going straight to the training room, because she needed Rhys to

are, none of the trophy-case ego she'd expected from a billionaire team owner. He looked

did yo

it. Watched the color actually leave his face, which she hadn'

e said quietly. "Y

N

territorial charter, this stadium, this city, everything, because Wes was next in line to take my place if something happened to me, and Ferro couldn't get a vote through with a

lled him to k

hat was almost wor

told me exactly what happened that night. Said he didn't reme

to be

p sharply. "A

whether either of us wanted it." She kept her voice steady, even though her pulse was doing som

t anger, closer to reluctant respect. "

e me as a man who

e as fast as it appeared. "Fine. Tonight. Wes doesn't do well

she handled on autopilot, her mind circling the same loop, they know I know

through his own home in a wheelchair with the careful, contained economy of someone who'd rebuilt his entire relationship with his body from scratch, and his eyes, when h

he said, before eithe

rlo

's jaw tightened, an echo of the same gesture she'd started to recogn

y still besid

d this admission a thousand times in private and never once said it out loud. "I remember one of them had eyes like ours. I re

clear settle over her, the specific stillness of finally g

e had dropped into something dangerous, low and con

-four years old with half my spine held together with pins, and I was afraid, Rhys. I've b

them in that silence was old and complicated and not for her to fully understand, grief and guilt tangled toget

es," Rhys s

his brother. "Auberon Ferro was standing at the tree line. Watching. Not one of the th

watched something old and furious wake up behind his eyes, banked gold flaring brighter for jus

needed. "He's the one who sent word today that you're to be brought before them by the next full moon. To d

dropped. "The no

sion in front of witnesses." Rhys stood, and something in his posture had changed, harder now

something between hope and warning. "You know what it'll cost, cla

ctly what i

still goin

t looking straight at her, gold steady in his eyes now, not flickering, no

" he

as three days past new and climbing, and Marlowe understood with sudden, tot