Page 40 of The Beginning (Covert Moon, #1)

King Jharak

The Fae Realm

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J harak's fingers drummed a slow, deliberate rhythm against his chair—the sound like bones tapping against stone. His mind churned over the intelligence his new Captain of the Watchers had just provided.

Young Captain Eamonn. Even now, the king couldn't resist a cold smile. Talented, skilled, gifted—what had they called him in his village? Eamonn the Lucky?

How bitterly ironic. Poor Eamonn had been set up, sacrificed by a pair of selfish young lovers who'd needed a scapegoat. Proof that luck was nothing more than a smile from the sun, given against borrowed time.

But the young man had risen above it, as Jharak had known he would. Already, Eamonn was becoming one of the most competent Watchers ever appointed—thorough, conscientious, exactly what Jharak needed for what was coming.

The Watchers carried the unfortunate reputation of being a dead end, a place for the disgraced.

In reality, it was where Jharak placed his most gifted warriors—those who thought beyond the narrow scope of palace duty.

He usually found them after they'd "gone astray" in other regiments.

This quality that caused them to falter in super-structured environments was exactly what was needed for the Veil.

Lady Annalise and Gavin... Jharak had known about the young lovers' plot from the beginning.

He could have stopped it, could have saved Eamonn from his fall.

But after what he'd learned from Brennan, his son, he'd needed a man like Eamonn in this position as Connar was retiring.

And he couldn't simply reassign a King's Guard without raising questions.

Not when he was fighting to keep the growing unrest hidden for as long as possible.

Someone like Eamonn would have been utterly wasted in the King's Guard. But where Jharak had placed him? There, he would be invaluable.

The problem was time. Jharak had assumed there would be months for Eamonn to settle into his role, to learn the deeper truths of what the Watchers really guarded against.

That assumption had just shattered like glass.

The information was unthinkable: wolf shifters in the Human Realm. Brennan and Iris had brought him that first, impossible report of rumors and unrest months ago. But now...

Now shifters were hunting his Watchers. Stalking them. Killing them. Getting dangerously close to the Veil.

The king rose from his chair, shadow falling across the room like a shroud. He needed to speak with Brennan immediately.

His new Captain of the Watchers had no idea what was coming for him.

Jharak only hoped Eamonn would live long enough to learn why he'd really been chosen.

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