Chapter 274 Headline – Aleksandr’s POV

Chapter 274 Headline – Aleksandr’s POV
Six hours. Amelia had barely moved except to curl deeper into my side, dark hair across my chest and breath warming the same patch of skin. The smart-tinting windows had dimmed to near-black, reducing dawn to something tolerable. Obsidian walls enclosed the quiet without making it peaceful.
My phone lit the darkness. Dominic’s updates arrived in clipped paragraphs, the work of a man who translated worry into procedure. Kitchen staff vetted. Palace exits reinforced. The cells cleaned and the obsidian restored to its proper gleam. Four bodies disposed of under protocols I had not written but had certainly inspired. Nothing ceremonial. Eastern cliffs at low tide. Efficient and final, because everyone involved understood that questions were beyond their remit.
I was three paragraphs into a report on corridor surveillance when an external alert arrived. I monitored several news sites because kings who ignored the press tended to discover rebellions fifteen minutes too late.
The headline set my teeth on edge before I finished reading it.
COUNCILLORS KANE AND BLACKTHORN: FULL STATEMENT ON RECENT EVENTS.
I opened it. The video loaded with the usual indignity of royal internet, fast by civilian standards and glacial by mine. When the stream resolved, two faces appeared with the solemnity of men who had rehearsed every pause.
Thaddeus Kane sat on the left, lean and angular behind wire-rimmed glasses positioned to catch the light. Victor Blackthorn sat beside him, silver threaded through auburn hair, his features arranged into the practised warmth of a man who could make bad news sound reasonable. Dark suits. Pale walls. No windows. The room could have been anywhere from the eastern border to the fucking moon.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the kingdom,” Kane began. His voice carried the measured precision of a man who treated public speaking as strategy rather than conversation. “We come before you today under circumstances none of us would have chosen.”
Skoll roused at the edge of our bond, too drained for fury but attentive enough to recognise Kane. His warning remained wordless and watchful.
“Recent events have shaken us all,” Kane continued. “The attempted poisoning of Queen Amelia at the royal gala represents a violation of traditions older than this kingdom itself. Regardless of one’s views on the Queen’s suitability, poisoning with the intent to induce miscarriage is deplorable. It violates every principle of werewolf honour and every standard that separates us from the basest elements of human society.”
A humourless laugh rose in my throat. I suppressed it before it disturbed Amelia.
Blackthorn leaned forward, radiating the earnest concern of a man who had spent centuries delivering bad news as though it were a favour. “We have learned, with considerable distress, that two of the individuals implicated in this heinous act carried the Kane surname. Percival and Seraphina Kane. Distant relations to Councillor Kane’s family line, individuals he has had no contact with in decades.”
Kane nodded with the disciplined economy he applied to every performance. “I had no knowledge of their actions. No communication. No involvement. The Kane name carries weight in this kingdom, built on centuries of service, and the actions of these two individuals represent a betrayal not merely of the crown but of that legacy.”
The denial was elegant. Kane had spent centuries positioning himself on whichever respectable side of public opinion best protected him. Traditionalists would accept the performance because he had shaped their language long before I was born.
Then came the pivot, smooth enough to masquerade as principle. Condemnation only mattered if it advanced the larger argument.
“However,” Blackthorn said, and the word landed with the weight of a door closing, “our concerns regarding Queen Amelia’s suitability remain unchanged. A wolfless queen — regardless of the circumstances of her adoption or marriage — represents a fundamental break with traditions that have sustained our species for millennia.”
My grip hardened around the phone. Wolfless. They knew otherwise. The council had been briefed after Amelia’s shift, had seen the evidence and heard Sylvia explain that her wolf had existed all along, trapped by a mechanism none of us understood. Kane and Blackthorn repeated the lie because a familiar lie was often more useful than an inconvenient fact.
Kane resumed in the academic register he used to make cruelty sound researched. He spoke of bloodline purity, traditional mating practices and the dangers of introducing what he carefully avoided calling defective genetics into the royal line. Each prejudice arrived disguised as established fact. Beneath the polished language sat the message he had pushed since I brought Amelia home: the poisoning was wrong, but her existence was the original offence.
I watched to the end. Kane and Blackthorn offered solemn bows before the feed cut, returning my reflection to the screen. Tension ached through my jaw. Skoll stayed focused on the silence they had left, while the phone creaked faintly in my grip.
