The next afternoon, Victoria Vance looked out the window of the guest cottage and saw Leo in the rose garden. He wasn’t alone. Alistair was crouching beside him.
Panic spiked in her chest. She sprinted out the door.
By the time she reached them, she heard Alistair’s low rumble. He was holding a Monarch butterfly by its wings, the creature struggling feebly.
“It’s weak, Leo,” Alistair was saying. “In nature, the weak do not survive. To be a King, you must not feel pity. You must crush the things that cannot fly on their own. Go on. Crush it.”
He held the insect out to the toddler. Leo looked confused and frightened, his small hand trembling.
“No!” Victoria screamed.
She lunged forward, snatching Leo up into her arms and slapping Alistair’s hand away. The butterfly fluttered free.
“Don’t you ever teach him your poison,” Victoria hissed, her eyes blazing with the ferocity of a mother cornered. “He is not you. He will never be you.”
Alistair stood up, wiping his hand on a silk handkerchief. He looked at her not with anger, but with a flicker of genuine surprise. He had expected her to be broken like Beatrice. Instead, he found **The Shield**.
“You have fire, Victoria,” Alistair mused. “It’s a pity you wasted it on the wrong son.”