Chapter 172: Orion's Final Message

Kaelen's POV

Lucian paced the length of my destroyed office, stepping over shattered furniture like it was just another Tuesday. His mind was working, I could see it in the way his fingers drummed against his thigh, the way his eyes tracked patterns only he could see.

"Vespera loves you, doesn't she?" he said finally, stopping by what used to be my desk. "If everything she's done is about possessing you, then we can use that. Use her feelings against—"

The words detonated something inside me.

My Alpha presence exploded outward like a shockwave, slamming into Lucian hard enough to drive him back two steps. The remaining glass in the windows cracked. The air itself seemed to compress under the weight of my fury.

"What the fuck did you just say?" My voice came out wrong, too low, too dangerous. "You want me to do what exactly? Fuck the woman who might have helped murder my Gamma while my mate—my mate—is in Damien's hands? Is that your brilliant fucking plan?"

Lucian's face went pale but he held his ground. Barely. "I'm not saying you have to actually—"

"What am I to you?" I stepped forward, my wolf clawing at my skin, demanding blood. "Some kind of whore you can just pimp out to get information? You want me to seduce the traitor while Sera's being tortured? While she's scared and alone and thinking I abandoned her?"

"Kaelen, I didn't mean—"

"Get the fuck out of my sight."

"Wait, just listen—"

"NOW!"

The command hit him like a physical blow. His knees buckled slightly before he caught himself, his wolf forced into submission by the raw dominance pouring off me. For a second I thought he might actually shift, might challenge me right here in this office over my dead Gamma's body.

But he didn't. He just stood there, breathing hard, his eyes blazing with an anger that almost matched mine.

"You're not thinking clearly," he said quietly. Carefully. "I was just suggesting we use psychology, manipulation, not—"

"I said get out."

The door burst open.

Cordelia stumbled in, her lab coat half-buttoned, her hair a disaster, her eyes wild with something that looked like panic and excitement mixed together in equal measure.

"Kaelen, Lucian, Orion's body—" She stopped, caught the tension crackling between us like electricity. "Did I interrupt something?"

"No," Lucian said flatly.

"Yes," I snarled at the same time.

She looked between us, seemed to decide she didn't have time for pack politics right now. Smart woman. "Orion's death. It's not what we thought. It's not simple. There's something wrong, something—"

I grabbed her shoulders maybe too hard. "What do you mean wrong?"

"I was examining him. Preparing his body for the pyre." Her voice cracked slightly. "I found something. Multiple somethings. Evidence that changes everything."

Lucian moved closer, the argument forgotten for now. "What kind of evidence?"

Cordelia pulled out of my grip, started rifling through the bag she'd brought. "First, look at this." She held up a small vial of blood. "I was washing him, trying to make him presentable for the ceremony, and I found an injection site on his side. Recent. So I drew blood to test."

"And?" My heart was pounding.

"Sedatives. The kind that would drop even an Alpha in seconds."

Lucian frowned. "Why would Damien need sedatives to kill Orion? That doesn't make sense. Damien's stronger, faster. He could have just—"

"Exactly." Cordelia's eyes were bright with the kind of manic energy she got when she was onto something. "It doesn't make sense if Damien killed him in a fair fight. But if someone wanted to incapacitate Orion first, make sure he couldn't fight back..."

"The sedatives were for Sera," Lucian said slowly. "We found the empty syringe near her. But there was more than one dose."

My wolf exploded inside my chest, howling for blood. "That fucking traitor. She set him up. She—"

"There's more," Cordelia interrupted. She pulled out another vial, this one containing what looked like tissue samples. "I found blood on Orion's teeth. Fresh blood. Not his."

"Before the sedatives fully kicked in, yes. He must have fought back, managed to get his teeth into them before he lost consciousness."

The rage that swept through me was like nothing I'd ever felt. Pure. Absolute. The kind of fury that could level cities and salt the earth behind them.

Orion had known. In those final moments before the drugs took him under, he'd known someone he trusted had turned on him. And he'd fought back. Left us a message written in the traitor's blood.

For Kaelen, Damien had carved into his back. But Orion's final act was a message too: Find them. Make them pay.

I was moving before I consciously decided to move, heading for the door with Cordelia and Lucian scrambling to follow.

"Kaelen, wait—"

The guards in the corridor took one look at my face and flattened themselves against the walls. Smart. Anyone standing in my way right now would get ripped apart.

My wolf was howling, demanding justice for Orion, demanding blood for blood. The Alpha presence rolling off me in waves made pack members literally stumble as we passed. Someone whimpered. Someone else's coffee cup shattered on the floor, their hands shaking too hard to hold it.

I didn't care. Didn't slow down. Just kept walking with my Beta and Gamma behind me, their footsteps echoing in the suddenly silent halls.

"Kaelen," Lucian tried again, his voice low and urgent. "You need to think about this. We can't just—"

"She betrayed us." The words came out clipped, precise, each one sharp enough to cut. "She helped murder Orion. She sold out Sera. And now she's lying in a hospital bed playing victim while my mate is in Damien's hands."

"I know, but protocol demands—"

"Fuck protocol." I felt my nails lengthen, felt my wolf pressing against my skin, wanting out, wanting to tear and rend and destroy. "She used his trust against him. Made him think she was harmless while she stuck a needle in his side and waited for him to fall."

The medical wing doors loomed ahead. Behind them, a traitor waited. A woman who'd betrayed everything, destroyed everyone, all for what? Love? Jealousy? The pathetic dream that if she eliminated the competition, I'd somehow want her?

My hand closed around the door handle. The metal groaned under my grip, starting to bend.

"Last chance," Lucian said quietly. "We can do this the right way. By the book. Make it official."

I looked at him, then at Cordelia, then at the door between me and the woman who'd killed my Gamma.

"The right way?" I asked. "The right way got Orion killed. Got Sera taken. The right way means following rules and protocols while our enemies laugh at us."

I shoved the door open hard enough to slam it against the wall.

"Fuck the right way. We're doing this mine."

The private room beyond was dimly lit, quiet, sterile. And there on the bed, wrapped in blankets and hooked up to monitors, was Vespera.

She looked small. Fragile. Her face was pale, bruised, exactly what you'd expect from someone who'd barely survived an attack.

Except her eyes. When they met mine, there was something in them that wasn't quite fear. Something that looked almost like...anticipation.

Like she'd been waiting for this.

Like she wanted me to come.

"Kaelen, you're back?" Her voice was soft, uncertain. Perfect. "What's wrong? Did something—"

I crossed the room in three strides, grabbed her by the throat, and hauled her off the bed like she weighed nothing.

"You lying bitch."

The words came out between clenched teeth as my Alpha presence exploded outward, filling the room like a physical force. The monitors shrieked warnings. The lights flickered. Behind me, I heard Lucian gasp, heard Cordelia's sharp intake of breath as the sheer pressure of my rage drove them both back a step.

Vespera's eyes went wide. Her hands scrabbled at my wrist, her feet kicking uselessly in the air.

And finally—finally—I saw real fear on her face.

"You killed him," I snarled. "You traitor."