Three sharp knocks sounded against the door moments after I set the phone down. Dominic’s rhythm. When I called him in, my beta entered with his attention already on the device in my hand.
“You’ve seen it,” he said. Not a question.
“I’ve seen it.”
He closed the door and checked Amelia, asleep against my side with the silver mating mark visible at her wrist. Concern crossed his features and vanished beneath professional focus.
“Damage assessment?” I asked.
“Significant.” Dominic kept his voice low. “The stream has been live for approximately forty minutes. Viewership is already in the tens of thousands and climbing. Traditionalist forums are treating it as vindication: condemn the method, affirm the message. The pro-Queen factions are...”
He paused and pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose, a rare lapse from a man who preferred strain processed into lists.
“They’re angry, my King. Very angry. I’ve already had three reports of altercations in the merchant quarter. Nothing serious yet. Shouting, mostly. A few thrown drinks. But Kane and Blackthorn just drew a very public line in the sand, and lines in sand tend to get crossed.”
The calculation was straightforward. Kane’s statement gave the anti-Amelia crowd moral cover: condemn the poisoning while claiming her unsuitability had caused the conflict. Her supporters would see through it, and both sides would answer provocation with escalation. Division was not a side effect. It was the objective.
“Increase security across the palace and city. Double rotations and put visible patrols in every quadrant, especially the merchant and harbour districts. If someone throws a drink, I want a guard there before the glass strikes the floor. If someone throws a punch, I want them contained before the crowd chooses a side.”
Dominic was already nodding. “The orders are drafted and will go out within the hour. I’m also expanding electronic surveillance on known agitators from both camps. If anyone plans something larger than a pub fight, we should see the preparation.”
“Good.” Exhaustion marked Dominic in the rigid set of his shoulders and the lines around his mouth. He had been awake since the gala and treated sleep as a lapse in vigilance. “Keep me informed. Hourly if circumstances change. I want warning before isolated incidents become unrest, not a report after the damage is done.”
He bowed and withdrew. The door latched softly behind him, leaving Amelia’s breathing and the dim light from the windows to reclaim the room.
I placed the phone face-down on the nightstand. News, councillors and the city’s arguments could wait a few minutes. Sylvia had ordered Amelia to rest, and the shadows beneath her eyes showed how much she still needed it.
I drew the slipped blanket back over her shoulder. My fingertips paused at the curve of her abdomen, finding warmth and presence rather than proof. She murmured something indistinct and settled again.
She was recovering. The pups were growing. For the moment, those facts required no embellishment.
Skoll kept watch at the edge of my thoughts. He had learned that walls and guards were not guarantees; Amelia’s uninterrupted breathing remained the only evidence he accepted.
I closed my eyes without mistaking stillness for peace. Kane would keep talking. Blackthorn would lend him civility. Supporters on both sides would turn language into action, and Dominic would spend the day trying to keep political theatre from becoming bloodshed.
I reopened Dominic’s report and read the details omitted from his summary. The broadcast had been mirrored across six major platforms within minutes, each copy captioned for a different audience. Traditionalist groups highlighted wolfless queen. Supporters paired Kane’s condemnation of the poisoning with evidence of his earlier attacks on Amelia. Neither side treated the statement as information. It had already become ammunition, cut into quotations easy enough to repeat across a crowded street.
Reports from the merchant quarter confirmed Dominic’s warning. Shopkeepers had begun closing early. Two pack offices requested additional guards. A public house near the river had thrown out both protest factions after an argument over the royal succession ended with broken furniture. No serious injuries yet, but unrest rarely announced the moment it became dangerous.
Kane understood that. He had chosen his timing carefully: after the poisoning, when sympathy for Amelia ran high but fear about the succession remained easy to stir. Condemning the attack protected him from appearing monstrous. Reviving the bloodline argument redirected public anxiety towards the woman who had nearly died. He was not defending tradition. He was converting trauma into leverage.
Our response required restraint. Arresting critics would validate every claim about royal tyranny. Ignoring the statement would let the lie harden. A rushed counter-broadcast would centre Kane and grant him the contest he wanted. Amelia would see other options when she woke. She understood ordinary people better than either of us because she had lived most of her life without the protection of rank.
Beside me, Amelia slept through the first hours of a fight she had not chosen. When she woke, I would tell her exactly what had been said and let her decide how the Queen answered.