"Leave."
Erald’s voice echoed through the study. Her chest heaved, not with fear, but fury.
The Rogue King didn’t flinch. His eyes... those dark gold eyes that looked like they could see into her soul, didn’t even flicker. He just stood there like he’d expected her resistance... like he’d been waiting centuries for this exact mont.
"No," he said softly.
"I wasn’t asking," she took a step toward him, her eyes fierce. "You don’t get to show up out of nowhere, kiss without consent, claim as your mate, then invade my mind like so cursed oracle. Get out."
"Erald," he said, slowly, as if trying to be gentle with a wild creature. "You don’t understand..."
"I said leave," she snapped, louder now. Her aura flared out, flooding the room with pressure. Her power surged high, the way only an Alpha’s could, and the atmosphere felt electric.
He didn’t move at first. Just looked at her like he was morising every part of her, burning her into mory.
Then slowly, he nodded. "I’ll leave."
Her shoulders relaxed a fraction.
"But I’ll be back for you," he added, eyes locked on hers. "Soon."
And then he turned and walked out of the study without another word.
Erald didn’t exhale until he was out of the study. The mont the door closed behind him, she turned sharply to Darius. "Well?" she barked. "Are you seriously not going to say sothing?"
Darius’s arms were folded, but his shoulders were tense. "It’s complicated."
"That’s not an answer," she said, pointing to the now-empty doorway. "That’s the Rogue King. A walking myth in the flesh, a man with powers that made even you freeze.
"That’s a man who just waltzed into the pack estate without alarming anyone, and called his mate. He sohow read my mind. And you knew him. You recognised him. So no... ’complicated’ doesn’t cut it."
He looked at her then, eyes heavy with sothing she couldn’t place. Regret? Guilt? Fear?
She didn’t care.
"Whatever it is you’re hiding, you’d better hope it doesn’t co back to bite this pack."
Silence fell again between them.
So Erald did what she always did when things spiralled: she refocused.
The assassin. The body. The unanswered questions.
"The body," she said after a mont. "Let’s start with that. The assassin. How did this happen?"
Darius’s jaw clenched. "We’re still trying to figure that out."
"He was locked in our dungeons," she snapped. "Double patrols. Bound in silver. And now he’s rotting in my garden like a forgotten al. How, Darius?"
He t her gaze then, more Alpha than uncle. "Soone wanted him silenced."
She exhaled sharply, pacing. "So you’re saying soone broke him out... just to kill him?"
"It’s not a theory," he said. "It’s a ssage. Clean and quick; no evidence. They didn’t want him talking, Erald."
Erald sat back hard, the chair creaking under her weight. "So soone helped him escape... only to silence him before he could speak."
"Soone close," Darius added darkly. "Soone who had access to the cells and knew the rotation schedule. We’ll review the patrol logs again. See who had clearance."
Erald closed her eyes for a mont, her mind spinning. Her body still humd from everything: the Rogue King, the kiss, the bond, the corpse.
All of it.
A pause stretched.
Then softly. "There’s sothing else."
Darius looked up.
"The night I was attacked... Hours before the attack, I saw Counciln Heron and rek whispering in the halls. They were acting strangely. You said not all of them supported my title, as Alpha. You think any of them would...?"
Darius frowned. "Why didn’t you ntion this before?"
Erald hesitated as Lucian’s face flickered in her mind. But she didn’t speak his na.
"I had a lot on my mind," she said instead. "I didn’t want to accuse anyone without proof."
Darius studied her for a beat, then nodded. "I’ll have them both interrogated. In the anti, we’ll run a full analysis on the assassin’s body. If the wounds don’t match rogue kills, we’ll know he didn’t die naturally."
"Unless the killer was thorough."
"We’ll still find sothing," he assured her.
Erald stood, brushing off her pants and walking toward the door. Her hand hovered at the knob, but she didn’t turn it.
She didn’t turn when she spoke. "I know you’re not telling everything about him," she said quietly. "The Rogue King. You knew who he was the mont you saw him. And you froze. I don’t know what it is or why... but I will find out. One way or another."
Darius’s face was unreadable. "Erald—"
But she didn’t wait for the rest.
She walked out.
—
Back in her room, Erald couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned, but sleep eluded her. She lay on her back, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
Her thoughts circled like vultures. Adrien, Lucian, Kieran... and now him. The Rogue King.
"You can’t make this shit up," she muttered aloud.
Viola stirred. "I’ve never felt anything like that aura. It... rattled ."
"Good," Erald whispered. "At least it’s not just ."
"But you felt it too, didn’t you?" Viola asked, more gently now. "That bond? It was real."
Erald pressed a hand to her chest. "Too real."
"And familiar," her wolf added. "Like we’ve felt his power before. Maybe in a dream... maybe in blood."
Erald didn’t reply. She didn’t know how to.
Instead, she got up, threw on a robe, and left her room, padding down the hall barefoot.
She needed answers.
Her father’s old personal study was dark but not unfamiliar. She put on the light and closed the door behind her.
She didn’t know exactly what she was looking for, only that sothing inside her scread there was more—sothing she had missed.
She moved along the bookshelves, fingers trailing across old spines. Dust clung to her fingertips.
Nothing.
She moved to the desk. Opened drawers. Scanned files. Old maps. Nothing unusual.
Then, as she turned toward the bookshelf, her shoulder knocked against a fra.
A large, dust-covered photo of her father—Alpha Vale. His strong arms around her when she was barely five.
The impact knocked it off the wall.
"Shit," she muttered, kneeling to pick it up.
But sothing had fallen from behind it: a folded piece of parchnt, aged and sealed with wax.
Erald reached for it, her fingers brushing the edge. But before she could unfold it, she heard the sound of footsteps.
Then the sharp, unmistakable click of the study door opening.
Erald tensed, her wolf rising in alarm.
She barely had ti to react before the door creaked open fully.
She froze.
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