Chapter 236: Tried By Who? You? Pass.
Every head in the chamber rotated to Guinevere.
"She will do no such thing," Nicholas said. "You came to my summit, threatened my delegate, drew a blade on an unarmed woman, and now you want HER to apologize? That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works. Lower it."
DOMINO 46: SORRY ABOUT THAT
GREYHALL CROSSING - COUNCIL CHAMBER - 8:15 PM
Guinevere was still staring at Tharos, his blade still on her throat.
"You’re right. I owe you an apology."
The chamber collectively held its breath. Shadowfell turned his head slowly towards her. The heat from his gaze hit the side of her head like a focused beam.
"I’m sorry I said I don’t respect any Alpha willing to chain children in silver and murder a woman in cold blood. It was insensitive because your father was that Alpha I was referring to," she began.
Tharos’s eye twitched.
"I’m also sorry I told you that any man who has to announce he’s an Alpha King is no Alpha King. In hindsight, you might already have known that and me saying it was hurtful."
A sound escaped from somewhere in the back rows. It had ambitions of being a cough. It was, without question, a laugh.
"Oh, and I’m sorry I said you were overly loud and the right amount of dumb. Both of those comments were counterproductive for your professional growth. You’re actually quite articulate considering the last Stonehowl I met, so I do hope the volume feedback is something you marinate on later. You don’t need it as much as you think you do. Keep at it and you’ll be winning verbal spars in no time."
Tharos’s face cycled through four shades of red that didn’t exist in nature. His hands were shaking.
Then, he laughed. Genuine. Unhinged. The sort of laugh that clears a room quicker than smoke because it has the specific pitch of a man who has officially stopped giving a fuck.
The chamber went cold.
Then the laughter stopped. Cut off clean like a switch had been flipped.
"You’re going to die funny. I’ll give you that."
He pressed the blade into her skin until a thin red line opened.
Blood ran.
The sting was sharp, clean, and entirely too familiar. Her heart was pounding.
She couldn’t see Shadowfell’s face, but everyone else could. And whatever they saw made the three wolves behind Tharos take a step back.
That’s when the world went white for a split second. Her eyes blazed white and her hair glowed in answer.
She felt something take control inside of her. Her gaze narrowed onto Tharos’s face, but it wasn’t just her who was seeing him.
That voice spoke again.
Let me take over. He does not touch you.
Before she could respond, the light flashed a second time and another voice sounded inside her mind.
Where are you? Who the fuck is that?
Kael’s voice. Wrecked. Furious. Coming through a channel she didn’t know existed.
"What the FUCK—" Tharos snapped, blade still at her throat. "Why are you glowing?"
She blinked a few times. The light vanished instantly, like a door slamming shut inside her chest.
"Performance anxiety," she replied, face dead serious. Her mouth was a big problem. She was well aware.
Next to her, Shadowfell let out a breath. Either he was amused or annoyed, she’d never know.
"You expect me to believe you can’t control that?" Tharos snapped.
"You expect me to believe you can control your volume? We all have our struggles," she answered.
Grimscar’s voice carried across the chamber. "Hard to miss. I believe those were my exact words."
"That was witchcraft," Tharos boomed. "She should be bound and tried. Immediately."
"Tried by who? You? I’ll take my chances," she replied, voice dry as sand.
The chamber lost it. Full, unrestrained, couldn’t-hold-it-anymore laughter from every direction at once.
"Add lashes for her mouth too," he yelled over the laughter. "She would be burned at the stake in Stonehowl."
"That’s not the flex you think it is," she snapped, completely over this. "If I could use dark magic, I would have used it to end this conversation. Now if you’ll excuse me."
She pushed his blade out of the way so aggressively that Tharos Stonehowl was confused. Frankly, she surprised herself. That was a bold move.
Then she glanced down, noticing her hands were glowing. She let out a breath.
"SEE! MORE DARK MAGIC." The fury hadn’t gone anywhere. Tharos was locked on her the way a predator locks on prey, and every signal his body was sending said he was done with talking.
"Oh this? Allergies. I’m allergic to bullshit," she said.
That did it.
Tharos swung.
Full arc. Full commitment. The kind of swing that ends arguments and starts funerals.
Shadowfell had already grabbed Guinevere, yanking her behind him before it registered.
The arc that should have cut her in half instead sliced air.
Tharos froze.
For one spectacular second, nobody breathed.
Then Nicholas Shadowfell broke.
The shift wasn’t full. It was worse than full. Partial shifts were only possible by the strongest Alpha wolves and happened when a wolf overpowered its human and neither side won. The sound that came from his chest was a frequency that bypassed ears entirely and went straight to the base of every spine in the chamber.
Wolves dropped. Knees hit stone across the room in a cascading wave of involuntary submission. Alphas staggered. Betas grabbed walls. Three warriors in the back rows sat down because their legs chose to and they weren’t consulted.
The voice that came from Nicholas Shadowfell was his and was absolutely fucking not.
"Get the fuck away."
The words were layered. Two voices stacked on top of each other, one human, one wolf.
"You swung at my mate. In my chamber. At my summit. In front of every Alpha I invited here to save YOUR people. Dark Fae are breaching borders. Packs are being slaughtered. Children are dying in their beds. I ran twelve hundred miles to stop it and I walked into THIS. You, with a blade, swinging at an unarmed woman because she called you what you are. You are DONE, Tharos. Leave my chamber. Leave my summit. And if I see your face before sunrise, I will finish what that swing started. Except I won’t miss."
The wolf receded. The shift pulled back. Bone reformed. His jaw returned. His eyes went from void to dark, then darker, then something that passed for human if you didn’t look too hard.
Nicholas Shadowfell stood in the center of Greyhall Crossing, chest heaving.
Guinevere blinked.
Mate?
She looked at him for the first time.