The automatic glass doors of Evermont Holdings hissed shut behind us as we stepped out of the company.
I loosened my tie and could finally relax my shoulders.
"Seventy percent," Austin muttered, falling into step beside me as we descended the granite steps. "You've officially painted a bullseye on your back the size of the Great Hall, Kaeren. Julian won't just dig for dirt on you now, he'll hire an army of excavators."
I shrugged, my eyes scanning the perimeter. "Let him dig."
My security detail moved in a synchronized dance, black SUVs idling at the curb. "By the time he finds the hole, I'll be sitting on the throne. Get to that shack, Austin. I want her secured before the sun sets."
Austin stopped at the base of the stairs with an uncharacteristically hesitant expression. "I don't think me going alone is going to have the impact we need."
I paused, turning to look at him. "Meaning?"
"Drodd and Imogen are scavengers. If a right-hand man shows up with a briefcase of cash, they'll haggle. They'll try to milk us for a while and might try to act funny later. But if you go? If the Prince himself steps into that rot? The sheer terror of your presence will end the conversation before it begins. You need to be the one to sign that contract, Kaeren. You need to own her soul, and you can't delegate that." Austin explained, gesticulating with his hands.
"Impossible," I countered, a dry laugh escaping me. "I can't exactly take a royal motorcade into the shacks without Lynn's spies reporting it back to her within five minutes. Royalties don't set foot in the mud, Austin. You know the rules."
A cunning smile began to spread across his face. "You don't have to go as a Prince. Let's get back to the estate. I have an idea."
_____
Twenty minutes later, I stood in the center of my private dressing room, staring at the reflection of a man I didn't recognize.
I had changed into a pair of dark, heavy-duty denim jeans and a plain black hoodie. A worn leather jacket hung over my shoulders, and a baseball cap was pulled low over my brow.
"Discreet," Austin noted, handing me a pair of heavy work boots. "You look like a High Class enforcer on a private debt collection run. Common enough that people look away, but dangerous enough that they don't ask questions."
"I feel like a peasant," I muttered, though Vane was humming with a strange excitement.
"I like the shadows, man. Imagine having to kiss her under the moon? Won't that be the sweetest experience of our lives?" He whispered and I almost rolled my eyes.
Kiss Waverly under the moon? Hell no. I wasn't bringing her here for romance. I'm buying her to show her exactly what the consequences of showing up with a pretty face and ruining my plans were – I inwardly reaffirmed.
However, I couldn't deny the way my lips heated up or the flush starting to materialize on my cheeks.
It's an overstimulation from so many things happening at once. I told myself.
"The car is waiting in the service tunnel," Austin said, checking his watch. "The staff on this floor are on my payroll. They won't see a thing."
We moved through the back corridors of the palace, bypassing the grand staircases and the prying eyes of the Evermont vipers. As we neared the exit of the lower parking garage, a flash of movement in the alcove near the wine cellar caught my eye.
I stopped, my hand instinctively reaching for the tactical knife strapped to my belt.
In the dim, amber light of the corridor, two figures were pressed together against the stone wall.
I recognized the shock of blonde hair immediately. It was Jake, Lynn's son who was absent from the meeting today.
The troublemaker was supposed to be in rehab or a boardroom, but instead, he was fumbling with the hem of a robe.
The girl pulled back for air and that was when her face got illuminated by the flickering wall sconce.
I finally glimpsed who she was.
What the hell?
That was Cora! Our uncle's daughter.
My cousin. Jake's cousin.
A surge of pure, icy disgust flooded my veins. My jaw locked so hard I heard it crack.
"Filth. Useless, degenerate filth." Vane growled.
I took a step forward, my fingers itching to wrap around Jake's throat and show him exactly what a nightclub brawl felt like when an Alpha was involved.
"Kaeren, no," Austin hissed, grabbing my arm. "We don't have time. If you confront them now, the whole house goes on alert. Let them rot in their own shame. We have a throne to win."
I stared at them for a heartbeat longer—at the laziness, the entitlement, the sheer lack of dignity that plagued my bloodline. This was why I couldn't lose. If people like Jake inherited the Evermont legacy, we'd be extinct within a decade.
"Let's go," I spat, turning my back on the sickening sight.
____
The transition from the High Class region to the Outer District was like watching a beautiful painting being dipped in acid.
As the armored sedan rattled over the broken pavement of the shacks, I watched the world dissolve.
The streetlamps were shattered, replaced by the flickering orange glow of trash fires. In the air, was the smell of coal dust, and stagnant water.
"It's worse than the reports said," I muttered, my eyes fixed on a group of children playing in a gutter filled with industrial runoff.
"The Alpha hasn't looked at these budgets in years. Your uncle has been skimming the infrastructure funds to pay for his private island. This is the result." Austin shook his head.
The car slowed as we turned into a narrow alleyway. My pulse quickened—a sensation I hadn't felt in years.
"That's the effect she has on us," Vane whispered. "I can feel her wolf just near. She's close."
Why on earth was Vane so interested in her? Why the hell was my wolf feeling hers when we weren't even mates?
"Yet," Vane added but I couldn't bank on it as we pulled up in front of a structure that barely qualified as a house.
It was a leaning mess of corrugated metal and rotting timber. A crowd of neighbors had gathered in the dark, faces hollowing out with fear and ghoulish curiosity.
The front door didn't just look broken, it looked like it had been detonated.
Shouts and the sound of breaking glass echoed from inside. I stepped out of the car, the heavy scent of copper and adrenaline hitting my nose instantly.
Blood.
Suddenly, two hulking men whom I presumed were thugs from some gang burst out of the ruins of the doorway.
They were dragging a girl between them. She was tall, skin and bone, her long legs thrashing as she screamed at the top of her lungs.
"Mom, Dad! Don't let them take me!"
Behind the thugs, a man and a woman scrambled out of the house.
"Please!" the woman shrieked, clutching at the thug's jacket. "Not our Tasha! She's innocent! Take the other one! Take Waverly!"
The man nodded, his eyes darting around like a trapped rat. "Yes! Take the orphan! She's... she's good in bed! She'll satisfy all of you, I swear! She's used to it! Just leave our daughter alone and we'll get you the money by morning!"
What?! They were going to substitute this girl for Waverly?
My blood turned to liquid nitrogen.
I looked at the house, then at the girl being dragged, then back at the man who had just offered up his "daughter" as a sacrificial lamb.
"Kill them," Vane roared a deafening command that vibrated through my bones. "Erase them from the earth."
I knew the girl I'd seen in the square was bold. I knew she was a fighter. But the idea of her being some common street-walker, some slut used to satisfy the lust of miners, felt like a physical insult to my own judgment.
But as I looked at the filth around her, I realized she wasn't a slut. She was a victim of a system I had ignored.
The thug raised a hand to strike the screaming girl, but he never got the chance.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," I growled, twisting my fingers to strike. .
I didn't think about the plan. I didn't think about the disguise. I just stepped into the light of the trash fire, my eyes already glowing.