Chapter 10: Starting to Unravel

The palace has seen many mornings drenched in tension, different kinds stemmed from impending wars and someone’s wrongdoing and mistake that have directly or indirectly angered the king, but today it feels different, quieter somehow, as though even the walls are holding their breath because their usually ‘loud’ King has not made a single peep today, and it has everyone in the palace on edge than even the usual.

He stands in the center of his study, his hands braced against the table where maps and parchment lie scattered, his eyes darting back and forth between the writings. Ink marks paths of strategy, planned ambush routes, enemy movement predictions, defensive counters…

It’s only unfortunate that for hours that he’s been at it, none of it makes sense to him this morning.

Not when his thoughts keep dragging him back to her.

He exhales slowly, the sound tight and irritated at himself mostly. “This is ridiculous.”

His wolf huffs inside him, amused, smug, unbearably loud.

You’re distracted.

“I am not,” Hunter mutters trying to salvage the situation.

You are. Her smell is enough to make a man mad…

He ignores him, but the creature presses on, tail clearly wagging in satisfaction.

You should’ve followed her when she ran.

“I had no reason to.”

You did. You had every single reason to… even if you wanted to have her head cut off, you had a valid excuse to do that. I mean, what brazen woman crawls into the King’s chamber like that and then passes right out? Good thing you didn’t let her sleep in the bed with you…

Hunter presses his fingers harder into the table, jaw clenching at his own subconscious’s sarcasm.

His mind flashes back to the moment sunlight crept into his room this morning and he’d turned in the recliner that he’d spent his own night in and she’d been sleeping in the bed, looking peaceful and serene so much that she looked like the complete opposite of everything he stands for.

He knows that if he makes the trip back to his room right now, the air might still be carrying the softest trace of her scent… that irresistible scent that wafts just around her and even when she’s not there, only seems to get worse.

He hadn’t expected the faint twist in his chest when she’d ran from him earlier or the sudden urge to go after her.

He certainly hadn’t expected to listen when his wolf murmured…

Let her go. Not yet.

So he had stayed.

And now here he is, trying to read strategy lines he’s read a dozen times, unable to focus on even a single one.

He drags a hand through his hair.

Everything about yesterday gnaws at him like a persistent itch in his back that he can’t reach no matter how hard and long he stretches his hands and claws alike.

While trying to get himself to stop thinking about her, trying to focus on the previous day’s events, he finds his mind travelling back to the moment that racy, nauseatingly sweet-scented letter had entered the hall while their meeting had been ongoing, half the warriors had gone feral, snarling over the damn thing like rabid pups.

If he hadn’t immediately torn it apart and burned it, someone would’ve ended up maimed.

And the girl, the one who he had been told had delivered it, he’d ordered her to be detained immediately. Thanks to that, he had been able to restore some modicum of order in the hall. He hadn’t expected to walk in later and find Jon practically on top of her like a starving dog.

His wolf snarls at the memory, a sharp, territorial snap that Hunter forces down.

“It’s over,” he mutters. “She’s gone.”

After many more failed attempts at reading the plans and failing at it, he straightens, grip tightening. He doesn’t need this right now. He has no time for women in general, especially strange ones who collapse on him, glow under moonlight, and slip into his room like cool night breezes.

Who smell like something he can’t name.

He shoves that thought away with force.

He focuses back on the map.

Or, would be better to say he tries to.

His eyes trace over the ambush route sketched in thick ink. Last night’s urgent meeting should have left him with a clear head and a solid plan for the next attack wave. Instead, all he can remember of that meeting is the chaos of the damn pink-letter scent and the moment his wolf had gone silent, completely quiet but very present right before the girl had passed out right above him.

Hunter grits his teeth.

He doesn’t want to think about any of that.

But he doesn’t have a choice.

Not when his mind keeps replaying the moment she’d touched him.

The way the burning in his body had eased… vanished… as though she were made of ice and balm.

The way her soft exhale had brushed his throat, how easily she’d slipped under his skin, how she’d managed to strip him of every logical thought in his head as he’d gripped her wrist, how his whole body had reacted in the dark to her very wide, scared eyes.

He scowls and pushes away from the table, giving up and unable to stand still anymore. “I’m done with this.”

He barely hears the door open.

“Your Majesty...”

Hunter doesn’t respond, doesn’t even blink in response because he’s too busy hatching things out with himself to hear anything...

A moment passes.

Then, a firm poke lands on his arm.

Hunter snaps upright, turns on his heel prepared to attack, reflexes.

Startled…

He’d been startled…!

He turns sharply, eyes narrowing at the elderly man standing beside him. Long white hair, almost silvery, falls past his shoulders and some packed behind his head in a regal look of authority, and the lines on his face deepen with amusement as he watches Hunter recover his composure.

“Lord Falcen…” Hunter sighs with relief, as he brings down his clawed fingers that are only a few meters from causing some mortal damage to the man’s being.

“That,” the old wolf says with a chuckle, “is the first time in thirty years I’ve managed to sneak up on you.”

Hunter exhales, annoyed with himself. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“That much is obvious,” the man replies, eyes twinkling. “And I wonder why that is…”

Hunter shoots him a glare, but the man only lifts a brow. “You’ve been staring at that map for over an hour so I heard, and haven’t turned a page.”

“It’s complicated.”

“No,” the elder says simply. “You’re very obviously distracted.”

Hunter stiffens.

The man smiles knowingly, hands clasped behind his back. “I always knew the day would come. The day your mind finally wandered to places beyond duty and war. To… people.”

Hunter bristles. “There are no ‘people.’ Nothing is wandering.”

Liar, his wolf purrs.

Hunter grinds his teeth. “What do you want?”

The elder’s expression softens, turning more serious as he steps closer. “I came because I have something for you, Hunter.”

Now, he’s not the King to him, he never really took him as one anyway but more like a son after the circumstances required same.

“I don’t need anything.”

“You do,” the man counters gently. “Or rather, you deserve to know.”

Hunter frowns as the old wolf reaches into his heavy cloak and pulls out a sealed wooden box. It is made out of Dark oak wood, polished and shiny but shows to still be a little bit worn with age.

“This,” the elder says, setting it on the table with a small thunk, “was left by your father, King Damon.”

Hunter doesn’t move and neither does he speak but he stares at the box until he memorizes how many lines are between the hinges.

The old wolf continues, “He instructed that it be given to you on this exact day, this exact year.”

A chill rolls down Hunter’s spine as he finally looks up from the mystery thing. “Why?”

“Because,” the elder says, his voice dipping low, “your father knew you would need it now. He planned meticulously for this moment after his attempts at doing the right thing all fell into nothing, when he knew it would eventually fall on your shoulders to do the right thing for him.”

Hunter stares at the box again, unease tightening his shoulders. “He barely looked at me growing up. What could he possibly have planned for?”

The elder sighs. “Your father was not an easy man, Hunter. But he was not blind. He knew what he had done. And he knew what you would face and facing you would only intensify his guilt… He was a flawed man, but he did most of what he did out of his devotion to you and your mother.”

His mother… Dahlia Axton. He does not even remember what she looks like anymore because it’s been so long since she’d died. He’d just woken up one morning and she was just gone and his father started acting like he didn’t exist, always out being busy. When not fighting wars, he’d be by her graveyard or be busy doing some other secretive things… he’d been doing everything except checking up on how his own son had been growing.

Hunter’s fingers twitch, but he doesn’t reach for the box. “What are you talking about?”

The elder meets his gaze, solemn and unflinching.

“Eighteen years ago,” the old wolf begins, “your father did something he should not have…”

And the words hang there, heavy, dark and suspended in the air like a storm about to break.