“WHAT IS THIS?”
“What the hell is this?
What do you mean you have a bastard son?”
Ace’s voice cracked with something that wasn’t quite rage.
It was something uglier.
Something that made his hands tremble as he crushed the paper in his fists.
The Duke’s study reeked of cedar and leather.
It was too quiet.
Ace was pacing, carving shallow gouges in the carpet with his boots.
One of his knuckles was split, a thin thread of blood trickling down his hand.
He’d punched the wall on the way here, and he was still feeling the sting of it.
He couldn’t feel it, not really.
“You cheated on our mother,” he said, turning to face his father.
His voice was tight, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he forced the words out.
“After everything, you cheated on her.”
He slammed his palms against the desk, the sound echoing off the heavy oak panels.
His father didn’t move.
“Look at me.
ANSWER ME, DAD”
Duke Aster Valebane sat in the chair behind the great desk, his back to Ace.
He didn’t look like the Black Wolf.
For once, he didn’t look like the Duke.
He looked like a man with his head bowed, his black hair falling over his face to hide the shame.
In his hands, he held the letter, a damp wad of paper crushed between shaking fingers.
Hands that had never trembled before now shook like a leaf.
On the velvet chair next to him, his mother sat, her face pale, her shoulders twitching.
A handkerchief was clamped over her mouth, as if it might stop her from crying.
Alex stood behind her, as still as a statue, one hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
But the scent of him was wrong.
The ever-present tang of frosted pine was frayed at the edges, the scent of winter air and something else, something sharp and acrid that clung to his skin like a second layer.
Grief, perhaps.
Or rage.
Aster looked up at last, his eyes red-rimmed.
“I never,” he said, his voice rough.
“I never cheated on you, Rose.”
Roseline looked at him, tears tracking down her cheeks.
Her lips parted, then shut, forming a silent, grieving question.
Alex moved at last, taking the letter from his father’s hands.
He unfolded it with all the care of a surgeon, laying it out on the desk before opening it to reveal the words inside.
“It says,” Alex began, his voice as smooth as oil.
“It says that our envoys in the Elistan Empire have seen a man in the marketplace with our eyes.”
Roseline gave a tiny, hiccupping gasp, her hand flying to her throat.
“The Emperor,” Alex continued, his voice colder now.
“The Emperor has taken an interest in this man.
He wishes to bring him here, to our court, as a matter of protocol, as a matter of law, as a matter of blood.”
Ace kicked the leg of a nearby chair.
“He wants a puppet,” he growled.
“He’s always wanted his claws in our house, and this is how he’ll get it.”
But the words rang hollow as he looked at his father’s face.
Aster was staring at his mother, his mouth working soundlessly.
“Believe me,” he said at last, his voice breaking.
“I don’t even know how this happened.
She tricked me.
When you were sick, years ago, my rut came, and I locked myself in the old chambers.
I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
“She wore your perfume,” said Roseline softly.
“Your clothes.
She climbed into your bed and lied to you.”
“She thought it was you,” Aster said, his voice thick with something that sounded suspiciously like grief.
“I thought it was you until this moment.
Until this horrible moment.”
He stopped there, his throat working up and down, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
“I just learned today that I was…
that I was…”
The word died in his throat, and for a moment, no one spoke.
It was a word that had the weight of poison in it.
“Rapé.”
Roseline was on her feet in an instant, her hands cupping Aster’s face, her thumbs brushing away the tears that streaked his cheeks.
“No,” she whispered, her voice shaking.
“No, my love.
It isn’t your fault.
You were tricked.
You were the victim here.”
And suddenly, she was crying, her face buried in his shoulder, her sobs wracking her frame.
She clung to the folds of his dark coat as if it were the only tether keeping her from vanishing into the void.
Ace took a step back, his heart pounding in his ears.
He had never seen his father cry before.
He had never seen him so broken, so utterly defeated.
Ace pressed a hand to his mouth, smothering the sound of his own grief.
“What now?” he asked, his voice coming out as something between a growl and a whimper.
“We just let him come here?
Let him take everything from Mother?
If he’s older than us, if he’s our father, then he’ll…
He’ll …inherit the Duchy.”
“If he is older,” said Alex, his voice as icy as the winter wind.
“And if Father refuses to acknowledge the blood claim, then by law, he will be the heir.”
“No.” Roseline pulled away from Aster, her face streaked with tears but her eyes blazing with something harder, something fiercer.
“No, I don’t care what happens to me.
I will not let him take my sons’ lives.
They have bled for this Duchy, and tye have earned it with your own two hands.
You cannot give it to him, Aster.
You simply cannot.”
Aster took her hands in his, his grip gentle.
He looked up at his sons, his eyes searching.
The Duke of Blackmoor looked out at them, really looked at them, and for the first time in his life, he looked like a broken man.
He said at last, his voice low and steady.
“I will never acknowledge him as my son,”