Page 59 of Breaking Isolde

I take a moment to absorb. “Congratulations, I guess.”

“She’s happy.” There’s a weight in the words I’ve never heard from him.

“Girl or boy?” Bam asks.

“Doesn’t matter.” Caius’s voice softens. “Neither of us ever want to raise a killer.”

Julian finds his smile. “What if the kid wants to Hunt, though?”

“Then the kid can come back and kill you all,” Caius says, dead serious.

There’s a silence, almost reverent.

He comes back to business. “How’s your girl?”

I think of Isolde, all rage and bone and haunted eyes. “She’s not ready. But she thinks she is.”

“Don’t underestimate her,” Caius warns. “They never look tough until the blood is on their hands. If you want to win, you’ll have to claim her the old-fashioned way.”

“I’m aware.”

“Afterwards,” Caius says, “what are you going to do?”

Julian and Colton both lean in, waiting.

I flex my hand around the phone, knuckles going white. “I’ll stay at Westpoint.”

Caius exhales, slow and long. “Take my chair, then. And when they ask you for the firstborn, remember—”

I finish for him. “I’ll kill them before they touch what’s mine.”

Bam laughs, but there’s something feral in it.

Caius says, “Don’t let them take your bloodline, Rhett. They only respect what they fear. Remember that.”

“I will,” I say.

We’re silent again, just boys turned men, on a call, each of us too proud to admit we care.

Caius breaks it first. “Good luck, Grey.”

“Don’t need it. I’ll call again, soon.”

He hangs up. I put the phone down and stare at it, feeling the weight of everything I never say.

Julian stands, stretches, and pours another round. “Well, that was depressing. Shall we toast to your imminent success?”

I take my glass. “To the future.”

Colton lifts his. “To the Night Hunt.”

Bam drains his in one. “To the blood.”

We finish the bottle. No one mentions the fact that this is the last time we’ll drink together as equals.

After the Hunt, after I claim my girl, I will rise to a position of power, for better or worse.

The clock ticks down.