When Kobato wordlessly stalked forward and threw her quietly fearsome face directly in Kershov’s personal space, Vladya—from his lowly position in the mud—saw the ruthless gore-born monster do something he had never done in his faultless memory.

He jerked the fuck backward.

As if chained on puppet strings, Ker’s neck arched away, brining his tooth-lined maw out of Ko’s direct path. The action was completely involuntary—a reflex that jerks at the sinews of instinct and forces the creature in question to preserve themselves or die. It may have been the pure steel glinting in Kobato’s hardened toffee eyes; perhaps instead it was the unflinching display of dominance as her slender supermodel foreleg whipped righteously over Vladya’s prostrated form, claiming him with the same unquestionable authority as a Queen demanding a carcass. I AM ALPHA cried her actions. And Kershov, an Alpha himself—and a powerful Alpha at that—subconsciously recognized the demonstration and reacted to it on a gut-level.

He caught himself the instant the action completed. Astonishment . . . then black anger fell like a shadow across his rain-streaked mask. His subzero glare raked down Kobato’s dusky brow as if accusing her of witchcraft—for that was the only explanation for his shameful response. Both wolves mirrored each other in ferocious scowling snarls and lifted hackles. Kobato shivered before him like a being carved of splinters; Kershov barely restrained himself while wearing a coat like shards of ice. He did not lower his imperial crown to her level as the lithe she-wolf turned her body into a shield to protect Vladya. Rather, he slowly withdrew the tyrannical paw splayed over Vlad’s cheekbone, somehow possessing the good grace not to pluck out one of those hateful pyrite lanterns with one long talon as he did so.

She spat words of loathing from a pretty mouth. Kershov sensed them shredding past the silver curtains of rain as easily as thick machetes. The more she snarled at him, all fury and strength and possession, the more the frost-breather felt his own rage congeal and freeze into something solid and cold enough to burn the center of his chest. He relaxed his massive frame in increments; shoulders lost their tension until slab-like muscles lay flat and smooth; the tendons in his neck no longer stood out like steel cables under the plaster of alabaster fur; claws unclenched; spine unknotted and recoiled itself into a limber line, yet continued to sustain the glittering landscape of icicle hackles. His eyes were two glassy ebony lakes. “Heiress of Munashii, eh?” Kershov purred, purposefully ignoring the little bird’s rather unexpected jet of venom-drenched speech. He leered at her hungrily, threateningly. “At least I know which pack gave you that revolting perfume.”

That was when her skull rocketed upward and slammed into the underside of his royal jaw.

Teeth crashed together with the sound of china breaking. The pallid King grunted as pain ground its knuckles down either side of his jawbone and up toward his cheeks, reaching so far as the underside of his stunned dark portals. He tasted blood—his blood—blooming warm and thick over the limp weight of his tongue. His tail stuck out rigidly behind him. Talons lanced back into the mud, sending tiny bulges of filth between stiff toes. The only sound for a span of heartbeats was the steady drumming of bullet-sized rain spattering heavily on the forest, along with the heated breath of the wolves, their lungs seething as if every exhalation was a one of fire.

From his shelter beneath Kobato, Vladya dare not do anything reckless, although his crown did lift to Ko’s shoulder, cheekbone pressed against the dampness of her taupe-silk pelt in unspoken support. One of his forelegs swept back to rest over one of Ko’s petite front paws. His heart screamed in the deafening cavern of his ears as he watched the Czar’s chin tilt downward—measured, unhurried, the action so robotic it terrified him—until that demon’s veneer was trained upon them once more. Lightning shattered the smoky clouds and flashed an unnatural beam of false light across rows of knives. Kershov was silent. Too silent. Vladya needed to say something or the entire force of whatever unnatural vengeance ruled the Pharaoh’s mind would erupt. Black-gold windows never wavered. He gestured to Kobato with a jerk of his chin. Vlad’s voice was low, but steady when he spoke. “Hard to argue with that logic, Boss.”

Kershov returned Vladya’s comment with an unnervingly calm response of his own. “I want to murder you both so badly and in so many ways that I am finding it hard to move. I believe the biggest difficulty in my life is trying to decide whether or not I should pull this young lady’s lungs out from her throat, or if I should strangle you, dear Vladya, with your own intestines . . .” A nearly paternal smile gently tugged at the handsome half of Ker’s muzzle. “It seems the only remedy is to banish you from this place permanently and ponder over this problem at my own leisure.”

Vladya glanced at his lovely lass. Ker couldn’t mean that . . . could he? The bleached-white beast seemed to sense his prisoner’s dilemma and laughed. “I’m releasing the hares, so to speak. I want you and this putrid whore of yours out of Abendrot by the time this storm is over. Leave. Now.”

Vlad did not ask questions. He extricated himself from Ko’s shield—an impenetrable fortress of everything he had ever needed but had never gotten in life—and stood beside her, as an equal, though he knew he could only hope to measure up to her perfection. His muzzle touched hers: a brief kiss. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, kid,” he rumbled.

What they could never know or understand was that Kershov was only releasing them to preserve the infrastructure of absolute control he struggled so hard to maintain . . . and to deny that Kobato’s successful resuscitation of Vladya had ruined the helplessness Ker had tried to recreate in his once valued subaltern—and thus destroyed any chance of Vlad joining Kershov forever.