Fortune was furious, holed up in a dark, luxurious penthouse on the outskirts of Port Harcourt. Ngozi was tending to his badly silver-burned hand, her face a mask of subservient terror.
"The Keeper played us," Fortune spat, his voice a low, venomous rasp. "She used my own ambition against me to forge the very source of power I desired. I traded chaos for permanent stability."
"The Pack is free, Master," Ngozi whispered, her eyes darting nervously. "Their strength is unbound, and they are celebrating."
"No," Fortune corrected, a slow, predatory smile returning to his lips. "The Pack is unfocused. They are drunk on freedom. They think their war is won because the Stone is stable. They do not realize that the Golden Leaf Casket is a centralized, single point of failure."
He rose, shedding his ruined silk shirt. His wounds were slowly knitting, his formidable power returning.
"We do not need to fight the entire Pack, Ngozi," Fortune said, staring out at the twinkling lights of the massive university campus. "We need to fight the two people who created the Golden Leaf. We need to steal the Casket and use its perfect, stable energy to finally establish my kingdom in this city."
He looked at Ngozi, his eyes glinting with a new plan. "Esther chose love over power. She chose the wolf over the vampire. Now, we use the wolf's past, and his fear of the beast, against them."