Page 51 of Renegade Kingdom
I watched my mate take control of a room full of warriors and leaders and broken people looking for hope, and I felt the bear rumble with pride.
She’s going to save this realm,he said.
For once, I didn’t argue with him.
Chapter Fifteen
Alyssa
The meeting had barely ended before the guilt settled in.
I watched the room empty, the various commanders and representatives filing out with the quiet murmur of people who had opinions about what had just been decided, but were too polite to voice them in front of me. The decision not to take the full force into the Wildling Forest was the right one. I knew that in my bones. But knowing something was right and feeling good about it were two entirely different animals, and the looks on some of those faces as they left told me I wasn’t the only one grappling with the difference.
Tank lingered by the door, his steady presence a constant warmth at the edge of my awareness. The bear had been unusually quiet during the meeting, which meant Tank was thinking. Processing. Doing that thing he did where he watched everyone in the room and filed away every reaction for later analysis. I caught his eye and he gave me the smallest nod, the kind that said I’m here, take your time, and then he was gone too, leaving me alone in the meeting room with the weight of a decision that would affect every person in this court.
I pressed my palms flat against the table and breathed.
We were leaving in the morning. Just us. Me, my mates, Damon in whatever state the nightmare allowed, and Fizzle. Walking into a forest that swallowed people whole, heading for a court that might not exist, on the word of a creature who had been lying to me since the day we met.
When I put it like that, it sounded insane.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Not Tank’s. Tank moved quietly for a man his size, a skill he’d perfected over years of not wanting to startle people. These footsteps were deliberate. Heavy. The walk of someone who was used to making their presence known before they entered a room.
Ezra appeared in the doorway, and the expression on his face was one I recognised because I’d been wearing a version of it for the last hour. Guilt, layered with uncertainty, layered with the stubborn refusal to be the first one to look away.
“Got a minute?” he asked.
I straightened up from the table. “Of course.”
He didn’t come all the way in. Just leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, a posture I was beginning to understand was less about aggression and more about holding himself together.
“I overstepped,” he said. “In the meeting. I shouldn’t have pushed back on your decision.”
“You disagreed with me. That’s not overstepping.”
“It is when you’re the queen and I’m...” He trailed off, jaw tightening. The word he didn’t say hung in the air between us. Nobody. Nothing. A freed Endless with no rank and no title and no reason to be sitting at a war council except that he’d been stubborn enough to rebuild a court that everyone else had written off.
I came around the table and leaned against it, facing him. “You’re the man who took a group of people who had everyreason to give up and gave them something worth fighting for. You don’t need a title for that to matter, Ezra.”
He looked at the floor. Then back at me. “Some of the others think I shouldn’t be here. That the freed Endless should follow, not lead.”
“Some of the others haven’t done what you’ve done.”
“That’s not...” He exhaled through his nose, frustrated in the way people got when they were trying to articulate something that lived closer to the heart than the head. “I’m not fishing for praise. I’m asking whether I’ve put myself somewhere I don’t belong. Whether my being here, pushing back, having opinions, is making things harder for you.”
I studied him for a moment. The tension in his shoulders. The way his hands gripped his own arms hard enough to blanch the knuckles. This wasn’t about the meeting. Not really. This was about a man who had spent years with someone else’s will replacing his own, who had clawed his way back to autonomy one painful day at a time, and who was now terrified of discovering that the autonomy he’d rebuilt was unwelcome.
“Ezra. Look at me.”
He did. His eyes were dark and guarded and holding on to something fragile behind all that steel.
“There is a fight coming,” I said. “A fight that is going to determine the fate of this realm and every person in it. Not just the Fae. Not just the shifters. Every single creature who calls Nymeria home. And what you’ve done here, what you’ve built, you’ve given all of these people a chance. Arealchance. Not just to survive, but to fight back.”
His jaw worked, but he didn’t look away.
“We have to fight,” I told him. “And we’re going to win. But we can’t do that if we’re not working together in the first place. I don’t need people around me who agree with everything I say. I need people who will tell me when I’m wrong, who willpush back when they see something I’ve missed, who will bring their own perspective to the table even if it’s uncomfortable.Especiallywhen it’s uncomfortable.”
Something shifted in his expression. Not softening, exactly. Ezra didn’t soften. Not after everything he’d been through. But the sharp edges retracted, just slightly, like a blade being sheathed.
