The Lycan King leaned back in his throne as the family from Midnight Crest stood before him, dressed in ambition.
Lilith was speaking again—something about legacy, loyalty, betrayal without blood—but he wasn’t really listening to the words anymore.
He was watching her.
The way she stood, just slightly apart from her parents. The way her hands were still and her voice soft, perfectly trained. The way her gaze flicked up to his—intentional. Seductive.
She wanted to be Queen.
And she’d decided to use her mouth to get there.
How quaint.
He tilted his head as she spoke of poisons and power, of bloodlines and strategy, but in his mind, the plan was far simpler:
Break one. Claim the other.
He had seen Celine in her wedding gown—had smelled the power on her, the heat beneath her fear. And now, standing here, was her mirror. Her dark reflection. Same face. Same body. But entirely different energy.
Where Celine was bright and defiant, Lilith was quiet poison. One burned. The other bled you dry while smiling.
What would it be like, he wondered idly, to have them both at once?
The thought was obscene. And it thrilled him.
His mind wandered—just for a moment—to the long list of she-wolves who had once stood in this very room. Some defiant. Some trembling. All of them conquered. All of them convinced they were special… until they weren’t.
He liked breaking them.
Loyalty didn’t excite him. Submission did. And the thought of Celine—wild and untamed—realizing she wasn’t as free as she thought… that would be something. A real challenge. A real prize.
But Lilith? She was already offering herself.
How easy it would be, he mused, to let her believe she was the chosen one. To whisper in her ear while Celine watched. To use one sister to dismantle the other from the inside.
Twins.
Same blood.
One for power. One for pleasure.
He smiled faintly as Roman finished speaking, mentioning something about inheritance and Crimson Fang’s potential collapse.
Lilith stepped forward, voice lower now, silkier. “And if ever you needed a Queen…”
He could see it—the practiced glint in her eye. The suggestion. The desperation hidden just beneath the polish. She wanted him to look. So he did.
He looked her over like something he might sample and discard. Then he looked past her—to her parents. Cold, unreachable. Complicit.
He loved when a family pretended corruption was strategy.
He tapped a finger against the armrest, still watching Lilith.
“I’ll give it some thought,” he said.
And as her lips curled into the faintest smile, he already knew: She thought she’d won something tonight. But he was the one holding the leash.
And neither sister had any idea just how tight he planned to pull it.