Chapter 164 Sacred Threat
Chapter 179
He turned then. And the look on his face made me wish he hadn't.
"You call me disgraceful?" His voice was thick now, heavy with something between fury and amusement. "You, who hid your little secret in that back room and locked the door tight, thinking no one would notice?" He shook his head. "You think you are clever. You think the gods are blind." He pointed one long finger at the hallway. "You forgot. The gods whisper everything to me. Every. Single. Thing."
The floor seemed to tilt under my feet.
But I held my ground.
"Stop making things up," I said. My voice came out stronger than I felt. "There is no one in that room. I was sleeping. That is all."
"No one?" He repeated the words the way you repeat something a small child has said, slowly, like you cannot believe they actually said it. He took a step closer to me. "You think I am foolish, boy? I have been walking this earth longer than your father lived." His nostrils flared. "The moment you walked out of that room, the moment you came out here to argue with me, I smelled it. On your clothes. On your skin. That smell does not lie, Alpha Jax."
His eyes narrowed.
"The holy month is coming," he said, and now his voice dropped so low I had to lean forward to catch it. "You know what that means. You know what the old laws say. And you are bringing someone into your bed , into the king's bed, right now? At this time?" He shook his head like he was watching something sad unfold. "What if the gods decide to visit early? What then? What do you tell them when they find that in your room?"
Something inside me snapped.
I threw my arms out wide.
"And what gives you the right to walk into my quarters and sniff around like a hunting dog?" I shouted. My voice cracked the silence in the room. "When did that become something you are allowed to do? Look at me , look at who you are speaking to , I am not some frightened young omega you can push around and poke your nose into his private life whenever you feel like it!"
I pressed both hands to my chest.
"I am the Alpha King of this pack!"
Alpha Vexhood looked at me. He did not flinch. He did not step back.
Then, slowly, the corners of his mouth pulled up. It was not a kind smile. It was the smile of someone who knows they are holding the last card in the game.
"I see," he said softly. "An alpha king." He let those two words sit there between us. "An alpha king who puts his whole pack in danger , just like the one before him. And the funny thing?" He tilted his head. "The pack will still follow him straight into the fire."
Then he turned fully toward the hallway.
"I am going into that room," he said, his voice calm the way deep water is calm, still, but with no bottom you can touch. "And when I open that door, whatever I find inside, I am bringing it out into the light for everyone to see. Not just that." He paused and looked back at me one last time. "I will tell every person in this pack that their Alpha King brought a strange woman into his bed when the holy month is closeby . And you, you already know what they will do to you when they hear that."
The words hit me somewhere behind my ribs.
The cold spread through my chest slowly, like ice water filling up a cup.
I could not find a single word to throw back at him.
Alpha Vexhood opened the door. His footsteps moved round the living room with that slow, certain rhythm of someone who believes they have already won.
My feet moved before my mind told them to. I followed him. Quickly. Closely.
My heart was hammering so loud inside my ears I could barely hear my own footsteps on the stone floor.
I had been winning and then my own mouth had ruined everything with one stupid sentence. One moment of pride. I should have stayed calm. I should have said less.
Now there was nothing between Alpha Vexhood and the truth but a wooden door and a wardrobe.
Lyra was in there.
She was hidden behind the wardrobe doors , still, quiet, pressed against the dark back wall , and if Alpha Vexhood opened those doors, everything was finished. Every plan. Every careful secret. Everything.
Sweat rolled down the side of my face.
Alpha Vexhood walked into my room like he owned it. His totem hit the floor with each step. I stayed close behind him, watching his every move, my eyes jumping to every corner of the room before his could land there.
His gaze swept slowly across the walls. The furniture. The bed.
My clothes were spread across the sheets, that was all.
Then I saw them.
Lyra's flat shoes. Sitting right there beside the bedstand. In plain sight. Two small shoes that might as well have been two torches burning in the dark.
My heart stopped.
Alpha Vexhood's eyes moved across the floor.
Past the shoes.
Past them.
He kept walking.
I stood completely still. My hand flew up to my own mouth before I could stop it. I bit down on my knuckle. My eyes went wide as I stared at the back of his head.
He had not seen them.
How? They were right there. How had he walked past them without seeing them?
Alpha Vexhood turned in a slow circle in the middle of the room, his sharp eyes scanning every corner, every shadow, every fold of fabric on the bed.
Nothing. He found nothing.
I pulled my hand away from my mouth and straightened up behind him.
"I told you," I said, keeping my voice steady even though my whole body was still shaking on the inside. "There is no one here. I was sleeping , that is all I was doing, and you came in here and interrupted that."
I looked at him carefully.
"Is it now a crime for the Alpha King to rest in his own room?”