Page 5 of Exiled Heir

Both of Cade’s eyebrows went up. He huffed something that resembled a laugh. Tilting his head, he asked, “Do you think there’s anythingyoucould do tome?”

Angrily, I stood up, forgetting that in front of this man, I should be as nonthreatening as possible. Nothing to see here, no reason to dig deeper and find out that Ididhave a last name and a pack name.

I was no lone wolf. My family name, my pack name, would get me murdered. The magic that had melted steel could just as easily dissolve my throat.

I took a few steps forward so that we stood less than a foot apart. With my shoulders thrown back, I knew what I looked like. Broad, muscled, dangerous. My dark hair got in my face, and I tossed it back.

Cade looked up at me, his expression bored. He was shorter than me, standing only to my shoulder. The sharp angles of his face and body, which had seemed so threatening when he entered the room, now made him look delicate, as though he was the china and I was the bull inside the shop.

He lifted a hand, and I thought maybe he was going to reach out to touch my chest. Unexpected, the magic hit me in full force. It dragged me across the room, my heels trying to dig in, trying to keep me on my feet, but I only stopped when magic slammed me into the far wall, my arms spread wide.

I looked over and saw my arms covered in dark, writhing lines of tattoo. Yanking, I tried to pull free, but I didn’t even get a millimeter off the concrete. The bindings tightened, wrapping around me like a snake about to crush her prey. Soon, I would have no bones left at all.

Cade stood on the other side of the room, his head tilted, examining me. My harsh panting filled the air between us. I forced my face into a mirror of Cade’s blankness.

Sure, he was in the process of painfully deboning my arms, but I didn’t let my expression show any of the agony. Maybe it did hurt worse than the time I took three bullets to my stomach and spent a week in Salinas laid up in bed after digging them out myself with a pair of eyebrow tweezers. Maybe it did remind me the only reason he took off my chains was because he didn’t need them to control me. But I didn’t let my expression show anything other than boredom.

Cade walked across the room, his heels clicking. I tried to get my feet under me, to push myself up, but the magic held firm, my legs splayed out in front of me. The position made it awkward to breathe, my lungs not quite able to fully expand and my vision fading to dark around the edges.

“You’re strong. I need strong. Let’s try this one last time. Are you ready to talk? The clock is ticking here, and by my estimate, those fools are likely burning through whatever grace Declan is willing to give little men with big ambitions.” Cade’s words were chilly but precise, the clipped wings of a caged bird.

“Yeah, we can talk.” As soon as I said the words, Cade snapped his fingers, and the magic melted off me, leaping onto his hand and disappearing under his shirt cuff.

I slumped against the wall, my legs giving out. As I slid down to sitting, I focused on breathing, on checking to make sure that none of the bones in my arms were broken.

Cade spoke, each word distinct. “I need a consort. If you agree to this, you will leave here alive. If you don’t agree, Declan is right outside. I’m sure he had other plans for you.”

The thing about someone having a wall of heads was that once you saw it, you couldn’tunseeit. Declan could kill me, stuff me, and mount me on his wall, and no one except the dry cleaners that still had my Sunday best suit would even notice I was gone.

“You need a consort?” I felt my chuckle build and then get crushed under my anger. I knew the real word, even if the rest of the world seemed content to forget how barbaric the practice was. “You need aslave.”

A consort was the fancy term that mages had come up with when actualslaverybecame illegal during the civil war. All of it was as mysterious as anything else related to magecraft, but werewolves talked in whispers and passed the knowledge between each other. Consorts stayed with their mages for their entire lives, bound to serve them by the dark magic that mages wielded.

They didn’t have jobs or lives outside their mage. They were forbidden from having packs. And worst of all, every shifter who’d ever met a consort knew that they were forced to have sex with their masters.

“A consort is not a slave,” Cade said. “And I need…”

He crossed his arms over his chest, observing me. The cuff of his shirt rode up, exposing a wrist covered in complex tattoos.

“I need someone toposeas my consort. If you are able to convince my house you are mine, that we have been joined, then after I ascend, I will pay you five hundred thousand dollars so I never have to see your face again.” Cade’s words were thoughtful, each chosen distinctly. He was being dangerously honest because who was I going to blab to? The other heads on Declan’s wall?

“I just need to pretend to be your consort until you ascend the throne and become head of your house?” I watched his face, trying to see any hint of his plan. “And you’ll pay me money.”

“Enough money to stay off Declan’s radar for the rest of your life.” Cade’s shoulders stayed steady, neither tightening nor relaxing. He didn’t offer any more clues, any explanation. Clearly, I was either supposed to take the deal, or he was supposed to walk out and leave me to some well-placed knife wounds.

“How long until you ascend?”

“I’m not sure. The date hasn’t been set yet. But if you perform well, if you convince the rest of the house, then likely it would be before the end of the year,” Cade said.

“Eight months from now? You expect us to hold this up for eight months?” I wanted to laugh, but I felt only dread.

“Yes. If not longer.” There was a slight tug on the corner of Cade’s lips, as though eight months with someone pretending to be his slave, pretending to lick his boots and grovel at his feet, was unappealing.

“You’re crazy,” I said.

I had to turn him down. Eight months was too long. In eight months, it would be impossible for him not to find out who I was. And then, I wouldn’t be chained in some back room. I would be in the heart of his court, in the heart of House Bartlett. They would murder me and then bury me so far in their vast forest that no one would ever find my body.

Not that there was anyone left to look for me. Even Miri…