Chapter 82 Chapter 82

Chapter 82 Chapter 82
KILLIAN
Fucking hell.
At least a quarter of the pack representatives were going to die tonight.
With the tournament taking place next week and the pairings being handed out tonight, any representative unfortunate enough to be paired against an opponent they couldn’t beat would try to kill them before the tournament began. It’s what I would do if I was in their position after all.
Drumming my fingers on the table, I worked my jaw as I kept my gaze fixed on Lenore. Though her face was angled away now—she’d looked over just a moment ago—she seemed even more terrified and the urge to incinerate my father rolled through me.
He was standing right next to me and saying whatever the fuck about the tournament he’d just brought forward by two weeks, but all that rang in my ears was that he’d  violated Lenore. Anger thrummed through my veins, mingling with the magic there until every breath burned hot in my lungs. If I could kill him right now, I would. If I could—
A hand came down on my drumming fingers and when I glanced at my uncle who was sitting on my right, he fixed me a look that said don’t. I blinked at him, then nudged his hand off.
His presence had mildly confused me, and that confusion only grew when he said my father requested his presence. It sure as hell wasn’t because he wanted our family to appear as a united front to the pack representatives—not after invading Lenore’s mind yesterday. Besides Sennet wasn’t here and it didn’t even seem like he’d meant to be.
Father probably sent him to stay in an Agellius’ member estate because he assumed I’d have attacked Sennet to get back at him after Lenore died. After… He'd looked so smug when his gaze first landed on me after walking into the hall, but the moment it shifted to Lenore, his eyes had gone wide.
One would think he’d seen a ghost, and even now, as he addressed the representatives, there was an edge of unease in his voice.
Either way, Sennet not being here was a good thing for him. I’d have rearranged the bones in his fucking arms for touching Lenore. The fact that it wouldn’t happen tonight didn’t mean he’d escaped it though.
“...If anyone believes they have a question worth asking, now would be the time,” my father said as he sat down. I curled my lip.
“If I may, Your Majesty,” came a voice and my father clicked his tongue in annoyance.
“Speak.”
Movement at the front drew my attention from Lenore to a red-haired boy who was walking up to the dais. “Some of us have concerns about Moon Valley,” he said and my attention sharpened. “We all know McGuire has found her way int—” A muscle in his jaw twitched before his gaze flickered to me for a moment. “...is with His Highness. We want to be assured there’ll be no special treatment for Moon Valley.” The contempt in his voice was unmistakable, especially when he forced himself to swallow whatever insult he'd been about to throw at Lenore.
“Do you want a fight, mutt?” I bit out, my gaze hardening. He kept his eyes fixed on my father but tipped his chin up.
My uncle’s hand clamped down on my wrist before I even moved to get up while my father said, amusement lacing his voice, “I didn’t invite you here to kill my representatives, Killian.”
“No, you only invited me to gloat.”
My uncle’s hand tightened on my wrist.
“Well… there’s nothing to gloat about now, is there?” my father muttered, irritation clear in his voice.
I was going to bash his fucking face in.
“There won’t be favoritism,” my uncle said in a rush, patting my clenched fist with his free hand, and the red-haired representative frowned. My uncle wasn’t the one who could make that decision, but my father’s silence was enough for the representative to accept the answer.
As he headed back to his seat, someone from the middle section stood and asked, “And those who don’t wish to participate, Your Majesty?”
“Nonsense. The pairings will be handed out now.” With a single clap, music filled the hall and formally dressed humans walked into the hall, distributing red envelopes to the representatives.
A rather tasteful color choice, considering the circumstances, and a reminder that I had roughly a week to get the representatives out of Eyrosa.
I had already checked the invitations Aurel stole from some representatives’ room before we left my mother’s palace and the spells on them had been broken as well, so the witch hadn’t lied. Why my father had moved the tournament forward by two weeks, I had no idea, but I knew it wasn’t because he’d found out the spells on the invitations had been broken. He’d have taken some kind of action if that was the reason.
“You seem angered,” my father stated. I refused to look at him, but I could feel his gaze on me.
“He’s just tired,” my uncle cut in.
“How nice of you to jump in for your nephew.”
Uncle let out a dry laugh at that, tapping my fist once more before finally releasing my wrist. “How’s Xenos’ investigation into the vault robbery?”
“So, so—”
“Get those filthy eyes off her.” I was one breath away from snapping, and ancestors preserve me, if he kept staring at her like that, I would put him through the nearest wall. To hell with the fact that I wouldn’t win the fight.
“Oh, he’s back,” my father said in a cheery tone, and I gritted my teeth. “So…are you going to tell me how she’s here?”
