Page 37

Njáll

“ A ugustine attacked Quinn,” Alwynn says, and blood rushes in my ears.

“Sorry?”

“I know you heard me.” Her words are sharp, short, and I immediately bristle. We have been searching for Augustine for days . If a non-clan vampire attacked a werewolf, that is the Council’s problem, not mine.

I rub a hand over my brow and shake my head. No. No good will come from losing my temper—we all have some fault to bear. I should have dealt with Augustine more decisively from the beginning.

“Is he okay?”

“Augustine?”

“ No ,” I growl. Like I give a fuck about him; he lost any right the moment he attacked without warning. “Quinn.”

Alwynn is silent for a moment, and when she speaks again, her voice is marginally softer. “He’s shaken up but uninjured,” she says. “It happened a few hours ago. Deacon and Kieran are on their way to you.”

Oh, fuck . That’s the last thing I need. “Is there anything else you can tell me before they get here?” I shake my head when she begins to protest. “They are going to be angry enough. I don’t need to make things worse.”

“Quinn was attacked inside their pack house. Somehow, Augustine got through Sam’s wards.”

That’s… That’s much worse. Even Tamesis couldn’t do that, and he was drinking so much fae blood he had powers , at times.

It can only mean… I swallow hard before I speak again. “Thank you for your call, Hunter Alwynn. I will likely call you again once Deacon and Kieran have left.”

She doesn’t ask after my silence, just makes a sound of agreement before she says goodbye and hangs up. I put my phone down and shove my hair back from my face.

It has to be a fae, doesn’t it? Sam’s wards are notorious for being unbreakable, though from what I have heard, wards are not actually his specialty. Still, there are no mages in the city who can get through them, and that extends to the vampires and wolves, too.

But a fae? There is one fae I know who is trying to cause trouble. A high fae, Maurice said, and I snatch up my phone again—maybe I should call him and let him know.

Someone knocks on my office door before I can scroll to his number. “Come in.”

One of the guards walks nervously inside, her face pale. “Crai,” she says, ducking her head. “Alphas Deacon and Kieran are demanding to be let in to speak with you.”

I frown. It is one thing for them to be angry with me, and another entirely for them to be angry with the vampires and humans who work here. “Were they rude?”

She shakes her head quickly. “Just… forceful.”

That I can imagine, and I sigh. “Send them in.”

For a moment, I think she will protest. I am alone in the office, and even without a wolf, Kieran is a formidable opponent. I would never voluntarily allow myself to go up against Deacon, either, even if he were not Vasile’s mate.

But they are not here to kill me, and it will not come to blows, no matter how angry they both are.

“Go,” I say, and she nods and leaves the room.

What is there to be done? We must find Augustine, of course, though none of the vampires looking for him have turned up a sign of him so far. If he has some access to a fae willing to help him, that does make sense.

I have little time to think about it. The same guard as before ushers Deacon and Kieran into the room, and I stand behind my desk, unsure how to approach this but certain that I do not want them both towering over me.

Does it help that I am a little taller than both of them? Yes, but I am not about to tell them that.

“Crai,” Deacon says, voice devoid of any warmth.

“Alph—” I begin, but I do not even get the word out before Kieran steps forward.

“What the fuck are your vampires doing?” he growls, all coiled anger. “Augustine should have been under lock and key.”

“What happened?” I ask.

“He attacked Quinn is what happened,” Kieran says. Deacon seems content to watch for now. “He got through our wards and attacked Quinn in his home.”

I don’t say that Hunter Alwynn told me that. It won’t help. “Is Quinn all right?”

“Why the fuck would you care? You didn’t care when you were pushing for him to take part in a challenge. You wanted Augustine to get his justice.”

I did, but not like this, and we all know it. “What are you saying, alpha ?”

To his credit, Kieran does not back down. “Did you want this to happen? Did you leave Augustine with no oversight so he could do what he liked, and the clan wouldn’t be held responsible?”

“Kieran!” A growl rumbles under Deacon’s voice, but Kieran doesn’t look away from me.

The accusation shouldn’t hurt, but it does.

I am the leader of the vampires here in London, and I am biased towards them, but just because I wanted Augustine to have a fair hearing for his accusations—accusations that had already been proven to be true—it does not mean I wanted him to try to kill a wolf.

“No, I did not. To either question.” I gesture at the sofa, and there is no leeway in my voice when I say, “Please, sit.”

