Chapter 31 · When the Wolves Kneel

The wolves were still on their knees.

Every single one. Ronan. Drake. The guards. The councilmen in their fancy coats. All of them frozen with their heads bowed like I'd just crowned myself queen of the damn universe.

I couldn't breathe.

The pendant was cold against my chest. Just a cheap piece of silver my mother left me. Except it wasn't cheap and it wasn't just silver and I had no idea what the hell I'd just done.

"Mara." Ronan's voice came out strangled. His whole body was shaking with the effort of fighting whatever force had dragged him down. "What—"

The window exploded.

Glass sprayed everywhere. I threw my arm up and something hot sliced across my forearm. Not glass. A blade.

Three figures in black dropped through the shattered frame. Assassins. Real ones this time, not the half-dead mess from the vault. These moved like smoke.

"Now!" one of them shouted. "While they're down!"

The spell broke.

Ronan surged to his feet with a roar that wasn't entirely human. His eyes flashed gold. Not the controlled gold I'd seen before. This was wild. Feral.

Oh no.

The moon-rage.

"Ronan!" I yelled, but he was already moving.