Chapter 103
ALARIG
“Find her.”
Verhurs
My voice cuts through the room, and every wolf in hearing distance freezes.
“I want every warrior, every scout, p
fucking wolf who can run mobilized now.” I’m pacing at the top of the palace steps, and I can feel my control slipping, fraying at the edges like rope about to snap. “Search the entire territory. Every building. every forest path, every goddamn hole in the ground. I want her found. Now”
“Yes, Your Majesty!” The response is immediate, desperate. Wolves scatter in all directions, already shifting, already running.
But it’s not enough.
It’s not nearly fucking enough.
“And if I find out that any of you are hiding information-” I let the threat hang in the air, let them feel the weight of what I’m capable of. “If I discover that even one of you knew something and didn’t tell me, I will personally rip your throat out and make your family watch. Are we fucking clear?”
The courtyard is a sea of bent necks and trembling shoulders.
“I SAID ARE WE CLEAR?”
“Yes, Your Majesty!” The response is thunderous, terrified.
Good.
They should be terrified.
Because right now, I’m barely holding onto my sanity by a thread, and that thread is getting thinner every second Sorin stays missing.
My eyes land on Cassian.
Beta Cassian, who’s been with us for this entire campaign. Who had access to communications, to resources, to-
I cross the distance between us in three strides and grab him by the collar, slamming him against the palace wall hard enough to crack stone.
“If this is one of your tricks,” I snarl, inches from his face, “if you’re hiding her, if you had anything to do with this-”
“Your Majesty—” He doesn’t struggle, doesn’t fight back, which is smart because I’d snap his spine if he did. “I’ve been with you for ten days. Ten days. No connection to the pack, no communication with anyone here. How the fuck would I have orchestrated the Queen’s disappearance when I was in a war zone three territories away?”
The logic cuts through my rage just enough to make me pause.
He’s right.
He was with me the entire time. Every battle, every strategy session, every blood–soaked night. There’s no way he could have
I release him with a shove that sends him stumbling.
“Then who?” The question comes out raw, desperate. “Who the fuck took her?”
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Cassian straightens his jacket, his expression careful. “Your Majesty… maybe no one took her. Maybe she-
“Don’t The word is a command and a threat. “Don’t you fucking finish that sentence.”
Because I know what he was going to say.
Maybe she left.
Maybe she ran.
Maybe she chose to leave you.
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And that possibility–that reality–is so much worse than kidnapping, worse than violence, worse than anything I can fight against.
I turn away from him, scanning the crowd until I find Marg still standing at the top of the steps, tears streaming down her face.
“You.” I point at her. “Where was the Queen last seen?”
Marg flinches like I struck her. “I–Your Majesty, I-”
“Where. Was. She. Last. Seen.”
“The art studio.” The words tumble out between sobs. “She–she locked herself in the art studio you built for her. She’s been spending so much time there lately, and I–I thought she just needed space, time to paint, but then she didn’t come out, and when I checked-“Her voice breaks. “The door was unlocked, but she was gone. She was just–gone.”
The art studio.
The space I built for her. The room filled with light and canvas and every supply she could ever want. The place I thought would make her happy.
I’m moving before conscious thought catches up, pushing past Marg, past the crowd, through the palace halls I know by heart.
My hands are shaking.
Why the fuck are my hands shaking?
The art studio is in the east wing, up three flights of stairs, at the end of a corridor designed specifically to catch the morning light. I had it built special. Had the windows enlarged, the walls painted the exact shade of cream she mentioned liking once in passing.
I thought it would keep her here.
I thought if I gave her everything she wanted, she’d stay.
The door is closed but not locked.
I stand there for a moment, hand on the knob, and I realize I’m terrified.
Terribed
Me. A king. A man who’s killed more enemies than he can count A wolf who’s never backed down from anything
Terrified of what I’m about to find on the other side of this door
I term the kno
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Chapter 103
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The sunlight hits me first–brilliant, almost blinding after the di corridors. The entire eastern wall is windows, and the late afternoon sun pours through them like liquid gold, illuminating everything,
And there are paintings everywhere.
Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Canvases propped against walls, hanging from makeshift displays, stacked in corners. Some finished, some half–done, some just sketches,
Landscapes, Portraits. Abstract explosions of color that probably mean something I’m too fucked up to understand right
now.
I walk into the room slowly, like I’m entering a sacred space.
Like I’m trespassing.
My fingers trail along the edge of a canvas–a forest scene, trees rendered in shades of green so vivid they almost seem alive. Another painting shows the palace at dawn, soft pinks and oranges painting stone.
She made all of this.
My Sorin.
My mate.
And then I see it.
Center of the room, positioned on the main easel like it’s the crown jewel of this entire collection.
A portrait.
Of me.
I move closer, drawn like a magnet, and I can’t breathe.
It’s me, but… not the me I see in mirrors. Not the king everyone else sees.
