“Go on, lapdog,” Tyson sneered. “What do you think you’re going to do? Let the mages kick your ass?”
“Do you have something to say, Tyson?” I snapped, every bit of my pain and anger coming out at once. “Because as I remember, you got therethird. I got there first.”
“Prince Bartlett!” Sonja drew her chin up. “Contain your consort.”
“Contain my consort?” Cade said, his voice strained. “Who are you to tell me what to do with my consort?”
“He is speaking out of turn, and he is insulting my own consort.” Sonja glared. “I am well within my rights.”
“How is that insulting?” I asked. “Hedidget there third. If he’d had his way, the wolves of House Bartlett would have murdered children. He would have happily coated everyone’s hands in blood.”
“And now he calls my consort a bloodthirsty murderer!” Sonja stood. “Muzzle him.”
“You donottell me how to manage my consort, Sonja Harvey,” Cade said, his hand tightening on my wrist like a manacle.
For a moment, Sonja’s face was blank, and then her lips pulled back from her teeth, and she said, “Cade—”
“I challenge him,” Tyson said.
Jay gasped, and the servants looked at each other in surprise. The sun was suddenly too bright, the grounds around us suddenly too quiet.
“I challenge Miles, consort to Prince Bartlett, to a duel.” Tyson smirked at me. He flexed, as though he wanted to start now. “Unless you’re too scared.”
Cade didn’t turn to look at me, his back as straight as an arrow. It gave me no hints of what I was supposed to do next, so I did the only thing I could think of.
“Fine. I accept.”
ChapterThirty-Nine
Cade raised his chin, expression blank. He tugged on my arm, and I came even closer.
“Half an hour. The challenge grounds.” He reached up, his fingers brushing the back of my neck, tracing along the edge of the collar. “Prepare your consort.”
Then he walked up the steps and into the house. I followed behind him, unsure of what had just happened.
“Cade—”
I cut myself off when he shot me a nasty look. In his room, he slammed the door behind me.
“What do you think you’re doing?” His voice boomed, turning ragged at the edge of it, sliced with dull scissors and still bleeding.
“He was antagonizing me! He challenged you!”
“He wasprovokingyou.” Cade buried his hands in his hair. “Probably on Sonja’s orders.” He bit back a swear.
His fingers fisted in his hair, and shadows twirled from underneath the cuffs of his shirt, circling over the back of his hand and onto his fingers. He turned to me and opened his hand until I handed him the mouse. He placed it in its cage and then shut the terrarium.
With his back to me, he said, “This is just the excuse she needs.”
“So what? I’ll beat him. I can do it.”
Tyson might be dressing up as an alpha, relying on a mage’s magic to give him the size and the power. But I actuallywasan alpha. It was in my blood. I could beat him.
“You—” He broke off again, frustrated, digging his hands in his hair again.
“What am I not getting? It’s a little hand-to-hand combat. I can beat him.” I walked forward, wrapping one of my hands around Cade’s wrist, where it still fisted in his hair. “I’ll be fine.”
Cade pulled away, glaring at me. “That’s not what a challenge is.”
