Chapter 128: Council
Lucas stopped in his tracks and turned to her, cupping her face gently with both hands. "You scared the hell out of me back there. But that was amazing!"
"Do you think the council will really try to take you down?" she asked finally.
"I don’t care about that. We are taking the fight to the monster, sweetie. You got absolutely nothing to worry about," Lucas growled. ’I’ve already seen the battlefield in my mind and I’ve painted it red.’
Ava, however, wasn’t swept away by the poetry of bloodlust. Not entirely. She reached out and placed a hand on his chest, where his heart beat like a war drum beneath her fingers. "Lucas... you cannot worry about me only," she said softly. "You have to worry about Zoe too. She’s part of this fight, like it or not. Let’s think things through, love. We can’t let her suffer for the wrong moves we make."
Lucas’s jaw ticked. He hated when she made sense. "I’m taking the Alpha King down, my little virgin," he muttered, the nickname still managing to make her blush despite the gravity of the conversation. "And I will make him watch as I burn everything he values to the ground. Every last bloody piece."
Ava’s heart swam with pride. Pride and just a touch of arousal. She wouldn’t say it out loud, not now, but there was something incredibly hot about watching her mate talk about total annihilation with such poetic passion.
"Come on. Let’s get you home," Lucas said, his mood softening as he laced his fingers with hers. That simple act—his massive hand enclosing hers so tenderly—somehow steadied her soul more than any war plan could.
*****
Dennis hadn’t stepped foot in the fortress in over a decade. Now that he was here, he remembered what life had been like before he’d walked away from it all to become the rogue alpha.
Lucas had always been the brave one. The cocky one. Lucas had feared nothing. But the voice Dennis had heard on the phone wasn’t the Lucas he knew. That voice had trembled with fear—not for himself, but for Ava. That kind of fear... it changed a man.
As Dennis strode through the corridors of the fortress, he caught the stares. The gasps. The triple-takes. At first, he thought he had something on his shirt. Then he realized—oh. Right. The face.