Chapter 42

Chapter 42
Kael

The Summit grounds were a battlefield dressed in velvet. I hated it.

Banners flew from the towering spires, each one bearing the sigil of a pack, a territory, a kingdom. Wolves and nobles in fine clothes filled the courtyards and polished halls, posturing and preening like birds of prey. Smiles were sharp. Eyes sharper. The true wolves.

Lies hidden behind stealthy negotiations. This wasn’t peace.

It was war by other means.

I stood near the head of the grand entrance, Dax at my side, my posture loose but my senses razor-sharp. Every laugh, every handshake, every lingering glance—it all carried hidden blades.

Alphas who once bent the knee now barely bowed their heads. New powers tested their weight, murmuring behind closed doors. And over all of it, the Council watched like carrion birds waiting for the first sign of weakness. Waiting for me to show them my neck.

The scent of ambition was thick in the air. It reeked of desperation.

We moved carefully through the throng, greeting those we needed to, planting the seeds Dax and I had spent the last few days cultivating. Plans for reform. Redistribution of pack resources. Opening new trade alliances. Reinvesting in the borders neglected for too long. Balance of power.

Real change.

But every smile I offered felt brittle. Every word tasted like iron.

Because under it all, there was something else clawing at my senses.

Her.

I could feel Aria like a heartbeat under my skin. Like a song half-remembered but impossible to forget.

It made everything sharper, edgier.

Twice now I thought I saw her in the crowd—once by the fountain where diplomats from the southern packs gathered, and again near the outer courtyard. A flash of onyx hair. A laugh that made my bond sing.

Both times, when I pushed through the throng, she was gone. Or she was never there?

A trick of the mind, I told myself. Maybe I was trying to see her everywhere.

But my wolf didn’t believe it. She's here. He told me

My wolf paced just under the surface, restless, ears flat, eyes sharp. He tasted the air like he could catch her scent beneath the cloying perfumes and oiled leathers of the summit attendees.

"Patience," Dax murmured beside me, sensing my fraying control. "She’s coming."

I clenched my jaw, dragging a hand through my hair. "She’s already here," I muttered under my breath.

He shot me a look. "You're sure?"

I nodded once, the certainty a stone in my chest. "I can feel her. She's close."

He pressed his mouth into a hard line. "I'll look into it. Quietly. If she's here... we need to be ready."

I didn’t answer.

Because my mind was already racing ahead.

What would I say when we found her? What could I possibly offer to erase what I'd done? What I'd broken?

The bond pulsed faintly at the edge of my awareness, tender and bruised but still alive. Like the bond itself was holding on, hoping.

But hope was a dangerous thing. And yet, here it was, blooming stubbornly inside my chest.

A sudden movement caught my eye across the courtyard—a glimmer of silver disappearing into the shadowed archway of the east wing.

Without thinking, I moved.

Pushing past nobles and guards, ignoring the startled looks, the hissed whispers.

I reached the archway, heart pounding in my ears.

Empty.

Nothing but stone and shadow.

A low growl rumbled in my chest before I forced it down.

Soon, my wolf whispered.

I closed my eyes for a moment, steadying myself.

Soon.

But not yet.

I turned back toward Dax, who was already making his way to me, a warning glint in his eye.

The summit was just beginning.

And the wolves were already circling.

As we made our way back into the crush of bodies, an Alpha from the northern territories intercepted me. His name was Varin, a man with a voice like honey and a heart like a viper’s nest.

"You look thinner, Kael," he said with a polished smile. "The burdens of the crown?"

"I carry what needs carrying," I replied evenly.

He chuckled, the sound grating against my nerves. "Some say you carry the weight of regret too."

Beside me, Dax stiffened.

I smiled thinly. "Regret makes for poor strategy, Varin. Action wins wars. Not whispers."

Varin inclined his head mockingly. "We'll see at the ball, won't we? Best foot forward, my King."

He drifted away like smoke.

I barely had time to grind my teeth before another approached, Lady Mairead, a wolfess with eyes sharp enough to gut a man.

"I heard," she said smoothly, "that you're considering reforms. Redistribution. Dangerous talk. It might inspire the wrong kind of loyalty."

"If loyalty wavers at the promise of fairness," I said, "then it was never loyalty at all."

Her lip curled in a ghost of a smile. "Careful, Your Majesty. Empires have fallen for less."

Dax growled low beside me. I placed my hand on his chest and gave her a wicked grin. "And heads have fallen for lesser threats."

She paled but didn't respond before she scurried of to whatever dark corner she emerged from.

One after another, they came.

Smiling. Scheming. Measuring. Wanting to know if the rumours were true. Some were hopeful, some were judging me.

And all the while, the pulse of the bond throbbed in my chest, a silent drumbeat leading me somewhere I couldn’t yet see.
When we finally managed to pull away to the relative quiet of the strategy room we’d claimed as our own, Dax leaned in.

"I caught a trace of something," he murmured low. "Near the east wing gardens."

I turned sharply. "What?" My heart was beating faster now. Had he found her?

"A glamour," he said grimly. "Faint. Almost hidden under layers of scent masks and spells. But it was there."

My pulse kicked.

"She’s here," I said again, voice rough. "I knew it."

Dax met my gaze. "And I think she's watching."

A cold shiver ran through me, not from fear.

From hope.

The wolves were at the door.

But so was she.

And the world was about to change.