Chapter 238: I Dare You To Look Back
She felt his eyes on her still: unblinking, uninvited, and operating on pure ’I dare you to look back’ energy.
Heat climbed her neck and settled in her cheeks and she was furious about it because blushing in a council chamber full of Alphas was the political equivalent of bleeding in shark water.
She was sitting in a chair she wasn’t invited to, bleeding from a throat a king had cut, blushing from a gaze a different king wouldn’t stop aiming at her. Peak performance.
She glanced up.
He was looking away.
But his entire goddamn pack was staring at her.
Twelve wolves were fixed on her with faces ranging from stunned to fascinated to the forced blankness of men actively fighting the urge to lean forward.
Reed was the worst offender by a landslide. His eyes had staged a coup against his face, leaving him looking like a Gamma who’d just watched his king propose to a woman he’d never seen before. Damon Tavian didn’t try. He was leaned all the way forward, staring with the pure, unfiltered curiosity of a Beta who’d just found the most interesting thing in years and fully planned to keep watching.
Suddenly, all twelve looked away at once. Not casual. Twelve heads simultaneously snapped in different directions like someone had flipped a switch inside their heads.
Damon was studying his own knees with the commitment of a man who had been told to stop and was deeply unhappy about it.
She turned her focus away from them.
The cloth on her neck was turning red. Her face was turning redder. And somewhere in the back of her skull, her wolf was still spinning, still searching, still reaching towards a north it couldn’t name.
In the span of two minutes, the chamber rearranged itself from high-tension standoff to polite summit like the previous atmosphere had been a clerical error. Forty-nine Alphas dropped into their chairs while their men obediently climbed into the stands.
The table was round and very large.
Shadowfell stood.
"Before we begin," he said, voice carrying, "does any Alpha wish to invoke the Challenger’s Right?"
The question hung in the air. Forty-nine seated Alphas. One empty chair with Stonehowl’s pack emblem on it like a middle finger.
Guinevere kept her face neutral and waited for the axe she was fairly certain was coming.
"No challenge," Alpha Darwin Blackmoor said. "But I am genuinely curious to see how the princess handles the next part. Considering only Alphas can do it. And she is, well." He gestured vaguely in her direction. "A woman."
Laughter rolled through the chamber. Warm, easy.
"What gave it away?" another Alpha commented, voice flat.
Guinevere blinked. She had exactly zero clue what the fuck came next. She mentally ransacked every book she’d ever read about continental summits and came up empty. To her knowledge, there wasn’t much literature on continental summits, and her father had never once given Cassian the unofficial playbook.
"Darwin." Benjamin Blackmoor’s voice came from the opposite end of the chamber with the practiced exhaustion of a man who had been correcting his brother’s opinions since the womb. "Maybe save the commentary until after she fails."
"A son who does not inherit Alpha abilities wouldn’t pass it, Benjamin. That’s a fact." Darwin shifted forward, palms flat on the table. "It’s not stupid. The only reason YOU pass is because we are twins. A younger sibling almost always fails if the elder is alive and fit to lead. That’s wolf law. Renwick has a son old enough to rule. She is the younger daughter. Women don’t inherit Alpha abilities or Alpha wolves."
Guinevere’s stomach twisted but she kept her mouth shut.
"If she does it," Benjamin said, a grin spreading across his face, "you keep your mouth shut for the rest of the meeting and vote my way."
Laughter erupted. Real laughter. The kind that makes enemies temporarily forget they hate each other.
"Fine," Darwin replied without hesitation. "And if she doesn’t, you shut yours and vote mine."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"Lovely," Alpha Ashfang muttered. "The Blackmoors are gambling again. Everyone mark the date."
Nicholas watched with the face of a man who had zero remaining fucks and enough leftover disdain to sand a deck. His eyes stayed glued between the Blackmoor twins and the far wall, carefully never landing on Guinevere.
Either he was dodging her on purpose or he’d already mentally moved on from whatever the hell just occurred and was trying to run his summit like a functional adult.
She couldn’t tell which. Both options confused her for different reasons.
"Oh come now," Redmoon said, his diplomatic tone settling over the tension like a warm cloth. "Renwick wouldn’t have sent his daughter without good reason. I’m sure the princess is more than capable."
She swallowed and stayed silent.
Renwick didn’t send her at all. In fact, her father probably thought Cassian was here. Tyler must have not known about this part either or he wouldn’t have agreed to her going. Nobody had briefed her on whatever was about to happen because nobody expected her to be here.
She hoped she could do whatever they needed. Otherwise she had just made six warriors run eight hundred miles, left their Keep unguarded, and committed the most elaborate act of political suicide in Lunaris history.
A clicking noise echoed through the chamber. Deep. Mechanical. Ancient.
Every torch on the walls flared simultaneously, flames doubling in height, casting the room in sharp orange light. The round table groaned. Wood shifted against wood, and across its surface, lines began to form.
Slowly, carved into the grain like veins filling with light, a map of Nyros emerged. Coastlines. Mountain ranges. Rivers. Territorial borders etched in faint amber that pulsed with a rhythm that felt alive.
Guinevere stared at it and wondered how this wasn’t magic. Because it sure looked like it. It felt like magic. It had the distinct energy of something that a man who burned women at the stake for glowing would probably find offensive.
Maybe Stonehowl didn’t realize this was part of the experience. He had just taken over for his father so that would make sense. If he thought her glowing was offensive, this map would have done something else to his blood pressure.
A few younger Alphas looked genuinely awed. The older ones didn’t react at all, which confirmed this had been happening for long enough that the wonder had been beaten out of it by repetition.
Nicholas’s voice filled the chamber.
"No Alpha has invoked the Challenger’s Right, therefore we move to the Rite of Sovereignty. Each Alpha will bleed for their pack as those before them have bled. If the Alpha is true, the land will answer. If the Alpha is false, the land stays silent. Where an Alpha cannot be present, the rite permits their firstborn heir to stand in their place. Such heir must possess an Alpha wolf, carry the right of succession, and be willingly chosen by the acting Alpha to present the token on behalf of their house."