Page 149 of Contested Crown

The golden ink continued across Declan’s skin, until he was decorated with complicated patterns and there wasn’t a single clear area of flesh. Declan opened his mouth, and tattoos fell from his lips, spilling on the floor and racing toward us.

Leon’s voice poured from his throat. “Come home, Cade. Come home, mages and wolves of House Bartlett. The house requires your obedience.”

“We need to go now!” Cade locked eyes with Isaac.

Isaac nodded, and Cade exhaled sharply. He swept his hand across the room, creating a barrier of ink, but the golden tattoos ate through them so fast that soon there was nothing left.

“Jump!” I leapt first and had a moment of terror that it had been the wrong decision. The pack was with me, though, and Cade’s magic wrapped around us tight, teleporting us away.

ChapterForty-Eight

When Cade’s magic let us go, we fell onto a dusty floor. I recognized the scents as the building we’d fought our way up only a few minutes prior.

Laughing, Joel bumped chests with Samuel. “What the shit! That was amazing.”

Cade smiled at me. He wavered, and I rushed across the room to put an arm under Cade’s.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” he said but leaned against me heavily, his feet unsteady.

I turned back. “Everyone here?”

The pack counted off, and I breathed a sigh of relief that everyone was here. The radio at my belt crackled to life.

“Miles,” someone said.

Without Declan’s screens, I couldn’t tell who it was.

“You made your decision?” I asked.

“We decided,” the voice said. “We’re ready to join you. You on the top floor?”

I raised an eyebrow at Cade. “Will coming through the doorway take them back to Declan’s prison like it did with us?”

Cade shook his head. “The magic that transported us to Declan’s prison is gone. If they come through the door here, they’ll stay here.”

“What floor are you on?” I asked. Cade needed to know so that he could open the right door.

As we negotiated, I ran my eyes over the pack. With the exception of Jay, the House Bartlett wolves were being integrated with the pack. Theo chatted with some of the lower-ranked wolves while Coral and Heather joked and bumped shoulders. Even their mages were slowly being welcomed in.

Something in my chest unwound at the sight. It wasn’t just during a fight that we were going to be able to work together.

Cade and the mages worked together to take the spellwork off of the right door, and I heard the creak of a door in the stairwell. At the sound of a dozen feet on the stairs, the pack tensed, all the affectionate cuddling gone.

The men who entered the room had their hands out where we could see them, carefully keeping them away from waistbands and jackets, eyes darting from person to person. I recognized the one in front as a manager at one of Declan’s clubs.

“Miles,” he said. Then, to my surprise, he dropped his head into a low nod. “I swear my allegiance to you. And your pack.”

The last was tacked on, an old-fashioned, formal way of speaking that came from the days when packs were more powerful, when Declan never could have risen to power because whatever pack ran the city would have crushed him before he could. It was phrasing from the days when the Emperor Wolf throne had been filled.

“That’s good. All of you?” I asked.

He nodded, looking up.

“Okay, remind me of your names.” Nia slid in beside me, her phone in her hand, taking notes as they told me who they were and where they worked.

I knew Declan’s bars and clubs tangentially, but the turnover was higher than on the other side of his business, so most of them I knew by face but not by name. The manager was someone who had run Lion before it burned down.