Chapter 25 25
“And what if he chooses wrong?” I asked. “If the king decides to protect his council to protect his crown? If he brands us dangerous?” The scenario slid behind my words like a knife.
Prince Leon’s hand tightened on his glass. “Then we burn the court. We bring the evidence to the people and to allied packs. We march. I have allies who will stand with me if I give them reason. You make them see that the council is rotten. But first we buy ourselves leverage.”
I let his meaning settle. He was asking me to play a lie — to let Marigold be the bait — because when the king accepted the bait in public, he’d be committed to a defense of that lie. Once committed publicly, the throne could no longer ignore a carefully-timed revelation without looking complicit. It would be ugly. It would be dangerous. It would give us the political leverage to force the king’s hand or delegitimize him.
“Who will know?” I asked.
“You, Xander, Zach, me, and the girls,” he said. “Nonna can be useful at the discretion front—her cottage has safe routes in and out that few remember. We will use dead drops for messages. No raw comms. Zach scrubs the CCTV where he can and plants the narrative. Xander moves inside your pack quietly to name the wolf who betrayed you when the time is right. I will ensure the prince’s guard is neutral; I will vouch publicly that Margaux is mine to present, so the court has no reason to suspect you’ve kidnapped her.”
“You want me to play along,” I said. “Pretend to hand her over.” The words tasted like ash.
He nodded. “Yes. But with stipulations.” Prince Leon’s politeness flickered; now he was the strategist. “We do this at my resort; I control the attendees. We demand DNA confirmation be done privately — under the royal sign — with an independent healer I trust. If the council refuses, I publicize their refusal as evidence of bad faith. At the same time, Beta Xander gets inside the Wolfgang and finds the traitor’s trail. We hold the evidence back until we can force a full purge or a confession on record.”
“And Sugar?” I asked. “Where does she fit when the king’s men smell anything odd?”
“Hidden,” Leon said. “She stays with my allies outside the capital under false papers. If the king shows suspicion, she vanishes further, and I make the act of hunting her look like a tyrant’s move, not a prince’s choice. If the king moves to exploit her, he loses whatever good will he has left among the people and the packs. My position is precarious, but I can trade power for her safety.”
There were risks of a kind that burned me to the core. The plan required me to give the king an acting Margaux —it was my first plan anyway, but could Marigold act like Margaux? Her twin was a living symbol — and then used that moment to rip the curtain down. It required the court to be maneuvered into a position where their only choices were either to admit complicity or to root out traitors under royal pressure. It required repertoire: timing, evidence, allies, sacrificial theater.
I thought about Marigold. I thought about what it would do to her — to be paraded as someone else in front of a king whose mouth would chew up a fragile thing and spit it into history. I thought about the wolf inside her, already dangerous and raw, and how the court’s eyes would look at that. Would they see monstrosity? Would they see an asset?
“You’re asking me to use her as a symbol, but what if they ask to see her wolf? As far as I recall, Margaux’s wolf was a pearl white. Marigold was the opposite of that.” I said finally. “To make her the face of a lie for leverage. Do you truly think she’ll agree? And if she agrees, can she survive the scrutiny? The wolf in her is not a gentle thing to parade.”
“We lie. We will tell the court that her wolf was dormant.”
“I’m not sure about that, what if she accidentally shifts?” I asked. Knowing full well how crazy the woman was.
“Train her not under circumstances. Because there's no clean way to save lives when the throne is poisoned, she needs to save herself or risk being used by the king’s council.” Leon said, thick with fatigue. “You asked me what I suggest. This is what I can do and will do. I will risk appearing complicit to the crown if it means exposing the council. I will risk my position if it saves her without sacrificing Sugar. I am offering you the best weapon I have: the prince’s stage. Use it to control the narrative.”
My wolf snarled at the idea of theater. My human mind measured outcomes. There were other options — exile, vanishing Marigold into human territories with forged papers, moving the fight underground until we found the patron who ordered the hit — but each option surrendered leverage. The court loves a corpse you can control. But it also fears exposure.
“Timeline?” I asked. “If we do this, when?”
Leon rubbed his forehead. “Tomorrow, the council meets. If we move then, the court’s attention is already turned; if we walk in tomorrow with Margaux in my arms, the optics favor us. Zach will have as much footage and false trail as we can get him in place by dawn.” He met my eyes, and I saw a man who’d chosen a path and wanted to make sure no one could accuse him of cursory cowardice.
“And if the king moves first?” I asked. “If he arrests you and I? If he brands this as treason?”
“Then we light the match,” Leon said coldly. “We call every Alpha who isn’t a lapdog of the council. We call every mayor, every guild, every pack that owes us favor. We march. I will not watch my mate be used. I will not watch the innocent die to protect a rotten seat.”
It was a war plan wrapped in theater. Brutal. Dangerous. Possibly the only way to make men in the capital show their cards.
I stood, the decision a stone in my gut. “I will not hand her over if it is merely to placate the throne,” I said. “If I do this, there are guarantees. Xander moves tonight. Zach gives me a clean trail. You ensure Sugar is out of reach. Nonna’s safe routes are ready. And when the time comes to expose the traitors, you stand with me in front of the court with the evidence. No theatrics without teeth.”
Prince Leon’s face was an alabaster mask for a breath, then his hand closed over mine in a gesture of pact. “You have my word,” he said. “Not as a prince to an alpha, but as a man who understands what it is to keep someone safe. I will stand with you.”
I let the handhold last a second longer than politeness required. My wolf murmured something in the dark — a warning, a promise — and I let it be. The plan was fragile, built on lies and leverage. But it gave us power, and power bought us options.
“We move fast,” I said. “We move clean. And if the king flips, we do not beg — we burn.”
Leon’s mouth was a thin line. “Agreed.”
Outside, the storm sighed against the mansion’s stone like a wound trying to close. Inside, we shaped a lie into a weapon, and for the first time since this began, I felt the cold edge of hope sharpen into readiness.