of it. The tone of the world, the way the brothers move, the war that’s dragging across territories I never designed. The bond I can feel clawing behind my ribcage when Kieran looks at me, like it’s trying to stitch us together thread by thread.
I didn’t write this. I didn’t write him like this, and I don’t know what that means.
“You alright?” Kellan’s voice is directed at me this time, and when I lift my gaze, he’s already watching me with narrowed eyes and a slight tilt of the head like he’s trying to figure out what I am. Not who; what. The air in the room thickens under that quiet scrutiny, and suddenly all three brothers are looking at me.
“I’m fine.” My voice comes out steadier than I expect, but I hold their gaze one at a time. “Just listening.”
“To what?” Killian asks, eyes sharp, like he’s waiting for me to mess up.
“To the part where your inner circle is broken,” I answer, because I’m tired of being scared and acting small when I don’t even know the rules anymore. “To the part where you’re all pretending it doesn’t matter.”
“Interesting observation,” Kieran murmurs, not looking at me, but I can feel the smile in his voice. “Didn’t realize you were studying us, dove.”
I don’t answer that.
The silence stretches again, but this time, I hold it without shrinking. The fear is still there, God, it’s screaming, but I don’t let it win. I sit with my spine straight and my hands in my lap and my nails digging into the flesh of my palm because I don’t want them to see how badly they scare me. I don’t want him to see it. If he does, he’ll use it. He’ll twist it into something he can control.
And I know, deep in my gut, that Kieran Volkov doesn’t waste fear. he bends it. He makes it kneel.
“Killian, have the southern watch restructured,” Kieran says finally, turning back to the map. “I want eyes on every outpost, and I want someone competent stepping into Voss’s place. Kellan, find out who he was talking to. If there’s anyone else in our ranks considering a similar move, they won’t get the same mercy.”
“Was that mercy?” Killian mutters.
Kellan snorts. “Barely.”
I swallow hard, the taste of bile sour at the back of my throat.
Kieran doesn’t look at me again before the meeting ends, but I feel it when he walks past. His fingers brush the top of my shoulder as if he’s reminding me he still owns the air I breathe. And maybe he does. I don’t know this version of the world. I don’t know what’s changed or why, but I know one thing as I sit there in the cold war room surrounded by men built from violence and blood: I’m not in control anymore.
I don’t think I ever was.