He looked old and tired and trapped, like an animal that had finally realized the cage had no door.
General Hawthorne's voice followed him, quiet but insistent.
"And if there isn't another way, Marcus? What then? What do we tell the families of the fifty-three people who will die tomorrow? And the day after that? And the day after that?"
He didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Because he didn't have an answer.
The President's residence was quiet when he returned that evening.
Usually, that silence was a comfort. After days filled with negotiations and crisis meetings and the constant noise of politics, coming home to quiet felt like finally being able to breathe.
But tonight, the silence felt suffocating. It pressed against his ears, filled his lungs, made his chest tight.
Marcus Aldridge moved through the dark hallways like a ghost, his footsteps muffled by expensive carpet. The house was too big. Had always been too big. Rooms upon rooms that they never used, space that served no purpose except to demonstrate power and wealth.
He found his daughter in the sunroom at the back of the house.
Elena sat curled in her favorite chair, the overstuffed one by the window that caught the last of the evening light. A book lay open in her lap, but she wasn't reading. She was staring out at the garden, at the carefully manicured lawn and the roses that a team of gardeners maintained at significant expense.
Her dark hair was pulled back in a careless bun, a few strands escaping to frame her face. She wore comfortable clothes, soft pants, and an oversized sweater, the kind of thing she only wore at home, when there was no one to see, no one to judge.
She looked young. Younger than twenty-three. Almost like the little girl he remembered, the one who used to climb into his lap and ask him to read her stories about princesses and dragons.
That little girl had believed her father could fix anything.
He was about to prove her wrong.
Elena must have heard him enter because she turned, and when she saw his face, her expression shifted immediately.
"Dad?" Her voice was sharp with concern. "What's wrong? You look like someone died."
He almost wished someone had.
Death he could announce. Death came with established protocols, familiar rituals. You made the notification, you offered condolences, and you attended the memorial service. There were words for death, procedures to follow.
What he had to tell her was something else entirely. Something worse.
"Elena, we need to talk."
The words came out heavy, loaded with a weight that made them sink into the space between them.
She set her book aside slowly, marking her place even though he could see she'd barely read a page. Her movements were careful, controlled, but he could see the tension enter her body.
"Is it Mom?" she asked. "Is she okay?"
"Your mother's fine. She's at the benefit dinner tonight, remember? The one for the children's hospital."
He moved into the room, his legs feeling unsteady. He sat down in the chair across from hers, not the one next to her, not close enough to touch. He couldn't touch her right now. If he touched her, he might break.
"This is about... the negotiations. The wolf clans."
Elena's posture relaxed slightly. Politics. Just politics. That was familiar territory, safe territory.
"Did something go wrong? I thought you were close to a ceasefire."
"We are. Or rather, we could be."
He forced himself to look at her, really look at her. To see the daughter he'd raised, protected, and kept hidden from the world. The young woman who'd graduated top of her class in international relations. Who volunteered at the refugee centers on weekends, though she complained about the smell and the crowds. Who had her whole life mapped out, graduate school, then perhaps a position in the diplomatic corps, carefully away from her father's shadow.
She had plans. Dreams. A future.
And he was about to take it all away.
"They've proposed terms," he said, the words sticking in his throat.
"That's good, isn't it?" She leaned forward slightly, interested now. "What kind of terms?"
"They want a marriage alliance."
The words felt like stones in his mouth, hard and jagged, cutting his tongue as he spoke them.
"A human bride for the Lycan King."
Elena blinked, her face going blank for a moment as she processed the information.
"Oh." A pause. "Well, that's... medieval. Archaic, really. I didn't think people still did that sort of thing."
She laughed, a short, surprised sound.
"But I suppose if it ends the war, and if someone is willing to volunteer, I mean, there must be women who would consider it, right? For the right price or incentive....."
She stopped.
The laugh died on her lips as she watched his face, reading the expression there, the way his jaw was clenched tight, the way he couldn't quite meet her eyes.