Chapter 0023
“We’ll talk later. why don’t you pick up with what you were doing for now?”
She nodded and hurried back toward her desk. Everyone but Dahlia looked at me with distaste, and I ignored them.
“Since you’re stepping into the role so completely…” He grumbled and placed a folder in my hands.
I glanced at it.
“Shelter?”
“I’ve been trying to get it approved for a while,” he explained, leading me into his office.” But my brother keeps rejecting it because I lacka luna. That’s why I need you.
I opened the folder. “What could having a luna do for…”
I set my jaw, having scanned the first few lines. I closed it and shut the door behind me.
“You want to harbor rogues? Are you out of your mind? I’d heard that you were ambitious, but this is taking it too far.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Rogues are savages on the best of days. Dangerous, violent–they can’t even keep an oath if they tried. They’re menaces, and you want to invite them to live in Midnight?”
He chuckled at that. “You feel strongly about this.”
“Rogues killed my v mother.” His eyes widened. “What? Not in your notes on me?”
His lips twitched. “No.”
“If you think your brother would actually approve this, luna or not, you’re insane. You already have too much clout. Having a massive, untraceable militia force would be–”
Theodore’s lips twitched upward. “Calm down, girl.”
“Don’t call me ‘girl.‘ I’m two years older than you, boy.”
He let out a laugh, not offended in the slightest. “Fair enough.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You don’t want the throne, but you’re not making that clear to him. Are you going to tell me what’s really going on, or just let me assume that you’re
either a liar or insane?”
“I think you’d be better off seeing it first.” He smiled. “Take the file with you.”
“Seeing what?”
+25 BONUS
Chapite naya
“The rogue settlement at the edge of Midnight,
I left less than half an hour later. I took a carriage out of the city toward the settlement, glaring down at the folder in my hands.
Everyone knew the danger of rogues. There was no way he was sheltered or naive enough to not understand, so what was he playing at?
The carriage came to a stop. I braced myself and got out and felt like I’d been slapped in the face. The first thing I saw was a group of children in dirty clothing playing tag as a young pregnant woman watched on. It took more than a few minutes of scanning the area to even see a man, and he looked anything but dangerous.
These people were mostly unmated omegas, survivors of rape who had been exiled for getting pregnant, and other victims made up the rest of them. My heart clenched with sympathy seeing their barely treated injuries.
They looked road–weary as if they had been walking for years just to arrive here.
I shook my head. These weren’t rogues. They were refugees. I opened the file, scanned the collected documentation, and realized the problem. The legal definition of rogue had been expanded recently to encapsulate anyone whose citizen profile had no pack registration. If they were exiled, they wouldn’t be able to move their profile to another pack. It was a dastardly loophole made to punish the victims even more. It felt more cruel than any rogue. I wandered through the settlement, listening to the women speak highly of Theodore-
he had shown them kindness, given them a safe place to live when no one else would, not for power or politics, but out of pure compassion.
If this was the truth of the plan, then I had to support it.
The metallic scent of blood cut through the air. I froze, scanning my surroundings for the source. A man lumbered past me. He was big and burly, eyes flickering with red light. My of muscles tensed, instinct taking over as I inched until I was between him and the group children.
He went still and glared at me.
“Don’t look at me like that!” he snarled.
I glanced around quickly, looking for a weapon. There wasn’t one.
“I said don’t look at me like that!”
I dug my heels in, bracing for when he attacked. He howled.
Then, Theodore’s calm voice came from behind me.
“What’s going on, Ben? There’s no need to be upset.”
Chapter 004
Chapter 0024
