Chapter 151: The New Alpha King - Riven's POV

The drive back to Ashford Clearing took twelve minutes, thanks to her family. I didn’t exactly feel like running back, even if riding naked in their vehicle was…uncomfortable.

I counted those minutes while trying not to focus on my situation. It didn’t matter that her father threw a blanket over me. I was still without clothes and covered in blood.

The demon was gone.

I kept checking for it, doing the same thing I always did by looking deeper and finding nothing. It was disorienting and I didn’t quite know what to do with myself.

It had been there my entire conscious life. Now it was just gone.

The mark on my shoulder blazed warm when the bond moved between us and I was still getting used to that too. The bond at its full sealed strength was different from what it had been before. It wasn’t louder exactly, but definitely more present.

Callista was right beside me.

She had bitten me while the demon was in charge. I could have killed her, but she listened to the Moon Goddess and did something I would have never had the strength to do if roles were reversed.

I was going to need considerably more time than twelve minutes to fully process that.

"Stop thinking about it," she said, without looking up from the window.

"I'm not thinking about anything," I stated plainly.

"You're doing the thing where you go very still and your jaw does that ticking thing.”

I deliberately relaxed my jaw. She made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh but was close.

We pulled up to the clearing's tree line. Before the car fully stopped, I already had the door open and was getting out.

The clearing had emptied of most of the crowd.

What remained was the aftermath of something significant. The tribunal observers were clustered near the far edge in an urgent conference, a handful of people who hadn't made it out quickly enough still moved toward the perimeter, and at the center of it the evidence of what had happened.

Raze was at the edge of the clearing.

He was sitting on the ground with his back against one of the old ward posts, his knees drawn up and his head down. Carson was crouching beside him, talking in a low tone as if trying to calm him.

I crossed the clearing without running because running would draw attention I didn't need. Raze heard me coming and lifted his head.

His eyes were red-gold. Exhausted and red-gold and entirely his own. Thank fates.

I crouched in front of him.

"It worked," he said, before I could speak. “It really worked.”

"Yes," I murmured.

"He's quieter," Raze said slowly. "I don’t think he can survive without yours.”

"The book said yours would weaken when his was sealed," Callista said from behind me. "Now, we need to find your mate.”

Raze looked at her over my shoulder. “So, you really bit him?”

“Yep, with him trying to kill me.”

"Without the full moon."

"The Moon Goddess helped," she said, and I heard the patient tone of someone who had already said this twice and expected to say it many more times.

Raze looked at me. "How is that possible?"

"I don't entirely know," I said honestly. "But it worked."

He was quiet for a moment. Then something moved through his expression that was complicated and worn. "Ronan," he nodded at the torn carnage. “They took his body away. Well, what was left after the four of us.”

The word body hit me like cold water.

I looked at Raze carefully, watching his face for any signs of a lie, though I knew he would never hide this from me.

“He’s really gone?”

"Yes," Raze said quietly. "They took him about twenty minutes before you got here. It was—" He stopped. "It was quick, at least. For whatever that's worth."

I sat back on my heels and looked at the ground between us.

My father was dead.

The man who had summoned demons into his own sons to protect a throne, who had lied to me for a year about the nature of what I was carrying, who had sat in his worn chair by the window in a room that looked nothing like the rest of his house and told me the truth about my mother while the Alpha King's composure crumbled at the edges.

Who had said please when he asked for ten minutes.

Who had stood at the window watching us leave and not called us back.

I didn't know what to do with any of that yet. There was too much in it and the ground beneath my feet was still too unsteady from everything else that had happened tonight. I had learned this year that some things needed to be set down carefully before you could look at them properly.

I set it down for now.

"Alright.”

“It had to be done, brother,” he whispered. “Ronan did this to us and our demons…we weren’t them. That was them tearing apart the one that wanted to be their master. We’re fortunate that he was the only casualty,” he breathed. “We’re free of it now.”

Carson cleared his throat. "There's something else."

I looked at him.

"The tribunal observers," he said carefully. "They've been conferring for the better part of an hour. Whatever they saw tonight—" He paused, choosing his words precisely. "They don't fully understand it. But they understand enough to know that what happened in this clearing has implications beyond a bond claim challenge."

"Meaning?”

"Meaning they want to speak to you," Carson stated firmly. "Tonight if possible and Riven—" He met my eyes. "Ronan is dead and you are the one who killed him, so you are—”

“I already know,” I whispered. “I have the Alpha King’s command.”

The weight of those words settled through me differently than I expected.

They weren’t heavy exactly. More like the feeling of something that had been inevitable for long enough that the arrival of it was less a shock and more a recognition. I had felt it the moment the demon silenced.

The Alpha King's blood. Ronan's blood. My blood.

"The tribunal wants to speak to you now," Carson said again, almost huffing. “And they don’t look like they want to wait.”