The throne hall emptied in forty-three seconds.

Ian counted because counting was easier than acknowledging Eric’s mouth at his throat.

The last doors slammed. The drums stopped. Only Silas remained on the upper balcony, flanked by two council guards who looked uncertain whether obedience meant leaving or protecting their chairman.

Eric’s teeth grazed Ian’s pulse.

Ian drove his knee upward.

Eric caught his thigh before the blow landed and pressed closer, trapping him against the throne. The intimate position sent rage through Ian—and beneath the rage, a flare of heat he refused to name.

“Move,” Ian said.

Eric inhaled against his skin.

“That is not moving.”

“Your scent changed.”

“Your intelligence hasn’t.”

Eric’s claws emerged. One sliced the leather collar around Ian’s throat. The lockstone band fell onto the floor, split cleanly in two.

Power crashed back into Ian.

His wolf rose with it.

He shifted his hands, broke one weakened link between the cuffs, and struck Eric across the jaw. Eric’s head snapped sideways. Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.

Ian expected fury.

Eric looked back slowly and touched the blood with his thumb.

His expression became worse than fury.

It became hunger.

“Don’t,” Ian warned.

Eric grabbed the back of his neck.

Ian twisted, but the mate scent surged between them, magnifying every breath and touch. Eric forced Ian’s head aside and bit down.

Pain flashed white.

Ian roared and slammed his chained fist into Eric’s ribs. Eric did not release him. His teeth held without tearing, poised at the place where a permanent claim could be made.

The mark on Ian’s chest spread toward his throat.

Then Eric froze.

His whole body shook.

With a sound like an animal being skinned alive, he dragged his teeth away before the bond sealed.

Ian shoved him back.

They stared at each other, breathing hard.

Four crescent marks darkened Ian’s neck. Temporary. Painful. Not a completed mate claim.

Eric had stopped.

That fact disturbed Ian almost as much as the bite.

“Do that again,” Ian said, voice low, “and I’ll feed you your own teeth.”

“If I had completed it, you would already be trying.”

Ian lunged.

Eric took the blow and caught him around the middle. They crashed onto the steps below the throne, rolled once, and struck the floor hard enough to scatter the ceremonial knives.

Ian ended above him.

He wrapped the broken chain around Eric’s throat.

“Call the guards,” Silas ordered from above.

Eric raised one hand.

The distant boots stopped outside the doors.

Ian pulled the chain tighter. “You’re protecting me now?”

“I’m protecting them.”

“Arrogant bastard.”

“You noticed.”

Eric could have thrown him off. Ian knew it. Instead, the king lay beneath him, one hand resting against Ian’s hip, his gaze fixed on the bite marks he had left.

The position sent another unwelcome pulse through Ian’s body.

He tightened the chain until Eric’s breath roughened.

“Tell them the match is false.”

“It isn’t.”

“Tell them.”

“Your scent is flooding my court. Half my wolves can barely stand. What lie would you prefer?”

“Say your precious Moonwell is broken.”

Eric’s eyes narrowed. “You remember the well.”

“I remember beating you beside it.”

“You fell through a temple floor.”

“After beating you.”

For an impossible instant, amusement touched Eric’s face.

Ian hated how young it made him look.

He released the chain and rose. The remaining cuff still circled one wrist. He pulled his torn shirt closed, though it did little to hide the luminous mark.

Silas descended from the balcony.

“This changes nothing,” the older man said. “A battlefield reaction does not erase Ian’s crimes.”

“What crimes?” Ian asked. “Escaping the cage you put me in?”

“You entered the eastern wing.”

“I was looking for a window.”

“There are no windows in that wing.”

“Then perhaps I was looking for whatever was crying behind the walls.”

Silas went still.

Eric’s gaze sharpened. “Crying?”

Ian studied both men. “Interesting.”

“There is nothing in the eastern wing,” Silas said.

“Then your nothing has small feet.”

Before Ian could push further, the ancient mark burned again. Thin black-silver threads rose from the broken collar on the floor, winding through the air like smoke.

They wrapped around Ian’s throat.

He clawed at them, but they hardened into a narrow band of dark metal set with a blue-white stone.

Eric seized the band and tried to pull it apart.

The stone flashed.

Pain struck both of them.

Eric staggered. Ian dropped to one knee. Across the collar’s surface, symbols emerged in the old language.

Silas whispered, “The Sovereign Collar.”

Ian forced himself upright. “Take it off.”

Eric gripped the clasp. The metal shocked him hard enough to burn his palm.

“I said take it off.”

“It has no lock.”

Ian grabbed Eric’s wrist and pressed his burned hand against the stone. The collar projected a circle of pale light into the air.

Two names appeared.

ERIC VOSS.

IAN THORNE.

Beneath them, a number formed.

100%.

The doors burst open. Council guards stared at the projection.

Silas’s face lost all color.

Ian looked from the number to Eric.

“Fix it.”

“I didn’t create it.”

“You’re the king.”

“The collar predates my bloodline.”

“Then abdicate and find someone useful.”

Eric stepped close enough that the projected number cut across his face.

“Until I understand what it has done, you do not leave my sight.”

Ian laughed once. “You think this makes me yours?”

“No.” Eric touched the moonstone, and the same pulse shivered through both of them. “But it just made your pain mine.”

Ian raised his broken chain.

“Good.”

He wrapped it around his fist.

“Let’s find out how much pain a king can take.”

Eric ordered a physician into the hall before allowing anyone to touch Ian. The old doctor approached with a scanner, but his scent carried the bitter trace of lockstone. Ian recoiled. Eric noticed, seized the scanner, and tested the doctor first. A hidden vial rolled from the man’s sleeve.

Silas called it routine medicine. Eric crushed the vial beneath his shoe.

“Routine medicine does not need to be hidden,” he said.

The doctor began to sweat. Ian watched the court’s confidence fracture. This was larger than an accidental mate bond. Someone had expected Ian to weaken during the judgment, perhaps die, while Eric appeared responsible.

“Who paid you?” Eric asked.

The physician glanced toward the balcony.

Before he could answer, his body convulsed. A silver capsule hidden between his teeth had broken. Maya Reid caught him before he struck the floor, but the poison had already stopped his heart.

Ian looked at Eric. “Your house is impressively loyal.”

Eric crouched beside the body and found a crescent-shaped seal beneath the man’s tongue.

“This belongs to the old mate tribunal,” he said.

“The court that created the collar?”

Eric closed his fist around the seal. “The court I abolished six years ago.”

From the upper gallery came the soft click of a door closing. Someone else had been watching.

Eric stood and placed himself between Ian and the balcony without seeming to think about it.

Ian noticed.

So did Silas.

The chairman left without another word, taking his secrets with him.

Ian memorized his retreat.