The Almighty Dominance novel Chapter 843

Alex hit the old tree at four in the morning, and the old tree did not care.

His fist stopped a metre short of the trunk, the way it always did now. The air jumped. A few yellow leaves spun down onto the wet stones of the harbour wall, and that was all.

He stood there with his breath smoking in the cold. The energy of heaven and earth came to him thin as the mist, a cup at a time, when what he needed was a river. To raise his cultivation, he needed rare herbs, a pill or an elixir. Westmere had none of them.

When he got back, Felicia was sitting on the kitchen step with a plate of bread on her knees.

"You've been out since four, Prince."

"I was hitting a tree."

"Did you win?"

"It's a draw."

She held up the plate. "Then eat. Even trees have breakfast."

---

At ten he walked up into the misty hills. He could hear the cough before he reached the door of the long grey house.

Mr. Wolfe sat bent over a handkerchief that was not white any more. Nina knelt beside his chair, holding a glass of water he would not drink.

"Six pills left," the old man said. "They don't hold it now."

Alex took his wrist and listened to the pulse for a long moment. It ran fast and thin, like water over stones.

"It's worse because you fought me," he said. "Your breath tore the old wounds open. That was my fault."

"It was my pride." The old man almost smiled. "Don't steal it from me. It's the only thing in this house older than I am."

Hector stood by the door, his left wrist in its cast, his right hand bandaged to the knuckles. In his good fingers he held the list Alex had written, gone soft from his pocket.

"Two of the herbs came this morning, sir. The third, the old root, is nowhere, sir. Not in Westmere, not in Calder, not in the capital. Nobody has seen a root that old in twenty years."

"You said that yesterday," said Nina sharply.

"And it's still true today, miss."

Alex watched him. Hector spoke to the old man, to Nina, to the window. Not once did he look at the list in his own hand. A man who had called every dealer on the coast would know that list by heart, and he would still have looked at it.

Nina laid a cream card on the table, printed in gold. The Grand Hotel. A private sale, tomorrow night.

"Lot nine is a mountain root, three hundred years old," she said. "And the last lot is a great clam from the sea. They say its pearls glow in the dark."

Alex read the card twice. A root for the old man's true pill. A treasure from the sea, its pearls full of the very energy he needed to raise his cultivation. One room. One night.

"I'll go," he said.

Mr. Wolfe took a black card from inside his jacket and laid it on the invitation.

"Buy the root. Buy anything you need, for me or for you. It has no limit."

"Sir," said Hector quietly, "that card has never left your hand in thirty years."

"Then it's had a long rest," said Mr. Wolfe.

---

The next night the Grand Hotel was lit from the street to the roof. Long black cars pulled up under the white awning, and a doorman in a green coat bowed to every one of them.

Alex came up the hill on foot, in a plain dark jacket. Through the tall glass doors he could see into the ballroom: white and gold, a hundred candles, and beyond the far windows the sea, black as ink. The last time he had stood in that room, he had been carrying a tray.

The doorman did not bow. He looked at Alex's face, and his mouth curled.

"I know you. You were the waiter at the Baroness's birthday. You polished Mr. Bellamy's shoes on your knees." He laughed. "This isn't a place for people like you."

Behind them, a car door slammed.

"Is that the idiot?"

A young man in a grey velvet jacket came up the steps with two friends at his back. Handsome, bored, and wearing a watch worth a small house. Tyler Hunt, of the second-richest family on the north shore.

"It is," said Tyler, delighted. "The prince of the Tiffany kennels. Did you walk all the way up the hill?"

"It's good for the legs."

One of the friends looked Alex up and down. "The lowest bid in there needs half a million dollars. You can't even afford the coat check."

"I made a pretty massive tip the last time I worked here," said Alex, with an easy, unbothered grin.

"Hey, doorman." Tyler pointed at him. "This guy doesn't have a dime to his name. You're seriously going to let him walk in?"

"Then let's verify the funds," said the doorman stiffly.

Alex held out the black card. The doorman took it gingerly between two fingers, read the silver name on the back, and every drop of colour drained from his face.

"Wolfe. This is Mr. Wolfe's own card."

"Run it," said Alex.

The doorman ran it. He read the little screen, and his hand began to shake.

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