Chapter 203: Knees

"You are completely shameless!" the city leader spat.

For the first time, color flooded his corpse-like face. A feverish, mottled flush burned across his cheeks. He spoke with the rigid self-righteousness of a dogmatic zealot—making the revelation of his three concubines feel entirely hypocritical.

"I suppose three months is entirely too long for a happily devoted couple in the prime of their lives," I shrugged, keeping my tone light. "I’m simply starved for a few lessons. Do try to be forgiving."

As I gestured, I caught a sudden shift in his posture. His coal-black eyes drifted down, trailing lower until they locked onto the sliver of bare ankle exposed between my socks and the hem of my jeans. The flush across his face deepened, burning brighter.

My stomach twisted into a knot of sickening dread. I pulled myself upright, my instincts screaming on high alert. A bad sign. A very bad sign.

"You are remarkably attached to your mate," Raymond rasped, his eyes greedily scanning my face before lingering on the wide collar of my hoodie.

"Of course I am. I love him." Tension locked every muscle in my body. I couldn’t wrap my mind around his sudden shift in behavior, nor the unsettling glint in his gaze.

"Then I am prepared to release him." Loosening the knot of his silk tie, he dragged his eyes back up to meet mine. "On one condition."

"And what would that be?" I whispered. A bitter frost scraped down my spine, raising the fine hairs along my arms.

"You will become my fourth concubine and return to the North with me."

A suffocating, deathly silence descended upon the living room, turning the air so thick and jagged it scraped against my throat with every breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sayan shift his weight, his gaze tracking from my pale face to the heavy ceremonial sword mounted above the hearth.

That relic, gifted to my Alpha years ago, was no mere ornament. It was lethal. And in the darkened eyes of my husband’s best friend, I read a singular, unyielding desire: to drive that blade straight through the bastard’s throat.

"Why me?" I demanded, struggling to comprehend the twisted logic driving him.

"If you managed to carry a child for a beast like him, you can bear mine as well," the man offered with a callous shrug, his gaze burning against my dry lips.

I licked them nervously, the stark reality settling in. Fuck. It couldn’t get any worse.

"It won’t work. Your plan is flawed from the start." Releasing a heavy breath, I turned my gaze toward the pitch-black window outside.

A fine, nervous tremor coursed through my limbs, threatening to make my teeth chatter. If I was going to lie, it had to be seamless. A convincing lie only works when it’s woven with threads of raw truth—just as Argon had always taught me.

"And why is that? Is your legendary devotion not so absolute after all?" The vulture narrowed his eyes, tracking every micro-expression on my face.

"I can no longer bear children. Surely you know that. You wouldn’t have set foot in this house without thoroughly investigating my history."

"I’ve heard no such thing. Your records are entirely clean—practically non-existent," he muttered, clearing his throat as a skeptical frown creased his forehead. Unclenching his long fingers, he began tapping his knee with rhythmic irritation.

"I was poisoned. The toxin couldn’t be neutralized in time, and it shut down my internal organs, inducing clinical death. The damage was irreversible. I am completely barren." I watched his face intently, desperate to extinguish his twisted obsession.

"Be that as it may," the man declared, cutting off any avenue of escape as he rose smoothly to his feet, "you will still accompany me North—if only to warm my bed. Follow my instructions, and his upcoming hearing will be his last. He will be released to raise your offspring—your child. Refuse, and you will come with me regardless. Immediately following his execution."

Standing in the vast, empty corridor outside the heavy oak doors of the council chamber, I smoothed invisible creases from my tailored trousers with trembling hands. Beside me, sitting rigid on a low wooden bench, Sayan looked like a condemned man awaiting his walk to the gallows.

The moment the city leader’s convoy vanished beyond the estate gates, the dam broke. Pure, unadulterated rage exploded between us. The situation was spiraling out of control; neither of us had anticipated Raymond developing such a twisted, predatory obsession with me.

An emergency midnight call with Illai Keiner and Oliver Hans devolved into heated arguments. Both Alphas insisted that the alliance formally intervene in this dirty war being waged between our pack and the state apparatus.

Sayan firmly shut the idea down, reminding them that the legitimate head of the alliance was currently behind bars—and no one else held the legal or customary authority to usurp his seat.

In the end, hours of relentless debate collapsed into a single, harrowing solution: I would have to step into that chamber and bend the council to my will. No one else carried enough institutional weight or symbolic gravity to sway the factions currently buckling under government pressure.

Yet whether they would listen to a pregnant breeder remained a massive, terrifying gamble—especially considering Magnus was still entirely in the dark.

He never would have permitted me to place myself in harm’s way. Just yesterday morning, I had walked into his detention cell drained from a sleepless night, sickened with anxiety and shame over the deception we were orchestrating behind his back.

Hiding the truth from him felt like poison in my veins, but I was prepared to burn the world to the ground for his sake. More than that, tonight I planned to use our hard-won clearance pass to return to his cell. Raymond had been right about one thing: the first court hearing would indeed be the last. Because if our plan succeeded, we were going to tear their entire case to dust.

Tonight, we would have roughly forty minutes alone inside his cell. He would undoubtedly be furious. He might even be rough. But I was so pathetically starved for his touch that I had no intention of wasting a single second beside him. To hell with the location. To hell with the consequences.

"He’s going to rip both our heads off," Sayan muttered darkly, his eyes burning holes through the carved oak doors. "Have you decided which apple tree in the garden you’re burying me under?"

Inside, every member of the council had already gathered. Only the two of us remained in the corridor, gathering the courage to leap into the abyss.

"Yes. The one closest to the dumpsters," I replied, casting him a sideways glance.

I watched as his dark brows shot up in disbelief.

"Next time you get tea from me, it’s coming with a laxative! Here I am pouring my soul out like you’re my younger sister, and this is the thanks I get!" Snapping to his feet, he glowered down at me.

"Shout any louder, and I’ll bury you directly beneath Magnus’s and my bedroom—you won’t get a single second of peace in the afterlife," I smirked, feeling the suffocating coil of panic inside my chest loosen just a fraction.

It was entirely too late to be nervous now. Things couldn’t possibly get any worse than they already were. No more sitting with folded hands waiting for a miracle. At the end of the day, those Alphas behind that door weren’t going to devour us alive—they’d merely try to incinerate us with their glares.

"Fine, the dumpster it is. I’m not enduring eternity listening to you two. Show a little respect for my memory," Sayan growled with a wry grin, shoving the heavy double doors open.

Through the widening gap, dozens of sharp, calculating eyes locked onto us instantly. Clenching my slick palms into tight fists, I crossed the threshold.

For my Alpha, I would make the devil himself drop to his knees.