Page 6 of Dark Reign

That only left one person who’d eventhinkabout disobeying the Bylaws—Blackbird.

I finished in silence and never responded, never shared my suspicion. Returning to my bedroom, I opted not to join the guys right away. I needed to think, to clear my head. They’d definitely be eager to discuss this despite the incident not taking place in any of their quadrants. Blackbird was not their immediate problem. She was ours, the Eastern Quadrant’s.

As I scanned the property, watching a pack of our huntsman’s wolves prowling about, I prepared myself for the inevitable fallout.

“It was another child,” she explained reluctantly. “They snuck in a few hours before daybreak.”

“Is there proof it was her?”

Ellenore stepped closer, knowing of whom I spoke. “Well, no, but … based on my analysis of what Prince Silas shared, considering Blackbird’s modus operandi, and similarities in technique, I’m 97.6% positive it was her.”

I lowered my head, feeling my entire body become warm. There was no question whether Ellenore had already detected the spike. With her being equipped to pick up on even the slightest atmospheric changes, I knew this hadn’t slipped past her.

“You’re angry,” she concluded.

She was right, but not for the reasons she likely assumed. With tonight’s State of the Dynasty Address falling on my father’s shoulders, the last thing he needed was another distraction, one more incident for which he’d have to answer to the media, the people. If it wasn’t the concerns about the ever-growing population creating a blood shortage, it was the increase in contaminated donor lots, which we now knew to be responsible for a mysterious sickness that had taken the lives of thousands of Ianites.

And now, there was this.

The territory of the East Quadrant was, technically, his main jurisdiction, but as Ian Percival’s first convert, he’d also been chosen to reign as Presiding Emperor over the four combined quadrants. Meaning, the others were powerful, but none more powerful than him. For this reason, the world would be expecting an explanation from him, and only him.

There had always been opposing factions, but none were as effective at getting under my father’s skin as Blackbird. She, alone, had undermined his authority, brought more scrutiny and heartache his way than any other incidents throughout his five-hundred-year reign combined. For this reason, when my turn came … I had very detailed plans to eradicate our pesky bird problem once and for all.

I sighed, gathering my thoughts, and turned to face Ellenore. “Has this hit the public yet?”

“After overhearing Prince Silas’ statement, I did a quick media search, and from what I can tell, it hasn’t. I believe he must have come into this knowledge by way of his connections,” she explained.

On more than one occasion, Silas having contacts in the media had proven helpful. My guess was he had something to do with the slow info leak, but with some reporter’s claws likely deep in this story already, he could only hold them off for so long. It was only a matter of time until the entire world knew the same thing I did …

Blackbird had embarrassed this Dynasty yet again and had to be stopped.

By any means necessary.

CHAPTER THREE

Silas

A helping of freshly prepared frittata was offered and I accepted a slice. Julian’s staff was always accommodating whenever any of us ventured into the capitol of the Eastern Quadrant. This time, the purpose of our travels had been to celebrate his good news—the formal acceptance of his birthright.

For him, the decision to forego charting his own life path to follow the one laid by his father had been long and grueling. Even now, I was almost certain he’d only chosen to be the successor of the throne to avoid the backlash of declining it. He carried a sense of duty and responsibility the rest of us didn’t when it came to bearing the crown. For the most part, we settled on the idea of being elevated within the Dynasty since childhood.

Although, for a while, we weren’t so sure about Roman.

His personal tragedy made abandoning his father’s legacy seem possible, choosing to disassociate himself with the Dynasty altogether. Instead, going off on his own in an attempt to self-destruct—an attempt none of us would have ever allowed. All our lives we’d been more like brothers than friends. When we were young, our families kept us close. Once we were of age, we secured ourownbond, made our own memories.

Some of which were illegal and so reckless we vowed to never speak of them again, for fear of bringing shame on our family names.

It was this bond that caused us all to keep Roman close during the dark days. From week to week, we’d made certain he wasn’t alone. We rotated our time with him for an entire year. With the distance between him and the other members of his father’s kingdom, we were all he had. And we each shared his loss, thehurt,nearly as deeply as he felt it.

At the thought of Roman, I peered across the table to where he sat, methodically swiping his finger down a tablet. Being dark-natured and introverted had been his default setting for a while now, but we had hope he’d resurface soon.

“Thanks, Love,” Levi crooned in a sophisticated accent reminiscent of the old world.

I turned just as he bit into a muffin, a wide grin spreading across his face as he eyed the curvy server who’d just waited on him. She wasn’t much to look at bymystandards, but I’d choose hercompany versus Julian’s bot, Ellenore,anyday of the week.

It’d been nearly a decade since she was gifted to him and, even as a man of science, the thingstillcreeped me out.

I turned to Roman again as I reached for a fork. “Not eating this morning?”

---