The first strike came from beneath Evelyn’s feet. The second cracked a tile in the center of the council floor. Wolves scattered as silver light leaked through the fracture. Lucian used the confusion to seize Seraphina and retreat toward the private passage behind his Alpha seat. Cassian could have followed. Instead he crossed the hall to Evelyn, his face stripped of every royal mask. The completed bond pulsed between them, hot and startlingly intimate. She felt the pain in his wounded shoulder, the savage need of his Lycan to protect her, and beneath both, a careful question. He would not claim what the Goddess had revealed unless she chose it.
“Can you stand?” he asked. Evelyn nodded, though the room swayed. “Can you stop feeling everything I feel?” “Not yet.” A flicker of embarrassment passed through him, followed by iron control. “Then forgive the noise.” His anger thundered through the bond, but none of it was aimed at her. Together they lifted the broken tiles. A circular iron door lay beneath, engraved with royal script Cassian translated aloud: ONLY A CROWNED BEAST AND A BLOOD WITNESS MAY WAKE THE ROAD. When Evelyn laid her burning palm beside his, the lock opened like an eye.
Stairs descended beneath Vale Keep. Cassian sent guards after Lucian and ordered Noah to secure the council witnesses. Evelyn followed the screams below. “You do not have to come,” she told Cassian. “Yes, I do