Chapter Five — The King Apologizes (1)

The Elders convened at noon, and the great hall smelled like a funeral.

Layla watched from the gallery, as she had on the day the Blood Court came calling, but this time the wolves weren't looking at her with curiosity. They were looking at her like she was a loaded weapon pointed at the King's head.

Elder Cyrus, gray-faced and righteous, stood before the throne and unfurled a scroll that was probably older than the city.

"By the Old Accords," he intoned, "no wolf of the Crown may keep a human at his side. No wolf of the Crown may bind himself to a creature of mortal blood. No wolf of the Crown may—"

"Skip to the part where you ask for my head," Layla said.

The hall went silent. Every wolf in the room turned to stare at the human girl in the gallery who had just interrupted the formal reading of the Old Accords.

Elder Cyrus's face did several things. "You—you dare—"

"I've been in this palace for a week," Layla said, because her mouth had, once again, decided to run the operation solo. "In that time, the King has collapsed from a curse no blade could cause, been cornered by his own Elders, and — I checked with the medics — been diagnosed with a 'mild case of dying.' And you know what all of that had in common? Not one single wolf in this hall was there to help him. You were all here, bickering about laws." She looked at the Elder with genuine contempt. "So forgive me if I don't feel like bowing to a piece of paper while your King is bleeding out for it."

"Guards!" Cyrus roared. "Seize—"

"Careful," said the King.

The two words fell into the hall like stones into a lake. Karen Thorne rose from the throne, and the entire assembly shrank back as one creature. He was pale — Layla could see it, the Reaping eating him from the inside — but the pale of a winter moon is still a moon, and the terror of him filled the hall like cold water.

"Elder Cyrus," the King said, softly. "You will not touch her. You will not threaten her. You will not look at her in a tone that requires my attention." He took a step down from the dais, and the Elder's guards — every one of them grown wolves, seasoned warriors — stepped back. "The Old Accords were written when wolves were afraid of the dark. I am the dark. The Accords do not apply to me."

"The law applies to everyone, Your Majesty—"

"The law," said the King, "is what I say it is. I am the law. I am the Crown. I am the teeth at the end of the night. And I am telling you, Elder Cyrus, that the human stays. She is under my protection. She is under my skin. If any wolf in this hall — any wolf in this city, this nation, this world — moves against her, I will find them. I will find their pack. I will find their children's children. And I will make them regret being born with teeth."

The hall was silent. The Elder's scroll trembled in his hands.

"You would burn the nation for a human?" Cyrus whispered.

"No," said the King. "I would burn the nation for her. There's a difference. The nation is replaceable. She is not."

And with that, the Butcher of Verath sat back down on his throne, looking like a man who had just settled a debate about the weather.

The council dissolved in chaos. Layla watched the wolves file out — furious, terrified, whispering — and felt a terrible, familiar weight settle in her chest. He'd just declared war on his own court. For her. Again.

You're going to get yourself killed*, she thought. *And I'm going to let you, because I don't know how to stop you.

* * *

That evening, the King of the wolves knocked on her door.

Not the door to her suite. The door to her reading nook. Which meant he'd been looking for her, found her in the hammock, and chosen to conduct whatever this was in the room with the hammock, because apparently the King of the wolves was incapable of having a difficult conversation anywhere else.

"I need to apologize," he said.

Layla, who had been halfway through a truly terrible romance novel, set it down. "For what?"

"For this morning." He shifted his weight. He was wearing the black silk again, and he looked, despite the Reaping, obscenely beautiful in the low light. "For the threats. For the declaration of war. For calling you 'hers' in front of the entire court without asking."

"You called me 'under your skin.' That's not a thing people say."

"It is a thing I say."

"It's very possessive."

"I am very possessive." He paused. "Is that a problem?"

Layla looked at him — the most dangerous man in the world, standing in her reading nook, asking if his feelings were a problem with the genuine anxiety of a man asking if he'd overcooked the pasta.

"It's a problem if you're going to keep dying for me," she said. "I can't— I won't be the reason you—"

"I know." He crossed the room, slowly, and stopped at the edge of the hammock. He didn't sit — he hovered, like he was afraid to touch her, like the bond might kill him if he did. Which, given the Reaping, it might. "That's why I'm apologizing. Not for loving you. I will never apologize for that. But for making you carry it. For making your life a battlefield because mine has always been one."