2026-02-12 17:36:03
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Chapter 728
The nearest guard had barely closed a hand around Alex's arm before Jennifer was between them, and the guard found himself suddenly very interested in looking at anything else."Take your hand off him." Jennifer didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to.The Warden badge at her collar did most of the work for her. "Or you can explain to your employer why a mere security had to intervene at his own daughter's guest.""This doesn't concern the Wardens." David stepped in close, chin up, playing to the room he'd already gathered. "This is a Calder household matter. An unregistered outsider, causing a disturbance—""He hasn't raised his voice once tonight. You have." Jennifer's eyes cut to him, flat and unimpressed."I've been standing right here. I watched you dig up gossip about a man's beast and go looking for a fight you didn't get. That's not a disturbance. That's you, losing gracelessly, and trying to make security clean it up for you.""You're defending him now?" David's mouth curl
Chapter 727
"Wait!"David's voice cracked on the word, urgency spilling past whatever composure he'd meant to keep. He caught up in three long strides, positioning himself square in their path."You think I'm finished." He looked past Wren, straight at Alex now, all pretense of subtlety gone."What rank is that hound of yours, really? I've heard whispers it's a random street dog."His eyes swept over Alex's plain clothes, deliberately, cruelly slow. "And what family raised you, exactly? Because I don't see one wealthy enough to sit across from a Calder heir at dinner, let alone stand beside her at a banquet like this."His mouth twisted. "We both know what this really is. You found a rich, lonely woman, and you're living soft off her pity. Eating from her hand like a man with no pride left to speak of."Alex didn't look angry. If anything, he looked faintly amused, the way a man looks at a joke that's landed badly for the person telling it."Living well because a woman's rich is its own kind of s
Chapter 726
"Actually." Alex hadn't moved, but something in his voice made both of them stop. "Change the terms."Jerome raised an eyebrow, delighted already. "Oh? Are you afraid?""No, I will make it better for you." Alex's face gave away nothing. "If I lose, I never meet Jennifer again. That's the stake."Silence. Then Jerome's grin split wide open — this was better than what he'd offered, and he knew it."Done," he said, before Jennifer could get a word out. "Gladly. Let’s fight now!""Then I surrender." Alex said it flat, no ceremony to it at all. "It is a good fight. I lose."For a moment nobody moved. Grim's ears had come up, waiting for a fight that had just stopped existing before it started."You—" Jerome blinked, caught somewhere between confusion and the beginning of triumph. Then triumph won. "You're conceding. Without even trying."He laughed, loud enough to turn heads across the yard. "I knew it. One look at Ashgard and you knew exactly what you were facing. Finally."“Yeah,” Alex n
Chapter 725
The second round took longer than the first. Cost more, too.By the time Alex pulled the last needle free, the sky outside had gone from black to thin grey.Vesper's breathing slowed, steadied.His eyes opened and tracked the room until they found Wren — the way a bond always finds the person it trusts most — and something in that huge head finally let go."He's stable." Alex sat back on his heels. His arms had stopped being reliable ten minutes ago. "Not going anywhere."Nobody cheered this time. The relief came out quiet, worn thin by what it cost to get here.Wren stayed until the staff checked Vesper twice over. Then she caught Alex at the gate before he could slip out."You're not just walking out of here." Not a request. A fact. "House Calder owes you. Twice now. A thank-you doesn't cover that.""It's fine—""It's not." She pressed something cold into his hand before he could argue — a signet, House Calder's mark stamped into old silver. "That gets you through any Calder gate, a
Chapter 724
The roar hit the battle like a fist closing around it.Men froze mid-swing. A blade an inch from a Warden's throat stopped dead — the man holding it had already stopped believing in the fight."That's not possible." Someone near the gate said it out loud, like saying it might undo what he'd just heard. "That thing was supposed to be dead by morning."It wasn't dead. It was awake. Furious. And every man who'd come expecting an easy kill understood, all at once, exactly how badly the math had just changed."Retreat!" The order cracked from somewhere near the back. "Fall back — now!"Nobody argued. The line that had been pushing through the broken gate reversed itself just as fast — men breaking off mid-fight, abandoning ground they'd bled for twenty minutes ago without a second thought.That kind of retreat only happens when the fear gets bigger than the shame of running.Jennifer wasn't about to let all of them get away clean.She caught the slowest one at the treeline — broad-shoulder
Chapter 723
Jennifer reached the east wall first, boots skidding through gravel still settling from whatever had hit it."Hold!" Her hand shot up before she'd finished crossing the yard. "Crown Wardens! Stand down, we talk this through before anyone bleeds for it!"For one breath, it almost worked. The shapes past the broken gate slowed.Then a voice cracked back, mocking. "Wardens siding with Calder now? Since when do you take a house's coin to guard its lies?""Nobody's taking anyone's coin—""They poisoned their own beast and blamed us for it! And you're protecting the ones who did it!"That was all it took. Someone threw first — Jennifer never saw who — and after that there was nothing left to argue, only a fight nobody had wanted five seconds ago and everybody was in now.Steel met steel. A beast screamed past the treeline. The gate gave up the last of its resistance, and men poured through.Inside, none of it had reached the office yet. Just sound, muffled through stone, closer every second
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