"So, was that the oppressive force I sensed just before we lost consciousness?" Dean murmured, avoiding her dark thoughts.

"It was a simple healing spell," Lee said, concern etched into her features. "It should have been easy to control. But the enchantment to open the message did more than reveal its contents."

She is tense as a bowstring, Dean realized.

"I suggest you avoid magic for a while," the king suggested. "Perhaps it was just proximity."

"Or something more permanent," Prince Darren muttered, toying with his napkin holder. "But we burned Aramis' body anyway to ensure the magic affects no one else."

"Every last piece of him," the king added, his gaze falling on Dean.

Heat crept up her neck, and she dropped her eyes.

She needed no reminder of what she had done, and yet she would do it again.

"I guess your wolf is more dominant than your elf?" King Duncan teased her.

Dean blinked, thrown off guard.

I do not trust this side of him.

The memory of his cold arrogance, and his casual wager with their lives was still too fresh.

"Nor do I," Dana agreed.

"The wolf did not get the better of me, Sire," she said, bitterness tainting her voice. "It was thirty-five years of conditioning that led me down that murky path."

She hesitated, shifting uneasily in her chair, which was a smaller replica of the king's with far less detail.

"Wolfgang forged the cruelty inside me into a weapon," she admitted. "I did not realize how well he shaped it until I wielded it myself."

Dean found herself picking at her nails and stopped.

Wolfgang despised fidgeting, and the thought of him made her still.

"I chose what would be effective over what would be humane," she murmured. "I could not allow my family to suffer while I played nice with a man who would never talk."

She could not meet his eyes, but Lee took her hand and squeezed it, the same way her older brother had done when they had gotten in trouble as children.

The touch steadied Dean.

Yet she could not deny that a coldness had crept into her heart when she made her choice about Aramis.

The same iciness that had lived in Dana when she chose to protect Devon at the cost of her soul.

Dana whined again, disliking the memory.

"You had no choice," Dana insisted.

"Neither had you."

The admission loosened something in Dean, untying a knot at the center of her being.

"Thank you," she said, tears stinging her eyes.

Dana needed no explanation. The shackles of guilt fell away from the wolf, freeing her from the darkness that had lived inside her.

Dean felt the light flooding the space where darkness had once lived.

"I await your promise," the king's voice sliced through the moment like a blade.

"We can make no such promise," Dean denied quietly.

She glanced up at him through her lashes, expecting anger.

Instead, a smirk tugged briefly at his lips before vanishing.

"You earned my respect, Dean."

She stared at him as if he had lost his mind and forgetting momentarily that he was a king... and she was disrespecting him.

He idly picked a grape from the fruit bowl and popped it in his mouth as if he had not just upturned her entire perception of him.

"How are they supposed to trust you, Father?" Prince Darren interceded. "When you've only ever allowed them to meet the king?"

Trusting him will be hard, but not as difficult as it would have been before the magic had opened his mind to us, she admitted.

Dean desperately wanted to explain herself to Prince Darren, but her courage failed her.

"Sire," Dean said instead, "If my wolf had been in control when I tortured Aramis, she would not have stopped until she tore him to shreds."

Shame burned inside her like a fire.

Allowing Lord Darren to see inside her, to know the truth she would have chosen to hide, was uncomfortable.

But it was necessary.

He needed to understand she was different, and that she was not just wearing a new face.

Before, she had been dangerous because she was not in control of her beast. She had been vulnerable, broken, and in need of repair.

Now, she was dangerous because she was in control of her beast. There were still broken parts of her, but they were not in need of fixing, nor was she vulnerable. She was at peace with all the jagged, broken parts that had forged her into something whole.

The woman she had become was not the one he had coached back to life.

She did not need saving.

Not even from this king who faced her now.

The realization reformed her entire perception of herself.

Duncan met her eyes, and she didn't allow herself to glance at Prince Darren instead.

Even Lee—as uncomfortable as she was with having two more natures thrust upon her, a pureborn elf that only ever had her own—did not need rescuing.

Lee only has to step fully out of her comfort zone and embrace all that she is now.

"She needs to learn to let go of her elven need to control everything," Dana agreed. "She is no longer a singular creature with a singular nature."

"As I am no longer just a wolf,"she added. "Or only Wolfgang's daughter."

"Nor the broken remains of Devon Creed," Dana said.

"I realized that if Aramis did not confess," Dean said, her insecurity vanishing as if it had never been as she allowed the elf in.

She expected Dana to fight it, but the wolf stepped aside and vanished into her cave, not comfortable around the intruder, yet not wary of it.

The vampire still lurked in the shadows, barely there.

"Prince Darren would always have wondered if you had a hand in attacking us," she said.

Her shoulders squared and her chin lifted.

"And I did not want him to doubt your intentions or question your sincerity."

Darren frowned as he watched her face alter slightly. He had never really seen the elf in her, apart from the pointy ears and her build. Now, it was there, staring out at him, forcing him to acknowledge something he had not wanted to before.

This was not Devon.

Yet it was.

It left him uneasy, even then, she still felt familiar in a way only Devon ever had.

