Chapter 295: Are You Smarter Than A Beta? (No.)

There’s a fine line between a brilliant play and a death wish. Damon Tavian was about to tap-dance across one with landmines on both sides.

Renwick was a paranoid bastard with a God complex, and Damon was betting his balls that the bastard’s ego was louder than his instincts. He also knew Maddox Drakencrest was dangerously perceptive, cut from the same cloth as Nicholas in that way.

Chess was over. Poker was loading. And Damon was about to play two hands at the same goddamn table. In the common tongue, this would be referred to as two briefings duct-taped together and sold as one.

The first was pure theater for Renwick. The second was coded subtext for Maddox, who hopefully knew how to count cards because the penalty for misreading this table was a Beta-sized body bag.

The gamble: Would Maddox Drakencrest play ball?

Damon was all-in on yes.

DOMINO 68: THE GODFATHER GETS PLAYED AGAIN

GREYHALL CROSSING

"Drakencrest." Damon gave Maddox a nod in front of Renwick.

The way you nod at your drug dealer in a temple. Casual. Controlled. Normal. Exactly three degrees of head tilt like a psychopath. Any less and it looked dismissive. Any more and it looked like friendship.

PLAY 1: THE FALSE TELL

In poker, the guy with the blankest face and no tells is the one who invites a full cavity search.

Damon knew Renwick was aware that Nicholas had sailed to Velkaris weeks ago for Guinevere. Therefore, logically, Damon would have gone with him. He also knew Renwick had jack-shit on what happened once they got there or how tangled all of them were.

The nod plus dropping ’Drakencrest’ instead of some fancy-ass title was Damon’s way of telling Renwick he wasn’t playing hide-the-sausage.

Translation: Damon handed over a purposeful tell of the classic magician’s ’see, nothing up my sleeve’ variety. Renwick would continue to take the interaction at face value.

"Tavian." Maddox returned the nod. "Where the hell is my wife?"

PLAY 2: THE MARKED DECK

"Not here. I’m sorry you came all this way. I can fill you in, but it would be best in private," Damon said to Maddox, then he looked at Renwick. "Alpha Lunaris should also be here if he has the time."

Damon greeted Maddox normally, but hit the FORMAL-TITLE button for Renwick Lunaris. Damon was not the overly formal type which meant the title was deliberate. The verbal equivalent of putting on a necktie at a barbecue. The goal was to light a warning light for Maddox.

Translation: Every card played from here on out has an Alpha-sized watermark on it.

Whether Maddox received it or not was unclear, which was a good sign. It meant if he had, he was already playing ball like a pro.

"My brother will be in as well," Maddox said, already mindlinking Kael.

"Of course."

PLAY 3: THE TABLE IMAGE

They shuffled back into the same conference room Damon had checkmated Renwick in earlier. Renwick parked his ass in the same chair as before, facing the door like a smug son-of-a-bitch who thought he had the cheat codes. That confidence was adorable. Inaccurate, but adorable.

Damon sat in the same back-to-the-door-subordinate seat he had earlier, because wolf hierarchy is a petty, passive-aggressive bitch.

Why is this important?

Same seat, same posture, same Beta bitch. Renwick’s read of Damon stays exactly where Damon calibrated it.

Maddox sat at the head of the table like he owned the place. The wildcard was Kael Ashenvale, who filed in a moment later and sat on Maddox’s right without saying jack shit.

Damon knew that walking opinion factory well enough to know that silence was strategic. It meant Kael knew something or he had read the room in three seconds flat and decided silence was the smarter bet. Either way, it was more terrifying than a loaded cannon, and twice as likely to blow someone’s dick off.

PLAY 4: THE CHIP STACK READ

Damon opened like a dealer at a crooked casino: pleasant, professional, and fully aware the house was about to win.

"Tharos Stonehowl was removed from the summit by Alpha Shadowfell after drawing his blade at your wife. Your wife went missing, so Alpha Shadowfell had the entire Keep on lockdown and did a full sweep last night. She wasn’t here. Alpha Shadowfell couldn’t feel her wolf."

This was brand-new intel to Renwick, and Damon knew it. The line was also loaded as fuck.

In poker, seasoned players can tell how deep someone is in the game just by watching how they stack their chips on the table. Tourists fuck it up. Veterans don’t.

Titles are chips in political poker, and Damon just re-stacked his on the table for both sides. The formal title hit Renwick’s ears like a lullaby and Maddox’s like a fire alarm. Same word. Two different frequencies. Because this Beta was a goddamn bilingual bastard.

You don’t slap a ’Mr.’ on your best friend’s name unless somebody in the room needs the fucking show and is not in the fucking circle of trust. If Maddox had blown past the Alpha Lunaris hint, there was zero chance he’d miss ’Alpha Shadowfell.’

Translation: That was code for ’Renwick doesn’t get the backstage pass’ and ’pretend our previous talks never happened.’

At the same time, it also put a gold coin in the Renwick Trust Jar because Damon had already referred to Nicholas as Alpha Shadowfell and consistency is king, baby. The content itself signaled that she vanished inside Shadowfell’s own Keep the night prior. A man willing to admit his side fumbled the ball doesn’t look like a man running a play.

Translation: Damon was a direct, no-games motherfucker who put his own pack’s failure on the table first. Unprompted. Unvarnished. With zero ego.

"There were no signs of Stonehowl except for his Beta murdered and shoved in a closet. That was up until this morning, when Alpha Shadowfell found her at blade-point in the Lunaris corridor. Alpha Stonehowl had her in warded silver cuffs, gagged, and was chasing her. Two Dark Fae were with him."