Kieran tries to stubbornly hold out, but Deacon growls again, and this time there is a flash of silver in his eyes.

Part of me is amused to watch. Kieran doesn’t submit the way other wolves do to the city’s alpha.

Their relationship is more nuanced, more like father and son than two men who work together.

It is more than that, I suppose, though it does not matter now.

They both take seats on the sofa, and I take one of the chairs.

“I have vampires trying to track Augustine down.” I hold up a hand for silence when Kieran opens his mouth.

“They have been trying to track him for several days now, but to no avail. Which makes sense, if you consider… Did Sam sense fae magic in the attack?”

Kieran’s eyes widen in surprise. “Yes, he did.”

Deacon and I exchange a grim look. I have no doubt Kieran and his pack know that Asher and Maurice are in the Wild Hunt and that this means they have some access to fae magic through their blessing. I simply believe he thinks I did not know.

“What will you do once you track him down?” Deacon asks.

“Before this, I was not certain,” I reply, “but now I will be handing him over to the Hunters’ Council.”

“They may still allow him to challenge us.” Deacon sighs. “They won’t want to kill him.”

Well, of course not. They should not. Should the Council start killing anyone who breaches the treaty left and right, then we have a serious problem.

“Do we know Augustine was going to kill Quinn?” I ask.

“Of course he was,” Kieran protests, but Deacon is already shaking his head.

“No,” he says. “Dax intervened before Augustine could lay a finger on him. For all we know, he could have been there to talk.”

“He wasn’t!” Kieran says.

“We know that,” I reply, “but it is about what Augustine can argue, not what we understand of his intentions. For now, all he has done is break through your wards, and I suspect that was not even him. He has broken into a pack house.”

“What’s the punishment for that?” Kieran asks, temper flaring again.

“Nothing that serious,” Deacon replies.

I sigh, leaning back in my chair. “If he argues that, the Council will have no choice but to let him go and allow his earlier claim to a challenge.”

Kieran starts to say something again, but Deacon grabs his forearm. “Calm yourself or wait outside.”

“You—”

“ Outside .”

He must push on the bond that exists between them—Deacon is Kieran’s alpha, after all—because Kieran winces. He gives Deacon a faintly betrayed look before he gets to his feet and stalks out of the room, slamming my office door impressively loudly into the frame.

“Sorry,” Deacon says. He runs a hand through his hair. “I can’t say I don’t understand where he’s coming from, though.”

“I do understand,” I say. “I also do not wish to destroy my own office. I think Vasile would be upset with me for it.”

That gets me a twitch of Deacon’s lips. It is telling that he has left Vasile behind. Lucien not being here makes sense, as he and Sam will be taking care of the members of Kieran’s pack. But Vasile? He or Deacon do not trust his objectivity here.

It is fair, I suppose, but I do not like it.

“You think the Council will still allow Augustine to challenge Quinn?”

“I think they’re in as precarious a position as we are,” I say and drum my fingers on the arm of the chair.

“How outraged will my clan be if the Council kills a vampire who did not, in fact, injure anyone? We both know what Augustine wants to do, but without proof, I cannot condemn him for it—the clan will not trust me if I do.”

“And if he is freed, he will come after Quinn again.”

“Most likely.”

Deacon rests his elbows on his knees and sighs. “If we capitulate once, everyone will believe they can demand a challenge.”

“Can’t we?”

His lips quirk. “It’s not something we advertise.”

“Maybe that’s what we need to do.”

“And what do you vampires do, when you need to deal with something like this?”

Kill each other , I don’t say because it has been a long time since that was our preferred form of justice.

“Vampires generally only fight for territory,” I say slowly, still considering things.

“We do not have to do that here. Disputes are mostly dealt with by chieftains and in one hundred years, I only had to escalate a handful of cases to Vasile.”

“What did he do?”

“We have the cells. He decided.” And never consulted us; not that I generally think he was wrong. “A few were killed.”

“No one demanding justice?”

“That was what they got.” I shake my head. “We don’t have the same hierarchy as you. We don’t have the same instincts. Challenges make sense in a pack for settling things like that, don’t they?”

“They do.”

“If a wolf came to me accusing a vampire of killing their mate—and that’s different too, I know it is—then we would investigate and deal with the culprit. The wolf would have little hand in that justice.”

“They wouldn’t be allowed to kill them themselves?”

“No. Neither would a vampire—if a sire’s turn was killed, for example, that would still be the responsibility of me and my chieftains.”