Ian waited until Eric left for the emergency council meeting.

Then he stole the key from the inside pocket of Eric’s discarded jacket.

The king had taken three guards, two phones, and his patience. He had left Ian locked in the apartment with orders to rest. Ian treated orders the way he treated decorative pillows: unnecessary objects placed by controlling people.

He crossed the bedroom without limping.

The hidden panel had no visible handle. The key fit a narrow slot behind the carved headboard, but turning it produced only a low mechanical hum. Blue light traveled through lines in the wall, then went dark.

“Royal blood,” Ian muttered.

The door required Eric’s hand as well as the key.

Ian examined the carved wolf from the nightstand. One eye was made of the same moonstone set into his collar. He pressed it against the panel.

Locks released one after another.

The wall opened six inches.

Warm milk and cedar flowed through the gap.

Ian’s wolf surged so violently that his claws emerged.

The hidden corridor beyond was painted with clumsy wolves, crooked mountains, and one enormous black figure wearing a crown. Beside it stood a smaller dark-haired wolf holding a sword. Between them, a round little animal had been drawn in silver crayon.

Words appeared beneath the figures.

DAD. DADDY. ME.

Ian touched the second drawing.

Footsteps approached the outer apartment.

He slipped into the corridor and closed the panel behind him.

The passage led to a small suite hidden inside the keep’s eastern wall. It held toys, books, a child-sized table, and windows disguised from the outside as black stone. It was comfortable. Beautiful, even.

It was still a cage.

A half-empty bottle of milk sat on the rug.

“I know you’re here,” Ian said.

Silence.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

A soft snort came from beneath the bed.

“Everyone says that before they do something stupid.”

Ian lowered himself carefully. Two blue-gray eyes stared back at him from the shadows.

The child had black-gray wolf ears, round cheeks, and a silver tail curled protectively around one ankle. He wore a dark green hoodie and held a wooden dagger in one hand.

Ian’s breath caught.

The boy looked like Eric around the eyes.

He looked like Ian everywhere else.

“Who are you?” Ian asked.

The child frowned. “You first.”

“Ian.”

“Full name.”

“Ian Thorne.”

The dagger dropped.

Before Ian could move, the child scrambled deeper beneath the bed and vanished through a second opening.

“Wait.”

An alarm began to pulse through the suite.

The outer door opened. Silas entered with four council guards.

“Where is the boy?” he demanded.

Ian rose.

Silas stopped when he saw him.

“How did you enter?”

“The architecture improved.”

The guards spread out.

Ian placed himself between them and the opening beneath the bed.

“You will return to the king’s room,” Silas said.

“You will explain why a child carrying my scent is hidden in a wall.”

“Your senses are unreliable. The mate reaction has destabilized you.”

“Then come close enough to test them.”

Silas glanced at the collar. “That object gives you no authority.”

“Neither does your face, but you keep bringing it to meetings.”

One guard coughed to hide a laugh.

Silas’s eyes hardened. “Restrain him.”

The first guard came with a shock baton. Ian caught his wrist, drove an elbow into his throat, and used his falling body as a shield. The second fired a lockstone dart. Ian turned, and the dart buried itself in the first guard’s vest.

The third guard shifted halfway, claws tearing through his gloves.

Ian kicked the child-sized table into his knees.

He had been weakened, starved, and poisoned for two years.

He was still Ian Thorne.

He broke the man’s wrist and took his pistol.

“Enough!” Silas shouted.

Blue light filled the room.

The Sovereign Collar tightened around Ian’s throat. He dropped the pistol and clawed at the metal. Silas held a black crystal controller.

“Eric believes the collar answers only to him,” Silas said. “Kings have always misunderstood where power truly lives.”

Ian forced air through his throat. “You staged the judgment.”

“I needed the bond exposed before witnesses.”

“Why?”

Silas stepped closer. “Because Eric cannot rule while tied to an enemy. The council will remove him. The boy will inherit, and I will govern until he is ready.”

“The boy has a name.”

“He has a purpose.”

Rage cleared Ian’s vision.

He reached through the collar’s pain, caught Silas by the lapels, and head-butted him. The controller flew across the rug.

The hidden passage exploded.

Wood and plaster burst outward. Guards covered their faces.

The little boy marched through the dust holding his milk bottle in one hand. His wolf ears were flattened with annoyance.

“You broke my wall,” he told Silas.

Silas wiped blood from his nose. “Leo, come here.”

“No.”

The single word carried a pulse of royal command.

Every guard in the room fell to one knee.

Silas remained standing, but his face twisted with effort.

Leo looked past him at Ian.

His eyes widened.

He ran.

Ian caught him without thinking. The child wrapped both arms around his neck, pressed his small face into the temporary bite mark, and inhaled.

“Daddy.”

The word entered Ian like a blade.

He held Leo away far enough to see him. “Who taught you to call me that?”

“Dad.”

“Eric?”

Leo nodded. “He has pictures. He talks to them when he thinks I’m asleep.”

The suite door slammed open.

Eric stood there in shirtsleeves, eyes red, three guards behind him. His gaze moved from Silas’s bloody face to the kneeling soldiers, then to Leo in Ian’s arms.

For the first time since Ian had known him, the wolf king looked completely defenseless.

Leo sighed with the exhaustion of a much older man.

“Dad, you’ve been chasing Daddy for two years.”

He drank from his bottle.

“Why are you still so bad at it?”

No one in the room moved.

Then Leo wrinkled his nose at Ian’s bloody shirt and ordered Eric to bring the blue medical box. Eric obeyed instantly. The most feared Alpha in the North crossed the room because a three-year-old had pointed at a cabinet.

Ian sat on the rug with Leo still attached to his neck. The child inspected his ears, hair, and scars with open curiosity.

“You’re real,” Leo said.

“Apparently.”

“Dad’s pictures don’t move.”

“Your dad has pictures of me?”

Eric returned with the box. “Leo.”

“A lot of pictures.”

Ian looked up. Eric suddenly found the medical clasps fascinating.

Leo touched the broken cuff on Ian’s wrist. “Did bad people do this?”

“Some of them thought they were good people.”

“That’s stupid.”

“You are definitely mine.”

The words escaped before Ian could stop them.

Eric’s hand froze over a bandage.

Leo beamed, revealing tiny pointed teeth. Ian felt the child’s joy through no magic at all, and it frightened him more than the collar. He had no training for being wanted without condition.

Silas backed toward the door. Leo’s smile vanished when he noticed.

The child moved closer to Ian and whispered, “Don’t let him take me to lessons.”

Ian’s gaze followed Silas.

“What lessons?”

Silas left before anyone answered.