“We could have her return.” Ben shrugs. “Call the bluff. It would embarrass the Leonids, and whatever is making them so desperate will eventually come to bite them in the ass.”
Ben is excellent at providing solutions, but that won’t work. Not this time.
“Lorenzo threatened my mate.” The knowledge may not be public yet, but the shifter knew what he was doing and did it anyway. He has the confidence that whatever strength and influence he has is enough to strongarm me.
This threat won’t disappear on its own. If it’s not this day, it will be another, or some other enemy.
I’ve approached this wrong, hiding my mate and young from the community. Hiding the fiercest parts of myself to blend into a modern world.
I am a dragon. It’s time that people remember that.
It’s time that I remember that.
There will be nothing left but ashes.
But we must figure out a way to make it lawful first.
“This calls for plan B,” I say to Ben.
A stricken expression passes over Ben’s face as he follows my line of thought. He looks to Stella.
“What’s plan B?” she asks.
She’s plan B.
There are rules that need to be followed, but I refuse to cower.
“Mace, if the bathhouse is offering Katarina protection, we accept,” I say. “We will collect her when it’s safe.”
“Planning all the fun things without me?” he asks.
I arch a brow and both of Mace’s rise. “Plausible deniability is good too.” His expression becomes serious. “I wish you luck and victory.”
“Luck isn’t necessary when you’re what I am,” I murmur.
“All the same,” Mace says with a shrug before he disappears. He’s probably standing in front of Katarina now. Regret flickers to life in my chest. I should have sent a message back to her, but now isn’t the time to worry about the ache in my heart. It’s time to plot a revenge that will keep the world away from my family.
“Ben, can you give us a moment?” I say.
“Of course.” His voice scratches and he clears his throat, not casting any glances at the redheaded witch who narrows her eyes at me as he leaves.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
“If you could facilitate the destruction of the Leonids, would you?” I ask. It doesn’t take long for my words to sink in, and when they do, the gleam of hunger in her eyes is almost regrettable. Katarina will be angry at me for this later, but Stella is her own person.
“The Council won’t allow you to wipe out a fellow territory leader,” she says, thinking aloud. “And I can’t take over in my father’s place to preserve whatever balance they have a hard on for.”
She is correct. It would cause turmoil and panic to have someone so inexperienced be a territory leader. Though she is not powerless.
“But you can enable another to. You are the blood daughter of Lorenzo Leonid.”
Stella leans back, connecting the dots quicker than I expected. “The Devil…”
The plan isn’t a convoluted one, but she’s very up-to-date on territory disputes if she already knows that title and where this conversation is going. The thought of Katarina’s fury has me hesitating.
“This is not something required of you.” I sigh. “You and your mother are under my protection—”
“But this way you’d be able to unseat my sperm donor and his inner circle without the Council taking issue,” Stella finishes for me.
Because a takeover by mating follows our laws. It doesn’t matter that Stella isn’t recognized as a Leonid. Territory claims are about blood and those mated to that blood.
“And doing this would eliminate the threat to Kat,” she says.
“This threat. There will be others, but I plan on setting an example.” I level my gaze on her. “Do you understand?”
“You’re going to kill him,” she says and takes a moment to consider it before continuing, “It’s not the revenge I had in mind, but his death will be because he threatened your mate and child. I’m merely capable of making it so that the Council doesn’t try and make an example out of my best friend’s mate.”
I nod. “And it would take away any threat they are to you and your mother. You are under my protection, but they’ve already ransacked your place of business for taking the statue.”
Stella frowns, unsurprised but grim. “He’s violating all the rules.”
Lorenzo is acting desperate, and that makes him dangerous.
“Is this the only way?” she asks the question but knows the answer. This is the cleanest way. The way that leaves everyone she cares about as safe as they can be. If I retaliate in a way that puts me in the Council’s sights, Katarina will be vulnerable.
But Stella’s life will be forever changed.
“Given more time, we may be able to figure out some other plan,” I allow. We’ve been in the process of prodding Lorenzo’s younger son to stage a coup, but he’s unwilling, and the logistics would take too long to come to fruition.
Stella nods, but her answer is in her eyes. This witch is done being a cast-off pawn. She wants blood. Maybe it’s the shifter in her that demands the revenge, or maybe this will feed whatever wound she carries in her soul.
“And… he is amenable to the arrangement?” she asks.
“Yes, Ben sent out feelers when this conflict began.”
Stella doesn’t react with anger that we’d be so presumptuous. This is a solution we didn’t want to need. She leans back in her chair.
“He’s not known for his kindness. Hence the name, The Devil. You think he’ll be a better neighbor to you than Lorenzo?” she asks.
“He is honorable and an ally.” I pause for a moment. “I don’t know how he’ll be as a mate though.”
Stella shrugs. “That’s something I’ll find out I guess.”
I GET out of the car before Jensen can open my door for me. The shifter narrows his eyes, but we aren’t performing for an audience. There’s no need to wait for my driver to open my door in this remote area.
Luck is on our side with the northern fae gate being in this dense wood, far from the wandering eyes of humans. There’s a ward around the area, and I, like most magical beings, have an innate ability to keep from drawing attention, but there are limits to that.
We came early.
The guards I keep at the gate are at the ready. The gate itself is inert. Merely an empty stone archway, the air around it crackling with static magic. Only I can activate the gate, it being attuned to me since I claimed ownership of it a few hundred years ago, but it would be foolish not to have sentries posted.
But the guards aren’t alone.
“What are you doing here?” Ben asks.
“I’m always present for crimes that I’m supporting.” The dry amusement is clear in the gargoyle’s words. “And examples need an audience. More than just Kalos’s people as witness.”
He has a point.
“Thank you, Stoneheart,” I greet him. He’s larger than Ben in stature, his wings clasp like a cape but leave his body bare except for a dark-colored kilt. Tattoos spiral over his gray skin, an oddity for his kind.