The first needle came out of Finn Cross’s neck slick with black blood. Abigail Foster froze, medical tweezers trembling between her fingers. It was nearly two inches long. Silver. Barbed. Painted matte black.

The room temperature dropped below freezing in a single heartbeat.

The two royal guards at the doorway drew their broadswords with a deafening screech of steel. Nurse Rebecca fainted dead away, tumbling onto the carpet like a sack of laundry.

Dr. Corvus backed away until his shoulders hit the bookshelf, his eyes staring at the pile of black metal on the floor as if they were venomous vipers.

Torin Cross slowly looked down at his boots.

He saw the barbed tips. He saw his son’s black blood dried on the silver shafts. He saw the dark magic runes etched into the metal—runes that could only be forged by high-level dark sorcerers from the Southern Shadow Wastes.

Torin bent down, picked up the thirty-fourth needle with two fingers, and brought it to his nose.

His golden eyes snapped shut. His jaw clenched so hard the muscles in his neck looked like iron cables.

"Silver," Torin rumbled, his voice so quiet, so deep, that the glass in the nursery windows began to vibrate. "Wolfsbane resin. And Dark Moon curses."

He opened his eyes. They were no longer gold. They were pure, pitch-black—the eyes of a wild, unhinged Alpha wolf ready to slaughter an entire pack.

He looked at Corvus.

"Sire... Sire, listen to me!" Corvus stammered, falling to his knees, his hands raised in desperate surrender. "I know nothing of those! The maid brought them in! She planted them! She is a spy sent by the Southern packs to frame me! Why would I harm the royal heir? I have served your family for twenty years!"

"These needles were buried beneath my son's skin," Torin said, taking a agonizingly slow step toward the doctor. He handed Finn gently to Abigail.

Abigail took the boy, wrapping her arms tightly around him. Finn buried his face into her neck, feeling safe for the first time in his life.

Torin stopped right in front of Corvus.

"The wounds where these were pulled from," Torin whispered, leaning down until his face was inches from the doctor's pale, sweating forehead, "are old. Some of the entry scars are months old. They were hidden under his fur, pushed deeper every time you performed his 'daily adjustments' in this room."

"No! Sire, mercy!" Corvus wept.

"Who gave them to you?" Torin barked. The sheer acoustic force of his command made Corvus’s ears bleed. "WHO PAID YOU TO ROT MY SON?"

"Lord Vance!" Corvus shrieked, broken instantly by the Alpha's voice command. "It was Lord Vance! He promised me the position of High Court Regent when he took the throne! He said the boy was a half-blood weakling who didn't deserve the Northern Crown! He brought the needles from the Shadow Wastes! Please, Your Majesty, I only followed his orders! He threatened my family!"

Abigail held her breath.

Lord Vance. The King's own brother. The man who sat at Torin's right hand at every feast, the man who had delivered the eulogy at Queen Elena's funeral.

Torin didn't look surprised. A terrifying, dead stillness settled over him. It was the calm before a catastrophic storm.

Without a word, Torin reached out, grabbed Corvus by the throat, lifted the two-hundred-pound man off the floor with a single arm, and hurled him through the thick, leaded-glass balcony window.

Shattered glass rained down into the courtyard sixty feet below, followed by a wet, heavy thud that echoed up from the stones.

Torin didn't even look over the ledge. He turned around, his black eyes fixing onto Abigail.

Abigail didn't flinch. She stood her ground, holding the royal heir close to her heart, her chin raised.

Torin walked up to her. The blood of his former physician was speckled across his cheekbone, but his gaze on Abigail was complex—a dangerous mixture of shock, immense gratitude, and dark, intense curiosity.

"You," Torin said softly. "What is your name?"

"Abigail Foster, Your Majesty."

Torin reached out one large, warm finger and gently traced the small cut on Abigail's hand—the cut where she had burned herself pulling the silver Binding Spike from his son's heart.

"You bled for him," Torin observed.

"I would bleed for any child being tortured under my care, Sire," she replied firmly.

Torin looked into her eyes for a long moment. Then he turned to his chief royal guard.

"Captain Eric," Torin commanded.

"Sire!" the guard slammed his fist against his chest armor.

"Lock down the entire fortress. Seal the gates. Nobody leaves. Nobody enters. Arrest Lord Vance and his entire personal guard. If any of them resist... cut off their heads."

"At once, Your Majesty!"

Torin turned back to Abigail.

"Abigail Foster," he said, his deep voice carrying a strange, heavy finality. "As of this moment, you are no longer a maid. You are the High Caregiver of the Royal Heir. You will sleep in the suite adjoining his. You will eat from my table. And no one—not a doctor, not a lord, not a guard—touches my son without your permission."

Abigail swallowed hard. She knew what this meant. She was now stepping directly into the center of a bloody royal war.