Page 109 of Exiled Heir

I swallowed the second half of the sentence, unable to say,I promise you that as your alpha. In order to get them to submit, I had claimed them as mine, and part of my soul knew that I was not going to give them up easily.

Mage lights lit the clearing, as bright as daylight. Cade was at the head of the mages, wearing all black, his expression grim when he looked over the pups.

He turned to me, his eyes focused on my neck. “Is it safe?”

“Yes. They’re pups—children. They didn’t know what they were doing.” I opened my mouth to say more, but Cade shot me a sharp look. Now wasn’t the time. Now, I was supposed to be performing the role of the obedient, perfect consort. We both had an audience, one that was hungry for us to fail.

If we couldn’t pull it off, they wouldn’t be throwing tomatoes.

“Isaac and I will take them to the cells,” Cade said. “We thank the rest of you for your service.”

“Wait,” I said.

Cade narrowed his eyes at me, his expression blank. His shoulders tightened, his spine so straight that it almost had no curve.

“Peterson, Vince.” I chose the names at random, saying the only pairing I could remember off the top of my head. “Do the next stretch of the perimeter of the property. Someone will relieve you in three hours.”

Mages were staring at me. I could feel their eyes on me, crawling over my skin. At my neck, Basil tightened once, shifting slightly before settling. How would I deal with the situation if it was Declan and it looked like I had just disrespected him in front of his employees?

I bowed low, speaking to the ground. “I’m sorry I forgot to alert them earlier, my prince.”

“I’m glad you remembered before we went back.” Cade flicked his hand at the consorts. “Go now.”

Two wolves broke off, one pausing to rub his head against a mage’s hip before sprinting into the darkness.

“We’ll send out the rest of the assignments when we get back to the house,” Cade said.

I heard a few pops of magic as mages left with their consorts, but most of them stayed. Tyson stalked over to Sonja, letting her ruffle the fur at the back of his skull. Both of them watched us.

Cade extended his hand, and black, shadowy ink dripped from his fingers. At the first touch, Justin began to struggle, but I dropped to my knees, pressing my hand against the back of his neck, tightening my fingers around the tight muscle.

“Submit,” I murmured, an order from an alpha to a member of his pack.

His chest rose and fell quickly, his heart racing. With my hand right there, where my mother used to grip me when I was acting too big for my claws, Justin kept still, the rest of his little pack following his lead. The magic wound around their arms and legs, going tighter and tighter until they couldn’t move without breaking their own limbs.

From the back of the crowd, I heard someone whisper, “How is he doing that when it’s clear he has so little control?”

“Do you see? Even his own consort won’t wear his collar,” someone else murmured before being hushed.

Cade looked at Isaac. “Do you want to do the honors?”

Isaac nodded quickly and looked around at the remaining mages. “You should step back.”

“I’ll come with you,” Sonja said.

Cade narrowed his eyes at her. “Take your consort and rest. He’s been on his feet for seven hours. We’ll convene a war counsel as soon as Isaac and I have the wolf pack secured.”

Sonja’s nostrils flared, but just as she opened her mouth to argue, Isaac waved his hand through the air, swiping it like he was spinning a massive ball. The feel of his magic was different from Cade’s. With Cade, I always felt pain, like my own skin was paying the price for the magic.

With Isaac, I felt nothing. One moment, we were deep in the woods at the heart of House Bartlett territory. The next, we stood outside the three little prison cells.

Jay was with us, and he shifted back into his human form, his skin jumping and his body trembling. Isaac rushed over, snapping his fingers, and a robe appeared in his hand. He put it over Jay’s shoulders, wrapping him tight, rubbing his forefinger right at the edge of Jay’s collar.

Cade looked at me, blinking, before awkwardly grabbing hold of his shirt. For half a second, I thought he was going to take it off, expose that perfect pale skin to the filtered moonlight of the forest. Then, his shirt seemed to split, double itself. He was holding an identical one in his hand. He handed it to me, then did the same with his pants.

Both the shirt and the pants were too tight, but it was better than being naked.

The werewolf cubs began crying in earnest, the sort of hysterical sobs of a child who had fallen and skinned their knee in front of their mother.