When seconds passed without me answering, my uncle cleared his throat. If not for my father’s “Don’t you ever utter my wife’s name again. She’s my wife, you bastard” decades ago, my uncle would have answered. He’d also be sitting where I currently was if not for my father’s “That’s not your seat, brother” the moment we stepped onto the dais.
At my prolonged silence, he clicked his tongue before his gaze swept over to where Lenore was seated, only to find Calley watching him with wide eyes instead. He jolted in his seat, a startled noise escaping him, before quickly righting himself.
No one else could draw that reaction from him.
Almost a year after my mother died, my father flew into a rage when he learned she visited me in my dreams but never him, and he tried to kill me for it. So she reached out to him… through Calley. He’d almost killed me before twelve-year old Calley—who had been the only one nearby—ripped him off me and began battering him. I’d thought I was fucking hallucinating at first, but then words had burst from her mouth—with her own voice layered beneath my mother’s booming one: “Traitor! You dare raise your hand against my son?! You would spill his blood because mine did not call to you?!”
He’d been too stunned to fight back and she—my mother—had almost killed him. Unfortunately, a twelve-year-old couldn’t handle that much of my mother’s power passing through her, and she collapsed before she could finish it. Mother hadn’t been able to possess anyone since then, but that memory actively haunted my father. Calley, however—despite only knowing the story and not remembering it herself—found my father’s reactions to her endlessly amusing.
“What exactly is beneath her dress that’s driving you crazy?”
It took me a moment to process those words, that he’d directed them at me, and the her he was referring to. My head snapped toward him and his grin widened instantly.
“Perhaps I should take a look—”
My mind went blank, instinct taking control as my body moved.
I launched myself sideways off my seat, the force of my momentum sending us both crashing out of our chairs as my fingers clamped around his throat. We hit the polished floor with a deafening crash, and I barely registered my stepmother’s shriek as her chair toppled with us. High-pitched screams erupted across the hall like dominoes, chairs scraping and tables rattling as the music died in a screech.
My eyes burned with rage as my father’s hands closed around my wrists, but he made no attempt to throw me off. Instead, his chest heaved beneath me, and a rough, wheezing laugh escaped him.
His eyes widened, bright and wild, locked onto mine. "Perhaps I'll make you watch as I mount her!”
The magic in my veins roared, rushing to my palms of its own accord, but before the spark could ignite, someone seized my neck and arm from behind, hauling me clean off my father and throwing me across the dais. Air rushed out of my lungs as my back slammed into a stone wall, cracking the plaster and sending dust raining down as I hit the ground, but I barely felt it.
My breath hitched, hot and ragged, every sense sharpened to the heavy thrum in my ears and the manic, mocking twist of my father’s grin as he sat up on the floor.
Before I could spring forward, my uncle cut into my line of sight, planting his frame squarely between us as he raised one finger toward me and another toward the King’s guards moving in my direction.
“Do not punish the boy, brother. Take this slight as mine,” he said, his voice firm, and the King’s guards paused except for the two who helped my laughing father to his feet. “He was out of line but if you seek retribution, you take it up with me.”
My father’s laughter only grew wilder at that and the King’s guards tracked my movements as I got to my feet. Representatives were still screaming and my stepmother was hyperventilating on the floor.
“Cederic! Get me the girl!”
My vision narrowed to pinpricks and the rest of the room disappeared. All I knew was where my father stood, where Lenore was, and that Cederic was already moving to do his bidding.
No.
“My son is far too nice.”
“Brother, don’t—”
White-hot fury erupted from my palm, searing my own skin and blistering my flesh before I hurled it. Two king’s guards were on me in an instant, wrestling my hands behind me and forcing me to my knees, while the two beside my father moved him out of the way, believing the attack was meant for him, but the heat had already found its mark.
Cederic was engulfed in a split second, his flesh charring black before he could even process what had hit him. His agony-laced screams tore through the hall, and representatives shrieked, scrambling over chairs and knocking tables aside as they backed away from the smell of burning flesh.
My chest heaved as I watched him flail, but then I saw Lenore’s terrified eyes in the crowd and I stiffened. Oh… The next moment, she was gone—Calley had dashed away with her.
I blinked rapidly, shifting my gaze back to the dais where my father stood, his stunned gaze fixed on Cederic who had now crumpled to the floor. Then his eyes found mine and he blinked like he didn’t recognize who he was looking at. This was the first time I’d killed one of his people, after all.
Lenore… I had to get out of here.
The King's guards behind me had most of their attention fixed on my father, waiting for orders, and half of what remained on the panicking representatives. So when my uncle barked, “Get out of here!” it didn't take much to wrench myself free and dash out of the hall.