The council session finally spat them back into the entrance hall in a scrape of chairs and the usual tide of whispers. Ann kept walking. If she stopped, someone would try to sell her a crisis with a bow on it.
Adam matched her pace, a hard line at her side. Brad shadowed two steps back, too close for Adam's patience, too visible for Ann's.
Her temples throbbed. "If one more lord calls me 'Your Radiance,' I'm going to bite someone."
"You should let me," Adam said, deadpan.
"Oh sure," Ann muttered. "Because throttling half the nobility will really calm the atmosphere that we've got going on in here."
Brad's dry snort behind her grated and comforted in equal measure. She ignored both feelings.
The great doors at the far end slammed open so violently the hinges screamed.
Every guard stiffened. Nobles scuttled sideways without even pretending not to stare.
Lord Brarthroroz stormed in like the world owed him blood, cloak trailing a hiss of shadow. Steve drifted behind him with portal-dust still clinging to his sleeves like frost.
Well. Shit.
"Your Majesty," Lord Brarthroroz growled. His voice hit the stone and stayed there. "We need to speak. Now."
Ann didn't bother with the gallery, there were too many eager ears willing to listen and twist whatever information they could get.
"Here," she said, veering left toward the smaller lounge. "It's a little more private."
Adam shouldered the door open. Brad held it without a word. They filed in quietly and were welcomed by a low burning fire, curtains drawn, and a room quiet enough to hear yourself breath.
Adam crossed to the sideboard, yanked the decanter, and poured two short glasses with a hand that wasn't as steady as he wanted. He shoved one toward Lord Brarthroroz.
The Daemon Lord didn't sit. He downed half the whisky like it was air, then slapped a scorched cloth onto the low table.
The stink hit them first, ash, copper and the faint smell of decomposition.
He unfurled the bundle without waiting.
A bent silver cufflink. A clearly torn strip of leather with burned through rune-etching. Three black shards that seemed to swallow the firelight.
Ann's stomach flipped.
"Allan's cufflink," Lord Brarthroroz said, his voice rough. "Greyson's bracer strap. Lexi's blood. And the glass shards are from a seam between realms."
At the sound of her name, the silence in the room seemed to grow heavier with every passing second.
Ann's nails bit into her palms as she clenched her fists.
"Where are they."
"Gone." The word came from Lord Brarthoroz as a snarl and the table jumped when his fist hit it. "She was dragged through a portal. Allan and Greyson threw themselves in after her before it sealed."
Ann's chest hollowed out. Her Beta. Her best friend. Adam's Beta. Greyson. Swallowed to goddess knows where.
Three at once, Maeve snarled. Poof. And you're standing here with your crown like it's a shield instead of a shiny target.
Ann forced the words past a throat that didn't want to cooperate.
"How do you know for certain?"
Lord Brarthroroz bared his teeth in what seemed more like a grimace than a smile.
"Because Sebastian came crawling back to Brad's packhouse, stinking of blood and his own cowardice. He screamed it loud enough to rattle the frames. He bragged. Narcissa is alive and wraith-bound to Eromaug, her eternal penance for failing him. Ely sealed the portal cleanly. And their father..." his hands shook hard enough that the glasses on the table clinked together violently, "the Lycan King...hand a hand in it."
Silence smothered the room.
Adam's aura surged and the glasses rattled again.
"The Lycan King ordered this?" His voice was lethal and so quiet it could have made the fire hesitate.
"That's what Sebastian screamed," Lord Brarthroroz spat. "He talked about it too loudly for it to be a lie."
Brad's jaw ticked as his wolf watched everything through his eyes, silent as he assessed everything.
Ann pressed her hands to her knees so they wouldn't shake.
Maeve's laugh cut sharp.
"Oh, beautiful! A fleshcrafter, a corpse bride, and daddy dearest arranging the betrayal. A full parade of bastards.
Adam's palm came down hard and the decanter jumped.
"That' has to be the tipping point. We need to declare war."
"Adam..."
"No." His voice cracked the air. "He came here. Took our people, our family. That is an open declaration of war on his part."
Lord Brarthroroz's aura flared, a dry heat licking across their skin.
"Then give me the word and I'll level his halls to nothing more than ash. I'll rip seams apart until I find her. If it kills me, it kills me."
Adam's claws broke skin.
"You won't go alone. I'll..."
Brad moved off the wall, his voice an immediate challenge.
"And leave Ann wide open to another attack? Brilliant plan."
Adam turned like a blade finds a throat.
"Shut your mouth."
Brad didn't blink.
"No. I've listened long enough. You charge in blind and you gift them what they want...your throat."
Oh delightful, Maeve sneered. Testosterone theatre. Shall I sell tickets or just put a tip jar on the mantle?
Adam took a step towards him, his warning growl low and ugly. "One more word and..."
"For fuck sake!" Ann's voice echoed in the room, "Do either of you think Lexi would thank you for dying stupidly? You'll rip yourselves apart while she's still trapped. I need my mate alive and I need allies breathing..."
Silence answered her.
Lord Brarthroroz leaned over the table, eyes burning with grief that had nowhere to land.
"This was no accidental plot. It had to be a long time in the planning because the energy he would need to expend for a portal like that…" He broke off as he shook his head, "I have no doubt that Ely's hand was only secondary to Eromaug's hold over Narcissa and the Lycan King. And still..." the words hitched... "Allan and Greyson did not back down. They fought fiercely, and Greyson did not side with his own blood ties. They chose Lexi over everything and followed her through the portal without hesitation."
Ann's mouth was unbearably dry but couldn't move, frozen with horror as Lord Brarthroroz talked.
"Did Sebastian say anything else?" she asked, voice level by force.
"It was enough to hear him name the bastards and what they did.." Lord Brarthroroz growled. "He bragged that Ely drugged her...the needle had to hit deep because of her daemon heritage...and that the seam was precise. He named Narcissa like a triumph, as if she was working for them and not my brother. He laughed about Greyson coming too late and said that his father would 'fix the bloodline problem' himself." The muscles in his jaw jumped slightly as he ran his eyes across the room. "Greyson killed Logan."
Brad's eyes flickered.
"He killed his brother?!" he asked almost incredulously.
"A sentiment I share towards my brother as you well know." Lord Brarthroroz answered stoically.
"You didn't see it then," Ann said. "You just heard him talking about it."
"I heard one man's scream and ten witnesses' fear," Lord Brarthroroz snapped. "I know what blood looks like on stone. I know what seam-glass smells like. You want a signed affidavit, I'll carve it into his ribs when I catch him."
The black shards seemed to mock her from their position on the table. They were perfectly ordinary looking, with precise edges.
"And these...are from the portals?"
"It's what leftover from any energy thats unable to get back through the seam to the destination realm."
Ann nodded as she stared at Allan's cuff until her thoughts had calmed enough to form a coherent plan.
"Then we plan a rescue," she said. "We move quickly but I want as few people to know about this as possible."
Lord Brarthroroz's hands flexed on the table.
"Say when."
Adam vibrated with the need to break something. Brad's wolf held very still.
Ann tipped her chin, mouth twisting into something between a smile and a snarl.
"Fine. If it's war that they seek, then who are we to deny them that? But first we'll make him choke on his own script."
Maeve chuckled, low and dark.
"Finally decided to stop playing defense have we Queenie?"
"Shut up Maeve..."