Chapter 41 MALPHA'S SON
XAVIER'S POV
The silence in the room was suffocating, a heavy velvet shroud that seemed to press against my skin.
I didn't move from the edge of the bed. My hand, still stained with the drying copper of my own blood and hers, remained fixed on the curve of Avrielle’s cheek. Her skin felt too cool, a haunting contrast to the fire that usually burned behind her eyes.
Watching her like this—still, silent, broken by the very weight of the truth she had tried to carry—felt like a slow-acting poison in my veins.
I had spent my life as a king who calculated every move three steps ahead, but as I traced the line of her jaw, I realized I hadn't accounted for the cost of her soul. I had used her. I had watched her run herself into the ground, crossing borders and facing rogues, all to prove an innocence that I already knew was a fractured lie.
A soft, rhythmic knock at the door broke the trance. I didn't need to look up to know who it was. His scent preceded him.
"Enter," I said, my voice barely more than a low vibration.
Kaiden stepped into the room, his footsteps muffled by the thick rug. He stopped a respectful distance away, his eyes lingering on Avrielle for a fraction of a second before they moved to the ruined state of my hand. He didn't comment on the blood. He knew better.
He simply bowed his head, a gesture of absolute loyalty that felt heavy in the quiet room.
"Alpha," he greeted, his voice steady but carrying the weight of the information he held.
"Report," I commanded, my thumb tracing a slow circle over Avrielle’s temple. I didn't turn to face him. I couldn't pull my eyes away from her. If I looked away, I was afraid she might simply vanish into a ghost of the woman I had pushed too far.
"Fill me in on every detail. Don't leave a single stone unturned. I want to know exactly how deep the rot goes."
Kaiden cleared his throat, the sound of ruffling papers filling the space.
"It’s as we suspected, but more organized than we gave them credit for. The ambush three weeks ago—the one on the forest road when you were returning from Julian’s naming ceremony—it wasn't a random act of rogue aggression. We’ve managed to track the survivors and the gear left behind."
He paused, and I felt the air in the room grow colder.
"The wolves and the vampires involved were elite mercenaries," Kaiden continued. "The entire operation was orchestrated by Malphas. Every move was calculated to pin you down and separate you from the pack. But Malphas wasn't on the ground. He didn't need to be. He had a handler—someone within our own borders who knew your exact route, your timing, and the weakness of the carriage’s reinforcements."
I felt a dark, familiar spark of rage flicker in my gut. Malphas. The Alpha of the Iron Ridge pack, the man whose territory bled into the rogue lands, and my greatest rival. We had been locked in a cold war for a decade, a dance of weapons, claws and fangs that had cost too many lives. He was a man who traded in chaos, a wolf who saw the world as a chessboard of expendable pieces.
"And the handler?" I asked, my voice dropping to a dangerous, icy rasp.
"Adrian," Kaiden said. The name hung in the air like a death sentence. "He was put in charge of the logistics for the ambush. He provided the coordinates and ensured the guards on the eastern perimeter were rotated at the exact moment of your arrival. He wasn't the mastermind, Alpha. He doesn't have the stomach or the intellect for it. He was merely a pawn, a high-ranking soldier working under Malphas’s direct orders."
I didn't even feel my chest tighten anymore. The betrayal was so complete, so expected, that it felt like a dull ache I had learned to live with. I had taken Adrian in. I had given him a name, a place, and a life within the Northwood walls. And in return, he had handed my location to a man who wanted my head on a pike.
But as I looked at Avrielle—the woman who had almost died in that very ambush—the rage shifted. It wasn't just about the pack anymore. It was about her. Adrian had put her in the line of fire. He had watched her bleed and then had the audacity to let her beg for his life.
"He played his part well," I muttered, my fingers tightening slightly near her hair. "He played the fool while the Devil knocked at the door. I should have ended him years ago."
Kaiden shifted his weight, his silence signaling that the worst was yet to come. "That’s not all, Alpha. There’s one more thing. Something the enforcers uncovered from the encrypted logs the goldsmith unknowingly possessed. Information that changes the nature of Adrian's entire existence within this pack."
I finally turned my head, my eyes locking onto Kaiden’s. The look in his eyes wasn't just Alpha-spirited; it was genuinely unsettled.
"Speak," I said. "Whatever it is, say it."
Kaiden took a deep breath, his knuckles white as he gripped the folder in his hands. "Adrian is actually not an orphan or a hopeless child as we have presumed for all these years. His history, his records—they were all a carefully constructed facade."
I felt a frown tugging at my brow, a sense of confusion piercing through the anger. "What?"
Kaiden took a step forward, his voice dropping to a whisper that felt like a scream in the quiet room.
"Adrian is actually Malphas's biological son."