Page 74 of A House of Fangs & Deceit

My eyes slid across the map to the general area of where she’d pointed in the Velesian territory, and alarm shot through me.

I hesitated. “Rynn, the outpost you’re planning on going to belongs to the Fervis. Have you cleared it with them?”

She pursed her lips together and didn’t answer my question.

I stalked towards her, wishing she was actually here so I could shake some sense into her. “Find another one.”

“It’s just over the border,” she said dismissively. “They won’t even know I’m there!”

“Rynn…” I growled in frustration. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop her, and she knew it.

“Why is Rynn going there a problem?” Roth asked, their gaze bouncing back and forth between me and Rynn while they tried to work out what was going on.

“Things are a little tense between the Velesian Orders these days,” I said tightly.

“Understatement of the year,” Alaric grunted.

Rynn glared at him, but he wasn’t wrong.

While the Moroi had broken up into different Houses, each led by the strongest of our bloodlines, the Velesians were broken up into three Orders. Narchis, Avala, and Fervis. Each Order consisted of multiple packs.

Originally, each Order had primarily consisted of the same shifters. Narchis had lycanthropes, Avala had ursanthropes, and Fervis had ailuranthropes. The aetanthropes were too few in number to hold their own territory, so they had always been mixed in with all the Orders.

These days, the Orders were a little more diverse, but the dominant type of shifter in each was still what the Order was originally made up of.

Shortly after the queen and her consort rose to power in the Moroi realm, the Alpha Pack rose in the Velesian realm. Unlike the Moroi Sovereigns, however, the Alpha Pack was regularly challenged for authority.

Sure, the Moroi Houses bickered and jockeyed for power, but nobody outright revolted against the Sovereigns.

More than one bloody attack had been waged against the Alpha Pack.

Rynn had been promised to the Alpha Pack, not only because she was completely brilliant, but because she was the daughter of high-ranking members of the Order of Narchis. Just like me, Rynn’s life had been given away for political reasons. While joining a pack wasn’t the same thing as marriage… it was similar enough.

Only Rynn’s situation with the Alpha Pack was in a weird state currently, and she couldn’t just cross into Fervis territory without at least checking with them first.

I just needed to get that through her thick fucking head.

“You are not—”

“Oh, sorry! The charge is running out on the shadow spell.” Rynn held her hands up helplessly. “Must be time for a new gem.”

“Don’t you dare!” I screamed and shoved my hand towards her shoulder. It slid through the smoke, and I dropped my clenched fist to my side. “Rynn! I forbid you from—”

She vanished, leaving behind curling shadows in her wake.

I stared at the space she’d been standing in and then at the map before returning my gaze back to where she’d been. A warm, sticky feeling slid along my fingers, and I absently noticed that my nails had hardened into claws and my fangs had jutted further out from my jaw.

Roth was staring at me, appearing mildly alarmed by my bloodlust surfacing. Alaric just held his hands out like he was about to calm down a raging beast, which I suppose was a little accurate.

I threw my head back and screamed, “THAT FUCKING BITCH!”

Chapter Eighteen

Samara

I was still pissedoff beyond reason when I rode out of House Harker ten minutes later on Zosa.

Nyx had caught me on my way to the stables, and I’d barely managed to speak rationally for a few minutes and explain that I’d be needing an escort tomorrow. They promised to get something arranged and then slowly backed away from me with wide eyes.

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