CHAPTER 531: TAKE HENRY’S PLACE

Although the call hadn’t lasted long, Violet’s voice stirred Asher like fire in his veins, and he needed that now, walking into a room full of lions waiting to tear him alive.

Behind him, his Beta, Jeremiah, followed close. When they reached the door, the guard on duty made to announce his arrival, but Asher lifted a hand to silence him. It was best they didn’t see him coming.

Asher pushed the door open and stepped inside. The room was alive with raucous laughter. Meat and wine flowed freely, the air thick with the smell of grease and smoke. The alphas sprawled in their seats like they owned the place, boasting and barking, trading stories loud enough to shake the rafters.

The atmosphere was rowdy and careless. A celebration that tasted too much like mockery, because the wolf who had held them all in chains for decades was dead.

Not that any could blame them.

But then Asher entered and one by one, heads turned. Just like that, the laughter faltered and the noise strangled into silence.

In that split second, their goblets froze mid-air, teeth no longer flashing. Sixteen pairs of eyes turned on him, measuring him.

Goblets froze mid-air, the smile gone from their faces. A few alphas scratched at their throats, their eyes cutting sidelong and avoiding direct gaze. Some gave him polite looks, while the bold ones stared at him with thinly veiled contempt.

Polite or not, Asher could smell it all. Pride, hunger and the sweet stink of ambition.

And they saw him too as the boy. The son. Henry’s blood — but not Henry.

A few of the alphas cleared their throats, feigning ease while the rest smirked like men humoring a child. A baby tiger playing at lion.

"Alpha Asher," Dominic said smugly as he rose from the far end of the table. "We were just sharing stories of your father. Come, sit. Take wine. We are all family here."

But Asher didn’t respond. He just stared at the man, long enough for the silence to curdle into discomfort. Then without a word, he took the empty seat at the head of the table without asking.

That position was significant and represented Henry’s position when he was alive and now, Asher had taken it without permission. Without acknowledging the alphas who were already bristling at his audacity.

The statement was clear: the son had come to claim the father’s throne, and he would not ask.

"Enjoying yourselves?" Asher finally asked, his lips curving into that signature unsettling smile.

He wore no glasses tonight. His infamous slitted eyes were bared for all to see, slowly dragging across the table, pinning each alpha one by one.

Asher had been told time after time how unsettling his eyes could be. Some whispered they looked less like a man’s and more like a predator’s, as if something feral lurked beneath his skin. Worse still was the power hidden in them—the compulsion that could drag a man to his knees if he wished it.

The fact that Asher walked into this meeting without hiding them meant one thing.

He wasn’t here for pleasantries. He was out for a fight.

Rowland, broad-shouldered and quick-tempered, barked a laugh to cut the tension. "The cub glares like he thinks he’s grown claws. Careful, boy, baring your teeth doesn’t make you dangerous."

Snickers broke across a few of the alphas. Even Cane, sipped his wine as if amused.

But Asher was unruffled as still water. If anything, he only tilted his head in the Alpha’s direction. "Down."

He had given the command so softly it was almost conversational, but the effect was inescapable.

Rowland’s body seized like a puppet on strings, his eyes wide with horror just before his face slammed against the table with a sickening crack.

The sound jolted the alphas beside him, their chairs scraping back as though the compulsion might leap from Rowland and drag them down too.

Rowland groaned, his face twisting with pain, but Asher didn’t relent. There came a second crash. Then a third. By the fourth, blood streamed down his nose, spattering the wood. Bone gave way with a dull snap that made several alphas flinch, but still Asher held him.

"Gods..." one of them muttered under his breath as Rowland’s bloodied face met the table for the fifth time before he finally collapsed in a heap of groans on the floor. His hands came up instinctively, clutching at his ruined nose, crimson dripping between his fingers.

On the bright side, he was going to heal. But the room had gone cold.

Asher leaned back in Henry’s chair, his gaze sweeping over the others, his voice calm, and almost mocking.

"Now, who still thinks I’m a cub?"

No one spoke, at least not immediately.

Alpha Cane, ever the political tongue, finally broke the silence. "Forgive Rowland, Son. He often does not think before he speaks."

But Alpha told him pointedly. "I’m not your son, but your Alpha."

There was an uproar, the alphas murmuring amongst themselves in agitation. Although this was inevitable, Asher declaring himself Alpha, and in Henry’s seat no less, forced them to face it head-on. No one was comfortable with it — even if they planned to challenge his claim.

"However, I did not come to argue succession with any of you." Asher rose to his feet.

"Tomorrow," he said, "we receive the Alpha King and the visiting Alphas for my father’s wake."

At that, chairs shifted and eyes cut toward Dominic.

"Tradition," Dominic offered carefully, "is that the Beta of the deceased fills the space until succession is determined. I will—"

"Is my father without an heir?" Asher’s voice sliced across his words.

Dominic’s jaw ticked, but he answered. "No."

"Then why does the Beta of the deceased want to take the heir’s place?" Asher’s tone turned sharp, no longer a question but a challenge.

Alpha Drake, the oldest among them, cleared his throat. "No one questions your blood, Asher, but propriety matters. You haven’t graduated yet and lack the experience. Experience is what guides a pack, not raw strength and dominic has both. He is the appropriate choice to welcome the Alpha King and the other guests when they arrive tomorrow."