But beneath all the practical concerns, beneath the worry of legal consequences and career suicide, a deeper fear gnawed at her consciousness.
The artifact didn't just react randomly. It reacted to me. And I have absolutely no idea why.
TWO
RUNE
Rune Trigg stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of his corner office, forty stories above Phoenix, watching the desert sprawl beneath him like a conquered kingdom. The morning sun cast harsh shadows across the landscape, illuminating the red rock formations that marked the edges of his territory—territory he'd protected for three centuries with the methodical precision of a predator who'd learned to wear a business suit.
His reflection stared back from the glass, dark hair slightly long and disheveled despite his assistant's repeated attempts to schedule him with a stylist. The perfectly tailored charcoal suit couldn't quite contain the restless energy that hummed beneath his skin, the constant awareness of power held in check. His eyes flickered from blue to molten gold and back again—a tell he'd never quite managed to suppress when his dragon grew restless.
And his dragon had been restless for decades.
The intercom on his desk buzzed with the efficiency that characterized everything in his domain. "Sir, the clan meeting is ready to begin."
"Send them in."
Rune didn't turn from the window as his office door opened, though every predatory instinct cataloged the familiar footsteps. Kade's measured stride, all tactical precision and barely contained readiness. Bram's deliberate pace, each step carrying the weight of seven centuries and the absolute certainty that tradition would outlast any individual rebellion.
"You're brooding again." Kade's voice held the dry humor that had kept Rune sane through three centuries of leadership. "The window's going to melt if you keep staring at it like that."
"I don't brood." Rune finally turned, settling into the leather chair behind his desk with the fluid grace of someone accustomed to commanding attention through presence alone. "I contemplate."
"Is that what we're calling it now?" Kade dropped into the chair across from him, his green eyes sharp with the kind of awareness that made him invaluable as second-in-command. "Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you're trying to control the entire territory with just your mind."
Bram took his customary position near the window, hands clasped behind his back in a pose that suggested patience backed by immovable certainty. His weathered features revealed nothing, but Rune could feel the weight of his disapproval like a physical presence in the room.
"The quarterly reports look exceptional," Rune said, pulling up displays that showed profit margins and territory acquisitions across three continents. "Trigg Corporation just secured mining rights to another fifty thousand acres in Utah. The clan's financial position has never been stronger."
"Financial strength means nothing without succession planning." Bram's voice carried the quiet inevitability of water wearing away stone. "An Alpha without a mate is an Alpha without a future."
Here we go.
Rune's jaw tightened, though he kept his expression carefully neutral. "The clan is stable. Our territory is secure. Our wealth grows daily. What exactly am I failing to provide?"
"Legacy. Continuity. The biological imperative that has kept our kind alive for millennia while others fell to extinction," Bram said with barely controlled frustration.
Kade shifted in his chair, the movement subtle but telling. Three centuries of mediating these conversations had worn thin his patience for ideological warfare disguised as clan business.
"The claim markers," Bram continued, his tone never rising, "were placed by your ancestors for a reason. Destroying them was not just rebellion—it was abdication of responsibility."
Heat flared along Rune's spine, his dragon responding to the challenge with a surge of territorial fury that he forced back through sheer will. "Those markers were manipulation disguised as tradition. I won't be bound by the romantic fantasies of dead dragons."
"Romantic fantasies?" Bram's composure cracked slightly, his ancient eyes flashing with something that might've been genuine emotion. "The mate bond is not romance, Rune. It is survival."
"It's weakness." His response came out harsher than Rune intended, carrying three centuries of carefully suppressed fury. "I watched my father destroy himself over a mate bond. Watched him drink himself to death because he couldn't function without her. That's not survival—it's destruction."
Silence stretched between them, heavy with the weight of old arguments and deeper wounds. Kade's fingers drummed against the arm of his chair, a nervous tell that meant he was calculating the probability of this conversation ending in violence.
"Your father was weak," Bram said finally, and the casual dismissal hit Rune like a physical blow. "That does not mean you are."
"My father was the strongest Alpha this clan had seen in two centuries." Rune's voice dropped to something dangerous, the kind of quiet that preceded either surrender or annihilation. "Until he wasn't. Until love hollowed him out and left nothing but grief and self-destruction."
"Your father was incomplete without his mate," Bram corrected. "As you are incomplete without yours."
The accusation hung in the air, and Rune felt his dragon surge against his control with frustrated rage.
Incomplete.