This version is standing in sunlight–arms crossed, head tilted slightly, a small smile playing at the corners The kind of smile I only ever gave to her. My eyes in the painting are soft, unguarded, looking at something–someone- with so much fucking love it hurts to witness.
of my
mouth.
The detail is insane. Every scar, every line, every strand of hair rendered with painstaking care.
But it’s not the technical skill that breaks me.
It’s the love.
I can feel it radiating from every brushstroke. The way she painted the light hitting my face. The warmth in the colors she chose. The softness in an expression I didn’t even know I was capable of.
She loved me.
She loved me.
And she still left.
That’s when I see the letter.
It’s propped against the base of the easel, my name written across the envelope in her careful handwriting.
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Chapter 103
Alaric
My hands are shaking again as 1 pick it th
And I read.
brk the seal, unfold the paper.
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I skip to the part that matters. The part that’s going to destroy me.
I’ve tried to reconcile these two truths: that you’re the man I love, and that you’re the man who killed the person I loved first. I’ve tried to find a way to forgive you, to move past it, to build a future on the ruins of my past.
I can’t.
Her father.
This is about her fucking father.
The Imperial Pack’s honorary man.
‘The bond makes it worse, not better. Every time you touch me, every time you look at me like I’m your entire world, every time you build me art studios and promise me forever–it just reminds me that I should hate you. That any daughter worth her salt would choose justice over love.
No. No, she doesn’t understand. He was–I didn’t-
So I’m choosing.
The words blur.
I’m sorry I’m not strong enough to face you. Sorry I’m not brave enough to say this to your face. Sorry I’m taking the coward’s way out.
But I think, maybe, we’re both better off this way.
Bullshit. Bullshit.
You’ll move on. Find someone worthy of being your queen. Someone who can love you without reservation, without grief, without the ghost of her father standing between you.
I’ll never move on. There’s no one else. There’s only ever been her.
And I’ll be free.
Free from the impossible choice. Free from loving my father’s killer. Free from myself.
My hands crumple the edges of the letter.
This isn’t your fault. You were being a king. I’m just a girl who couldn’t handle the cost.
It’s my fault. It’s entirely my fucking fault because I killed him. I gave the order. I watched him die. And I’d do it again because he was a traitor, but-
But she loved him.
And now she’s gone.
Thank you for the art studio. For the vacation. For loving me the way you
did.
I’m sorry I couldn’t love you back the same way.
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Liar The word tears out of me. “You’re a fucking liar.”
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Because that painting–that portrait she made of me–that’s love That’s the kind of love that sees through monsters to the man underneath. The kind of love I’ve been searching for my cire goddamn life.
And she walked away from it.
I’m sorry I’m not enough.
I’m sorry.
Sorin
The letter falls from my hands.
And something inside me breaks.
I grab the nearest canvas–a landscape, beautiful, hours of work and I hurl it against the wall. It shatters, frame splintering, canvas tearing.
Another painting. Another. Another.
I’m destroying everything, ripping through the room like a hurricane, tearing down her work, smashing frames, shredding
canvas.
rearing it.
Every painting is a memory. Every brushstroke is a piece of her. And I can’t stand it. Can’t stand the proof that she was here, that she existed here, and then chose to leave.
I flip easels. Kick over paint cans. Tear down the curtains I had specially made.
The destruction is loud, violent, deeply personal.
But I can’t touch two things.
The portrait of me, still standing on its easel, watching with those soft eyes..
And the letter, lying on the floor where I dropped it.
Because destroying those would be admitting she’s really gone.
And I’m not ready for that.
I’m not fucking ready.
I end up on the floor, surrounded by ruins, chest heaving, hands bloody from where I punched through a frame.
The sunlight still pours through the windows, indifferent to my breakdown.
And I’m still alone.
That’s when I hear footsteps.
Running. Urgent.
Someone bursts through the door–one of my warriors, young, terrified of interrupting but clearly desperate to deliver
news.
“Your Majesty!” He’s breathless, eyes wide. “We found her! We found the Queen!”
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Everything stops.
My heart. My breath. The entire fucking world.
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I’m on my feet before he finishes the sentence, crossing the distance between us, grabbing his shoulders. “Where? Where is she?
At the base of the cliffs. The castern cliffs. Your Majesty, she-
Take me there. Now.”
Your Majesty, wait-“His face does something complicated. Something that makes my stomach drop. “There’s… there’s something you need to know–”
“I don’t need to know anything except where she is.” I’m already moving, already pulling him toward the door. “Let’s go. Now
“But Your Majesty-“He’s resisting, and that alone should tell me something’s wrong. “It’s… it’s Her Majesty’s…it’s a body.”
I freeze.
“What?”
The warrior swallows hard, and I can smell his fear.
A
“We found Her Majesty’s body at the base of the cliffs. She–Your Majesty, the Queen is dead.”
The world doesn’t end.
It should.
It fucking should.
But it doesn’t.
It just keeps spinning, indifferent to the fact that mine just stopped.
AD