Page 19 of Night Fae

Zev thought of what Yuri had done, transporting them across worlds, but he kept his mouth shut. These two didn't need to know what he'd been up to.

They descended a spiral staircase, the air growing colder with each step. The execution chambers lay beneath the palace, far from the elegant halls above. Few who entered these rooms ever left them.

"The prisoner has been most uncooperative," Darius said. "Refusing to answer questions about their pack's activities along our borders."

Zev faltered mid-step. "Pack?"

His father smiled thinly. "Did I forget to mention? The prisoner is a werewolf."

The word ran through Zev's veins like ice. Werewolf. His lungs constricted, memories crashing through him with such force he nearly staggered.

Rhys laughing in the moonlight. Rhys's fingers tangled in his hair. Rhys shifting forms in a blur of magic, running beside him through forest paths. Rhys bleeding out in the dirt while Zev was miles away, unable to save him.

"Is there a problem?" His father's voice seemed to come from far away.

Zev couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. His father knew exactly what he was doing. This wasn't just a test of loyalty—it was an act of deliberate cruelty, designed to break something inside him that had never fully healed.

Lady Morvena stepped closer, her cold fingers lifting Zev's chin. "Your father asked you a question, Zevran."

He forced himself to meet her gaze, fighting to keep his expression neutral even as bile rose in his throat. "You want me to kill a werewolf."

"We want you to execute a criminal," his grandmother corrected. "Their species is irrelevant."

No. Nothing about this was irrelevant. They'd chosen this prisoner specifically, knowing what it would cost him.

"I won't," he said.

Lady Morvena's eyes narrowed to violet slits. "Refusing your very first order?"

"You know what you're asking." Zev's voice sounded thin, even to his own ears.

"I'm asking you to choose," she said, again in that dangerously soft tone of voice. There was no sympathy there. "Between your past and your future. Between sentiment and survival." Her gaze hardened. "Between this werewolf and your human."

There it was. The ultimatum laid bare.

Rhys was already dead. Nothing could bring him back. But Malik was alive, somewhere in this palace, depending on Zev to keep him that way.

Still…

"Find someone else for me to kill," Zev said.

"There is no one else," Darius replied. "This is the choice before you. Make it."

Zev glared at the man who'd sired him.

The man who'd raised him not to question what he was doing.

Now he wanted Zev to make a choice?

Ridiculous.

It had beenRhyswho'd first taught him that he had choices.

Something sharp and painful dug into his chest, making breathing difficult again.

"One day," he said in a low tone of voice, "I'm going to kill both of you."

Thatwas his choice.