The Palace (Chateau 4)

Melanie’s eyes were wide because she knew something had happened. “What’s going on?”

I shoved the phone into my pocket and rose to my feet. “Magnus banned the Red Snow. And now I’m going to the camp to kill him.”

The anger never faded.

It was high the entire drive, the whole horse ride.

Melanie tried to talk me out of my decision, but her words fell on deaf ears. This level of fury was the only thing that could make me forget her existence. It was as if she wasn’t there at all. Her tears, her pleas, her kisses, literally meant nothing to me.

There was only one thing I cared about.

Magnus.

I rode into the camp and dropped down from my horse. The reins were thrown to one of the guards. My boots hit the dirt, and my knife was suddenly heavy in my pocket. When I set eyes on him, I wasn’t sure what I would do.

If I would slit his throat right on the spot.

Or stab him in the gut and watch him bleed to death.

Magnus emerged from behind a cabin—and walked right toward me.

With his head held high and a strong posture that lacked apology, he approached me. Eyes cold like winter, shoulders tense in preparation for a fight, a jaw so tight that it was obvious he was clenching his teeth.

The men watched.

Magnus stopped in front of me, waiting for his fate, ready to accept the consequences of his actions.

There was so much rage that I couldn’t suppress it. It erupted over my features, made my teeth hurt because they ground together like pepper in a grinder. My eyes were so wide with fury that the sockets actually hurt. He hadn’t just betrayed me. He’d humiliated me. Again.

And I was done being humiliated.

He held my gaze, arms by his sides, and waited.

I wanted to reach for that knife and slice his throat right then and there. Watch him collapse. Watch him grip his throat and gasp for the air that would never reach his lungs. But I didn’t.

I couldn’t. “If you want to have children someday, don’t fuck with me.” I would castrate his remaining testicle right then and there if it wouldn’t make him sterile. But I’d already taken one, and taking another would affect my lineage as well as his. The only reason I had an ounce of mercy was because of the blood that ran in his veins.

There was no apology.

He didn’t drop his gaze like the last time he’d betrayed me.

He had the audacity not to look ashamed.

He stared at me head on and spoke words I never thought he’d say. “You don’t want to fuck with me either, brother.”

I inhaled a sharp breath, his words audible for everyone to hear.

Couldn’t believe it.

He’d crossed a line.

I had to kill him.

Had to.

I would lose all the respect of my men if I didn’t.

He needed to be forced to the ground so I could machete his fucking head off the way I did to the Renaldi brothers.

But I didn’t.

And if I didn’t walk away right now, I might.

I walked past him—even though it was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.

Magnus never came to my cabin.

He didn’t approach me at all.

There was no apology. No groveling. No shame.

I’d given him more time, but it was becoming very clear to me that he wouldn’t cave.

He’d humiliated me so deeply that I couldn’t show my face to my men, not unless I had a response to clean the stain that he’d forced on me. The power had been taken from me, which had never happened in my adult life before I gave it to Melanie. But Magnus stripped it from me.

Fucking took it.

I had to do something.

I left my cabin and marched to the clearing. It wasn’t Friday, but I didn’t need it to be Friday to do what I was about to do. “Alix, pick the weakest three.”

Alix turned to me, his face covered by a hood, but his expression somehow visible.

“Now.”

He didn’t hesitate before he left to change in his cabin.

Nathan lit the torches around the clearing, the sun disappearing over the horizon the moment the last one was lit.

The women all knew what the torches meant.

Red Snow.

Alix returned, in his executioner gear, ready to claim the lives of three people.

One by one, he grabbed them.

They screamed. They begged. They cried.

I felt nothing.

I felt nothing after my own blood betrayed me.

The one person I trusted more than anyone stabbed me in the fucking back.

Magnus must have heard the screams because he came running, heading right for Alix. “What the fuck are you doing? I made my stance on this perfectly clear.”

Alix turned around and left the women on the ground. The mask covered the bottom half of his face, but the shine in his eyes showed his hidden smile. “I don’t take orders from you, asshole.”