Page 93 of Ascendant King

“Boss…” Heather trailed off.

“It looks like a trap, I know,” I said. “We wait.”

Heather didn’t move, staring at me intently. Either she knew me too well or she had her own suspicions about what would happen if she left my side. I hesitated. We shouldn’t go in. Not when it was so obviously a trap.

The door partially closed as someone stepped in front of it.

My body went cold.

“Jesaiah?” I murmured, my mouth feeling as numb as my stomach.

“No.” Cade shook his head.

The last time I had seen Jesaiah, I had killed him. His death had bought Cade and me freedom. It was impossible that this was him. I hadsnappedhisneck. Even wolves didn’t get better from that.

So it was impossible that he was standing there, his back straight, his old leather collar clasped tight around his throat. His brown eyes were faded, a glossy white covering his pupils.

With a huff of air that might have been an attempt at speech, he opened the door wider.

Everything in me screamed. A wall of guilt and obligation andwronghit me all at once, and I took a step forward. “Jesaiah?”

His body didn’t smell like decomposition, and he stepped back, his motions jerky. It was impossible to see the strong alpha he’d been in the puppet-like way that he moved, using both hands to hold on to the door, his eyes staring vacantly at the wall in front of him rather than out at us.

“Miles.” Cade grabbed my hand, but I took another step, trying to see if Jesaiah would even acknowledge me, if he could sense my presence at all.

My mother would have shown him respect. He was an older alpha, mature. He held the history of our people in his past. And I had killed him like it wasnothing. I had murdered him.

Leon’s stairs were painted white, the wood well maintained, silent as we stepped up toward the open door. Jesaiah made a grunting noise, his gray hair catching the light and appearing almost yellow. He moaned but still didn’t turn his head toward us.

Heather touched my shoulder, and I glanced back for a quick second. Her eyes were wide and terrified. “Boss? This feels like a bad idea.”

For the second time in one day, I was putting Heather in an impossible situation, asking more of her than I should.

“Stay out here. Wait for Nia.” I looked behind her to the wolves she’d chosen to bring with us. “Take care of them. Come in after us once there’s reinforcements.”

Heather lifted her chin, staring me in the eye. “You should stay here. We go in as a pack.”

She was right; I knew she was right. From the strained expression on Cade’s face, he knew it too. But I hadkilledJesaiah, a man who was my elder and who had even less choice than I did.

I owed him, even if I couldn’t decide what. His blood on my hands was a debt I could never repay.

“Stay here. Come in after us when you have reinforcements. That’s an order.” Then, I took the last two steps.

Someone caught my hand, and I blinked at Cade in surprise. The grim expression on his face said he understood, but he didn’t like it.

We walked through the door, and Jesaiah shut it behind us.

Chapter

Thirty-One

With the door shut, the wolves on the other side, the situation seemed even stranger. Cade’s hand wrapped around mine, his fingers tightening convulsively. At first, I thought the trembling was from him, but then I realized my own hand was moving, my fingers twitching, body reacting to the horror of Jesaiah.

His mouth hung slightly open, his skin so pale it was nearly gray. His eyes were the most disconcerting, though.

He stared blankly ahead, pupils and irises both covered with a white layer. When he breathed, he exhaled a strange scent. It wasn’t quite rotten; it had none of the scent of spoiled cabbage or fish left out in the sun.

But it viscerally twisted something inside me, making bile burn up my throat.