Chapter 18: Invitation to War

Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Invitation to War The room was too warm, too quiet, and too full of useless silence. Misty Kilmer paced barefoot across the marble floor of her private parlor, her silk robe half-tied, cigarette long since burned out in the tray. The golden sunlight that filtered through the sheer curtains did nothing to soften the sharp line of her jaw. Her heel tapped again. And again. And again. "He’s being debuted," she spat, eyes narrowing at the pale morning headline blinking across her tablet screen. "House D’Argente to Present New Heir at Baye Gala. Sources say northern alpha interest is already confirmed." She didn’t need to scroll down to know what name would be in the whispers. Lucas. Not Kilmer. Not even Velloran. D’Argente. "Bitch," she hissed under her breath. "Old witch wrapped him in silk and sold him as royalty." She turned sharply, nearly knocking over a tray of untouched fruit. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. She had kept the boy hidden for years—off every official record, out of the palace’s eye. She’d tolerated the weak eyes and sharp tongue, the irritating stillness he carried like he wasn’t afraid of anything. She had poured money into tutors, silenced medical officials, and delayed the damn awakening for as long as the injections would hold. And the moment he was finally old enough to yield a return— Serathine stole him. Wrapped him in titles. And now paraded him like a prince waiting to be claimed. Worse? Trevor Fitzgeralt. Misty dragged her nails down her arm, leaving angry red lines behind. The Grand Duke didn’t do politics. The only reason he’d agree to something so visible was if— She paused. If Serathine had gone to the Emperor. Her throat tightened. "If Caelan knows," she murmured, "then the contract is already void." Christian would pull funding the second he realized she couldn’t deliver. And D’Argente’s support meant Lucas was off-limits—legally, socially, permanently. She gritted her teeth, fingers trembling as she lit another cigarette. The tip glowed red-hot as she paced back across the parlor, the invitation still lying on the edge of her desk, untouched but impossible to ignore. Cream vellum. Gold foil. Embossed with the seal of House D’Argente. The Gala at Baye. An event for royals and blooded heirs. And there, in delicate, mocking script: Lady Misty Kilmer is cordially invited to attend the official debut of Lord Lucas Oz of House D’Argente. She stared at the name again. Not Lucas Kilmer. Not even a bastard claim. Lucas Oz. Stripped clean of her, remade in Serathine’s image. Her jaw clenched hard enough to ache. Serathine had publicly, legally, and brilliantly torn her apart the last time she stood near the D’Argente matriarch. That day had shattered every ounce of leverage Misty held in the northern contracts. Noble houses she’d once hosted with wine and promises now returned her calls with polite silence—or not at all. And all because of him. Because she’d slapped Lucas. Her child. It had been her right to discipline him. He’d spoken out of turn. Looked her in the eye with that arrogant calm he’d inherited from the wrong side of his bloodline. And, finally, she had done what any mother would do if her child had forgotten their place. But Serathine had acted like she’d struck the Crown itself. She’d arrived with documentation, witnesses, and sealed reports from private tutors. She had cornered the magistrate and the captain of the Town Guard with words as sharp as a blade, and when she was finished, Misty stood there, hollow and silenced, as if she were the criminal. "You are no longer his guardian," Serathine had said, cool and precise. "You are his past. Pray he forgets you." And now, after everything, Serathine had the audacity to send her an invitation. A stage she was expected to watch from the sidelines while the boy she’d raised—sheltered, controlled, invested in—was elevated above her by the very court that once sneered at his birth. Misty’s fingers curled around the edge of her desk. The glass trembled. No. She wasn’t going to disappear. She wasn’t going to let Serathine crown herself a savior while painting Misty as a monster. She wasn’t going to be remembered as the woman who lost everything. She was going to the Gala—as his birth mother. As the grieving architect of his rise. She would wear dignity like armor and smile for the cameras with glass in her throat. But Lucas would not be the only one in the limelight. She had another purpose, another child to elevate. Ophelia. Misty’s lips curled as she walked toward the mirrored wall of her dressing suite, fingertips trailing across the edge of the invitation again. She could not understand why men, whether betas, alphas, or wealthy omegas, ignored her daughter. Ophelia had been trained for this life. Coached in elegance, molded in etiquette, praised in press. And yet, always, it was Lucas they watched. Even before he was of age. Even before he was claimed by D’Argente or dressed in silks, there had been something in him—quiet, unknowable, visible—that turned heads. Turned eyes. He never tried to be noticed. He didn’t smile the right way, didn’t flatter, didn’t flirt. He wasn’t charming—not in the polished, courtly sense. But people looked. They looked when he entered a room, even if he didn’t speak. They looked when he passed by nobles, guards, and ministers twice his age. She had seen it again and again: that flicker of attention, that pause of interest. The curiosity. The pull. And she hated it. Because Ophelia tried. Gods, how she tried. The gowns. The tutors. The carefully curated smile that Misty herself had designed like a sculpture. Yet she was overlooked. Lucas had nothing—no title, no debut, no place in society—and still drew everything. She remembered standing in the corridor, watching Andrew—her fiancé—as he laughed at something Lucas said. A rare moment. The boy had barely spoken, yet Andrew had leaned in, his eyes bright, his hand lingering just a second too long on the back of the chair. That was the moment Misty knew: the moment that sealed everything. Lucas wasn’t a child to her anymore. He was a threat. So she did what any woman in her position would do—what any mother would do when something she created began to eclipse her. She erased him. And now, somehow, he was back. Stronger. Sharper. Wrapped in silk and reborn under the banner of Serathine’s house like she had never existed. He needed to be managed. Controlled. Handled like the asset he was born to be. And there was only one man left in the Empire who could do that. Christian. Cold, measured, and absolutely immune to the sentimental games Serathine loved to play. Christian didn’t care about public image. He didn’t care about tenderness or rebellion or Lucas’s pretty eyes. He would lock the boy down—claim him fully—and end this performance of freedom before it went too far. Misty stepped toward her vanity, pulling out the drawer where she kept the old contract. The original one. The one Serathine never got her hands on. The one that still bore Christian’s signature and the private terms they had agreed to before Lucas’s awakening was postponed. He still had a claim. Not legally. But politically. Enough to stir doubt. Enough to cast a shadow over the D’Argente debut. If she moved before the ball—delivered a statement, a subtle leak to the right ears—Christian could appear not as a buyer but as a protector wrongfully denied his ward. A court-appointed guardian. A silent suitor, waiting in the wings. And Lucas... Lucas would be cornered. Again. Misty’s lips curled into something like a smile. Let Serathine plan her little parade. Misty still had one card left to play.