Chapter 10: No Claim Without Choice

Caspian's hands were open on the blanket between them, palms up, nothing hidden.

'Do you want me to leave,' he said, 'before we talk about the hearing?'

Alex lay on his back and looked at the ceiling of the penthouse.

The thread came off his wrist in a current of gold, thin at the edges and bright at the core.

It crossed the sheets toward Caspian and hung there, pulled taut, trembling with the effort of staying still.

It had not gone quiet. It had never once gone quiet.

'You can stay,' Alex said. 'Not as my alpha. Not as the man who decides what justice costs.'

Caspian turned his head on the pillow.

'I can do that,' he said.

'Then say what you came here to say.'

Caspian sat up against the headboard.

The sheet pooled at his waist.

The mark on his palm caught the light coming through the window.

The thread snapped toward that palm and flared.

Alex felt the pull in his sternum like a hook set behind the bone.

He did not move. He had spent the exile learning to let it burn without moving.

'I signed your exile order eight days before the forensic report was filed,' Caspian said.

He said it flat, the way a man reads his own sentence aloud.

'I'll say it in front of the council.'

'I'll say Gideon pushed me to sign it before the report existed.'

Alex did not move.

'You'll say that publicly.'

'Yes.'

'Then name the cost first,' Alex said. 'Out loud. Before I answer anything.'

The thread brightened as the words left him, as if the bond itself had been waiting for the price to be spoken.

Alex watched Caspian's face instead.

He had learned what a reintegration offer looked like from the inside.

Caspian had not asked him for anything.

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