Chapter 73: The Alpha’s Reckoning

Chapter 73: The Alpha’s Reckoning

Kael’s POV

The war council chamber smelled of smoke, sweat, and old blood. The kind of scent that clung to walls after too many battles, too many deaths.

Maps covered the long oak table before us, marked with claw-gouged lines and black stones that represented Derek’s patrols. Red stones for ours. Too few. Always too few.

Torches burned along the walls, shadows crawling over the faces of my wolves. My lieutenants. My family. They sat tense, waiting for me to speak. But my gaze wasn’t on them.

It was on the fire in the hearth.

And in the fire, I saw her.

Fianna. Chains cutting her wrists, her silver eyes dimming as Derek’s poison sank deeper. My wolf snarled inside me, restless, his fury battering against the walls of my control.

Mate. She suffers. We should be there. We should tear them apart now.

I pressed a hand flat against the map to ground myself. The wood cracked under my claws. “We strike soon.”

The words dropped heavy into the chamber, sparking murmurs.

Ronan, my Beta, leaned forward, voice steady but laced with caution. “We don’t have enough numbers yet. Derek’s doubled his patrols. He knows you’ll come for her. If we rush in without a plan, we’ll lose half the pack before we reach the gates.”

My head snapped toward him, eyes glowing. “Every moment we wait, he has her. Do you understand what that means?”

The room stilled. Wolves lowered their eyes. No one moved.

Ronan held my gaze, though his throat bobbed with the weight of what he wasn’t saying. “I understand, Alpha. But if you fall into his trap, if he breaks you—then we all fall. She falls.”

His words were a blade twisted in my chest. Logic. Cold, merciless logic.

I closed my eyes briefly. In the dark, I heard her voice.

“You made me your enemy.”

It cut deeper than Derek’s claws ever could.

I’d told myself I was protecting her once. That pushing her away was the only way to keep her safe from the war between us. But what had it brought her? Chains. Whispers of torment. Derek’s shadow breathing down her neck.

I couldn’t bear the thought of his hands on her.

My wolf snarled, tearing at me. He touches her. He breaks her. And we sit here? Useless?

No. Not useless. Not anymore.

I leaned over the table, my claws tracing across the map. “We won’t wait. But we won’t walk into his jaws blind, either. Derek thinks fear will freeze us. Instead, we’ll use it against him.”

Murmurs broke out again. Plans sparked—diversion strikes to draw his patrols away, hidden routes through the old border paths, the possibility of burning his supplies before the real fight.

But my mind wasn’t on strategy. Not fully.

It was on her.

I remembered her laugh—soft, unguarded, rare as sunrise in winter. I remembered the fire in her eyes when she stood against me, even when broken. Fianna had always been both—light and fire, gentleness and fury.

And I’d thrown it away once.

I wouldn’t again.

I straightened, sweeping my gaze across the council. “Derek believes he’s already won. That she’s his weapon. He thinks he can break her and use her against us. But I know her better than he ever will.”

My voice dropped, low and steady, carrying the weight of absolute truth. “Fianna does not break.”

The chamber shook with the growls of my wolves, their belief in my words surging like a tide. My wolf howled inside me, proud, fierce, demanding blood.

But the fury inside me wasn’t only Derek’s to blame. It was mine.

I had failed her once. Failed to see that my cruelty—my distance—wasn’t protection but destruction. I had made her enemy when she should have been the one I shielded most.

And now I would undo that mistake with blood if I had to.

I shoved the table aside, maps scattering across the floor. The wood cracked against the stone wall with a thunderous bang. My wolves rose instantly, hearts pounding in rhythm with mine.

“At dawn,” I said, my voice thick with the growl of my wolf. “We move.”

Ronan stiffened. “Dawn? Alpha—”

“Dawn,” I repeated, power rolling off me in a wave. My wolf’s dominance filled the chamber, pressing down until no one dared speak again. “Every hour we wait is another Derek steals from her. We won’t wait anymore.”

Howls erupted in answer, shaking the chamber walls. My pack slammed fists and claws to the table, their bloodlust burning hot and ready.

I stood among them, their Alpha, their weapon. But inside, I was something more raw.

A wolf clawing at the edges of my skin, desperate to reach his mate.

Not the war.
Not the throne.
Not even vengeance.

Her.

Fianna.

The firelight flickered across the shattered map at my feet, flames crawling over Derek’s territory like a promise written in ash.

He thought he could take her from me.

At dawn, he would learn just how wrong he was.

And when I reached her—when I tore the chains from her wrists and burned Derek’s kingdom to the ground—I would show her the truth.

Not the monster I had been.

But the wolf who would tear down the world itself to bring her home.