How had I not realized the enormity of what Dean had done for me? he wondered.

He stared at the new lines of her face and as he did, he saw it: a glimmer of Devon in the shadows of her eyes.

Twice now, she had put herself and everything she was on the line for our sake, his vampire piped up, breaking its habitual silence once more.

I never imagined I was the reason behind her actions.

The realization humbled and unsettled him.

"But you should have," the vampire grumbled.

He had no argument to offer because the vampire was right.

"I know, little one," his father said. "I saw it all as the spell spun beyond your power to control it."

Darren's brow furrowed even deeper, and his frame tensed.

Father rarely reveals more than he intends to. . . so why is he telling us this now? he wondered, idly shredding a thin slice of meat with his fingers until he realized what he was doing.

What is his true purpose in all this?

He wiped his hand on the napkin.

What strategic game is the king playing? His gaze darted toward his father, trying to read him, but Duncan's expression gave nothing away.

He was almost as hard to read as Devon and Lee.

Yet he knew he could trust their intentions.

They had not gone through so much and come so far to betray him or have some hidden agenda.

They were there because he was.

They had done all of this for him.

His father, on the other hand... Duncan would always choose what was best for his kingdom, whatever the cost.

No matter the cost.

The best way to uncover Father's plans is to remain silent, he decided. Let him speak and I will play the quiet observer.

I will strive to be the mentor and bond-keeper that Lee and Dean deserve. This time, nothing will keep me from doing what is right by them.

Duncan studied them both.

Dean's expression became cool and contemplative, while Lee's eyes glowed bright blue with barely restrained emotion.

It was not what he expected from the werewolf, and recalling the cool, calm, composed elf, it was not what he anticipated from her either.

"For more than a century, I hated all things elven and werewolf," he admitted, not knowing how they would react to his next words. "But I had a friend named Killian, once."

His confession might convince them of his sincerity... or confirm their belief that he was manipulating them.

Duncan would not deny that he had done just that from the moment they arrived.

But, before anything else, he had needed to learn their intentions.

What he saw in their minds had persuaded him that Terra was right—they were the key to ending this war.

One way or another.

Lee's elf and Dean's wolf lingered just beneath the surface, while their other natures whispered from the shadows.

These two were fascinating but dangerous.

In every sense—physically and politically.

If not for Terra's instructions, I would never have reinstated their ranks.

But now, having glimpsed into their minds, he knew them better than they did themselves.

I no longer fear them.

Instead, he relished what was to come.

"I also had a friend named Elizabeth."

His gaze shifted to Dean, and at once, the storm returned to her eyes.

"Choose your next words carefully if you want their trust," his vampire advised coolly.

It was clear that they knew of his relationship with Elizabeth but not of his friendship with Killian.

How much had they glimpsed of my mind?

Even with their unusual gifts, he doubted they had touched the deepest, most well-guarded recesses of his thoughts.

"I met Killian and Elizabeth a long time ago, and we became friends," he said, capturing their attention.

"We were all born to royal houses—fought side by side, partied, journeyed, and dreamed together. It didn't take long before we became inseparable."

He leaned forward, filling his goblet with wine, and took an appreciative sip before continuing.

"Killian found his Sonja; and by the time Menos was born, I knew I loved Elizabeth."

His gaze dropped to the battle scene, etched into the gold of his goblet.

"We were to be married. It took years to convince the council to permit it." He exhaled deeply, his thoughts lost in the past.

"On the eve of our wedding, Elizabeth disappeared."

Anger burned through him as he relived the moment that he realized she was nowhere to be found.

He had always believed Elizabeth was too good for him, and that he did not deserve her. Fear had warred with fury and insecurity.

"I searched far and wide before rumors began spreading that she had married Wolfgang."

He forced himself back to the present.

"I thought she lacked the courage to tell me she was in love with another and left me at the altar like a fool."

His gaze wandered to Dean, watching the play of emotions on her face.

"I was furious."

He emptied the goblet and refilled it.

"Killian refused to believe she would do such a thing and kept digging. But I—" he hesitated, jaw tightening, "I could not bear to find out I had been right. So, I stopped the search."

His gaze moved to Lee.

"Killian sealed the borders between the werewolf and elven kingdoms, insisting Elizabeth had been taken against her will. But since I was too stubborn and foolish to see the truth, he broke off all ties with me."

Betrayed twice in quick succession, Duncan had spiraled out of control.

He briefly closed his eyes, unwilling to relive the things he had done in battle during those years.

"Killian isolated himself."

His voice quieted, the anger bleeding away into something heavier as the others faded from his awareness.

"I tried for years to speak with him until a letter arrived."

The goblet crumpled in his grip.

Its fine craftsmanship twisted as the last of the wine splattered on the table.

"The stilted, formal words informed me that Killian was tired of listening to my laments of the past."

He felt their eyes on him and glanced up, noting their reactions.

Lee and Dean looked shocked and wary.

Darren's expression betrayed concern.

Duncan set the ruined goblet aside and wiped his hand on a napkin.

The red wine seeped across that white cloth like bloodstains.

Was it an omen of what was to come?

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end.