Nicholas’s POV

The next—

The desk hit the wall. Papers everywhere. I heard Roman make a sharp sound.

Maxim went down.

Two hundred and thirty pounds of alpha wolf, and he went down like it was easy. Because it was. Because he was big and fast and had spent years being the most dangerous thing in the room, and I was bigger and faster and had spent years being the thing that made other dangerous things go quiet when I walked in.

He hit the floor on his back. My front paws on his chest. My muzzle two inches from his face.

He wasn’t moving.

Smart. Finally.

His heartbeat was wrong—too fast, stuttering, the specific rhythm of someone whose body has overridden their brain and decided that survival was more important than dignity. He smelled like fear. Actual fear, the real kind, the kind you can’t perform or control.

Good.

I wanted him to smell like that.

I wanted him to remember, for the rest of whatever time he had, that this was what it felt like.

"Maxim—" Mikhail’s voice had gone up an octave. I could hear him moving. Backing up. Not running—too scared to run. "Alpha king—you can’t—we came here in good faith, there are protocols, we are a visiting delegation from another pack—"

He kept going.

I let him.

I stayed exactly where I was. Looking at Maxim’s face. At the specific expression on it—the stripped-down, performance-free, real expression of a man who had spent years deciding what other people got to feel, and who was currently experiencing the sensation of the floor falling out from under that.

"—you cannot attack a delegation that came in peace—there are accords, there are *rules*, this is not how—"

I shifted back. Stood up. Let the shift come back in reverse. Jacket. Shirt. The floor under my feet instead of my paws.

Maxim lay there for a second.

Then he rolled over. Got his hands under him. Got up slowly, breathing hard, and when he looked at me his face had gone through twelve different things and landed somewhere it couldn’t quite hide from.

Mikhail was still talking.

"—you invited us here, you approved the visit yourself, you *cannot*—"

I looked at him.

He stopped.

I looked at his face. This man who had been beta for his pack for twenty years. Who had come here with his new alpha, standing in someone else’s shadow again, explaining the rules to a king.

This man who had watched his daughter get taken apart for a year and kept his head down and told himself a story about it.

The story I’d read in the file. The story I’d known the shape of before he ever walked through my door.

I smiled.

I didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did. But it did.

"You think I invited you here out of courtesy?"

Mikhail’s mouth was open. Nothing came out.

"The accords." I looked at him. Then at Maxim. Slowly. Like I had all the time in the world. "The protocols. The proper channels. You filed the paperwork. You followed the procedure. You came here in good faith." I let the smile go a little wider. "And I approved it. Exactly like you said. Everything above board."

Maxim’s eyes had gone narrow.

He was starting to understand.

Good. I wanted him to understand. I wanted it to land before I said it, so the words were just confirmation of something he’d already felt drop into his stomach.

"You came," I said. "Both of you. Very properly. Very officially. Into my territory. Into my building. Into my office." I paused. "Where I can do whatever I want."

Mikhail had gone the color of old paper.

"Let you come," I continued, easy, almost bored, "because it was easier than going there." I looked at Maxim directly. "All those logistics. All that mess. All those witnesses." I tilted my head. "Much cleaner this way."

The silence in the room had texture now.

"Alpha king—" Mikhail’s voice had gone thin. "We’re guests. You—you can’t—there are laws, there are—if you harm us, the other families will—"

I laughed.

The sound surprised even me. Genuine, almost. The specific kind of laugh that came out when something was so obvious it was almost funny.

"Harm you." I repeated the word. Tasted it. "Look at that. You’re worried about harm." I looked at Mikhail’s face. His pale, carefully composed, still-trying-to-negotiate face. "You want to talk to me about harm."

He opened his mouth.

"Let me tell you something," I said, and the laughter was completely gone now. "I’ve been very patient. I read the files. I know exactly what happened in that pack house. I know what your alpha did. I know what you watched happen." I looked at him. Really looked. "I know what you told yourself so you could sleep."

Mikhail’s eyes dropped.

There it was.

"You came here to take her back," I said. "You came here with him—" a look at Maxim, "—and you were going to stand in my office and take her home. Back to Iron Thorn. Back to that pack house." My voice stayed level. Completely level. That was the thing about being very angry—when you got past a certain point, it went quiet. Went still. Became something you could carry in both hands without spilling. "You had it all planned out. The paperwork. The protocol. The proper channels."

He didn’t answer.

I nodded. Once.

"You want to know why I let you come," I said. "Mikhail. Alpha king to beta. The real answer."

He looked at me.

"I let you come," I said, "because it’s easier to deal with a problem when the problem comes to you."

The room was so quiet I could hear Andrei breathe.

I looked at both of them. Maxim, still on his feet but not standing right anymore—something in the spine, something in the shoulders, the way a person stood when they were calculating whether they could get to the door. Mikhail, stock still, hands at his sides, face gone completely blank the way faces went when a person had run out of stories to tell themselves.

"You came here," I said. "That was your first mistake."

"And we let you," I said.

And then, simply, clearly, with every bit of patience I had left burned down to the ground—

"That was your last one."

Maxim’s jaw was tight. His eyes hadn’t left my face. That calculation still running behind them—exit, distance, probability, odds. The specific math of a man who was very good at surviving and was currently realizing that the variables had all changed.

Mikhail said, in a voice that had gone completely hollow: "You can’t—this isn’t—we came here under protocol. Under the accords. If you—if something happens to us, the other families will know. They’ll—"

I looked at him.

He stopped.

I smiled again.

"The other families." I let the words sit there. "Let me tell you something about the other families." I moved back to my desk. Unhurried. Sat down. Picked up the pen. Set it down. All of it deliberate, all of it easy, all of it the movements of a person who was not worried. "Forty-two packs. Forty-two alphas. Every single one of them sitting in their territory right now, not doing a single thing I haven’t approved." I looked up. "You think any of them are going to ask questions they don’t want the answers to?"

Silence.

"You think any of them," I said, "are going to pick up the phone and call me to complain?"

The answer to that was obvious.

We all knew the answer to that.

Maxim said nothing.

Mikhail said nothing.

The room held it—held all of it, the way rooms held things when the air went too thin to carry sound properly.

I looked at them both.

"You want to know why I let you come," I said one more time. The last time. The answer I’d been building to since the moment Roman had walked into my office this morning with the file in his hands and that careful expression on his face.

I looked at Maxim’s face.

At the marks she’d put on it. The scraped knuckles on my carpet. The specific way his jaw sat now, still carrying the evidence of a girl with no wolf and nothing left who had decided that going down without a fight was worse than the fight itself.

"I let you come," I said, "because I needed you in my building."

Mikhail’s hands were shaking.

Maxim had gone completely still.

I smiled.

"Ah," I said softly.

"I’ve summoned you here just to ensure you won’t return alive."