Page 5 of Ascendant King

When we were in the center of the clearing, I cleared my throat. “I have come before you, Alphas, supplicant and equal.”

The words were foreign. I remembered them only as a vague whisper of a memory, my mother teaching a new alphathe phrase before his first council. That had been who my mother was: someone generous with a new alpha, someone who remembered the old ways and who kept them so that all wolves had a past.

Her ghost lingered here. I could see where she would sit, the circle leaving an empty spot as though waiting for her to appear.

“We recognize you, alpha of the Los Santos Pack.” The voice was cracked and old, and I traced it back to a woman sitting on a low tree stump. I didn’t know her by face, but she smelled like an alpha, her scent a warm blanket on a cold night. “We do not recognize the one you’ve brought with you. We do not recognize the magic you wear on your skin.”

I’d known it was risky, meeting them like this, in the old ways. We were all naked: there was no way to carry our clothes this deep into the forest, and it would have been an insult to come by foot, to come as a human.

Cade might not be able to see, but I could, and they watched me with a wariness that spoke of the long, unhealed history between mages and wolves. I remembered the first moment I had seen twisting magic snarled around Tyson’s throat like a brand, like a collar, likeownership.

That was how they looked at the ink on my chest.

“Cade,” I murmured. “The tracking spell.”

Cade blinked at me, his eyes narrowed, and he reached out, finding my arm first, then moving his hand up to my shoulder. The tracking spell moved over his fingers, then up his wrist. The bramble of blackberry vines remained on my chest, magic he’d given to me back when we had been more than the reluctant allies we now were.

“This is Cade Bartlett,” I said. I could smell the panic Cade was keeping barely under wraps. The terror because he was in the dark, unable to see, and surrounded by wolves. “Heir toHouse Bartlett. My ally in my fight against the mage who would destroy all wolves.”

There were murmurs, too indistinct to do more than make Cade and I both tense. I felt him next to me, readying himself for a fight. I needed to change something. This wasn’t how I’d wanted it to go.

“Will you allow him to produce light?” I looked around the circle. The alphas on the council were old, old enough to remember all the history between our people. But they were also afraid, that very history painting a picture of what happened when mage princes didn’t get their way.

Cade was surrounded by his worst fears, but so were they.

“He comes to us and asksusto accommodate?” a middle-aged wolf snapped. “How very like a mage.”

“Iask you to accommodate so that we’re all on equal footing.” I looked around the circle. “So we can all see each other.”

“As equals?” someone behind me challenged.

“As potential allies,” I corrected.

“Let him light the circle,” the old woman said. She looked around at her peers. “The other option is to insult our emperor.”

The last was said with a wry twist, and I kept myself from wincing. It wasn’t quite cruel, but I also couldn’t mistake the fact that I had claimed a throne only this group could give me. I had done it before I even had a pack, when I’d still been a lone wolf, when I’d still been closer to a consort than an alpha.

“Cade?” I said.

Tense beside me, Cade’s head was swinging back and forth as he searched for the voices in the darkness. When I put a hand on his shoulder, he jumped.

“Mage light,” I murmured.

Cade lifted his hand, the dark lines of his tattoo spilling up into the air and exploding into light, a fireworks display that hung in the air, showing a constellation of power.

The clearing was lit with bright white light that faded slightly, the display of miniature stars illuminating nearly twenty wolves, the alphas of every important pack on the West Coast. Cade blinked, inhaling sharply but keeping his feet steady.

I frowned at him, and he shook his head, the scent of fear permeating the clearing. Then it disappeared, Cade’s magic moving across his neck and knuckles, twisting over his skin, as he limited our ability to smell how he was feeling by using his magic to cover it.

“So, alpha of the Los Santos Pack. Why have you come before us?” The old woman didn’t introduce herself, and I looked around the circle for any familiar face.

“My name is Miles Castillo,” I said. I let the words linger in the quiet air. Any animals around us had long since fled from our voices. “I come to you asking for support in a fight for the life of every wolf in this country—possibly the world.”

“What fight is this?” a wolf to the side asked. He was still shaggy with fur, his eyes lupine gold. “You want to drag the western wolves into a civil war within House Bartlett? How does that serve us? How does helping amagereclaim his crown helpanywolf?”

“It’s not about helping Cade.” I ignored his sharp breath next to me. He still smelled like nothing, not even himself, just an emptiness in the air where I knew his body was. “It’s about stopping Leon Lucas.”

There was a confused pause, and I looked around the circle to see if anyone recognized the name. As I did, I noticed the lack of Ghost Pack’s alpha. I tried not to let my relief show. I had known I might need to face Benji but had been dreading it.