⊰ 123 ⊱ A Kingdom of Two

⊰ 123 ⊱ A Kingdom of Two
| Malachi |

The safe house is quiet when I slip into the master bedroom to check on Penelope and Elio, expecting to find both of them resting after tonight’s ceremony. The room is modest but comfortable—a king size bed, heavy curtains drawn, and a small crib where Elio sleeps peacefully, his tiny chest rising and falling in perfect rhythm.

But Penelope isn’t in bed.

She sits by the window, still in her emerald gown from the ballroom, staring out at the darkness beyond the glass. Her posture is too rigid, shoulders held too straight, like she’s bracing herself against something I can’t see. Through our bond, I feel the tension she's carrying—a constant, low-level ache that’s been building all evening.

From the main room, I can hear the quiet murmur of Jax and Elijah’s voices as they keep watch, discussing security protocols while we wait for Rook’s arrival. But here, in this small bedroom, the weight of everything we learned tonight seems to press down on us.

“Couldn’t sleep?” I ask softly, not wanting to startle her.

She doesn’t turn around, doesn’t even acknowledge that she heard me at first. Then, quietly: “Too much going through my head.”

I move closer, settling into the chair across from her. Even in the dim light, I can see the way her hands are clasped tightly in her lap, knuckles white. Her breathing is too controlled, too careful.

“Want to talk about it?”

For a long moment, she doesn’t respond. Just continues staring out the window at nothing, lost in whatever thoughts are tormenting her. When she finally speaks, her voice is carefully neutral, but I can feel the undercurrent of something deeper through our connection.

“I’ve been thinking about Jax. About what happened on the plane.” She pauses, swallowing hard. “I figured it out.”

I wait, sensing this is important. Sensing that whatever she’s about to say has been eating at her since we left the ballroom.

“It wasn’t just the mate bond,” she says quietly, still not looking at me. “When I let him mark me the first time, I mean. Part of me…” Her voice catches slightly. “Part of me wanted an excuse.”

“An excuse for what?”

She’s quiet for so long I think she might not answer. I can see her fighting against tears she doesn’t want to shed, her jaw clenched tight.

“To not have to try so hard anymore,” she finally whispers. “I’m so tired of having to prove I belong here.”

Through our bond, I feel the first crack in whatever wall she’s built around this pain, and the intensity of what she’s been hiding makes my breath catch.

“Penny—”

“You keep telling me I’m enough,” she continues, and now the tears are starting despite her efforts to hold them back. “And I hear you, I do. I want to believe you so badly it hurts. But I can’t make myself believe it.”

She finally turns to face me, and the raw vulnerability in her eyes makes my chest tighten painfully. These aren’t just tears of frustration or sadness—it’s something deeper, something that’s been festering for far longer than I realized.

“I don’t know how to, Mal,” she says, her voice breaking. “I look in the mirror and all I see is someone who doesn’t belong in your world. Someone who’s just… pretending until you figure out you made a mistake.”

“That’s not true,” I say, leaning forward. “You know that’s not—”

“Isn’t it?” A bitter laugh escapes her, harsh and self-deprecating. “I’m supposedly some long lost princess from powerful descendants but… I never lived that. You’re going to be a king, and I’m supposed to stand beside you? I can barely handle a formal dinner without feeling like everyone’s waiting for me to mess up.”

The pain in her voice bleeds through our connection, raw, corrosive. My wolf stirs restlessly, recognizing the distress of our mate but not understanding why she’s hurting herself.

“Every day I wake up and try to be someone worthy of you,” she continues, the words pouring out now like a dam has burst. “I study etiquette and politics. I practice walking in heels and making small talk. I smile and nod and pretend I understand references to things I’ve never experienced. And I’m so tired, Malachi.”

Her voice breaks completely on my name, and I feel my heart crack along with it.

“I’m so tired of pretending I belong here. I’m tired of trying to be someone I’m not. Sometimes I think…” She takes a shaky breath, and something cold settles in my stomach at the emptiness in her voice. “Sometimes I think it would be easier if I just wasn’t me anymore.”

The way she says it—the flat, hopeless tone—sends alarm bells ringing in my head. This isn’t just insecurity. This is something much darker.

“What do you mean?” I ask carefully, afraid of the answer.

She’s crying in earnest now, tears streaming down her cheeks as years of suppressed pain finally find their voice. “I hate being me,” she whispers, the words coming out broken and desperate. “I hate looking in mirrors because all I see is someone who doesn’t measure up. I hate the way I feel all the time, like I’m not good enough for anything or anyone. I hate that I can’t just be happy with what I have because I’m too busy worrying about when you’ll realize you deserve better.”

Her anguish floods through our bond like a tsunami, hitting me so hard that I actually feel nauseous. But it’s not just the intensity—it’s the nature of it. Self-directed, corrosive, eating away at her from the inside like acid.

“I used to think maybe if I tried hard enough, I could become someone worthy of you,” she continues, her voice getting smaller with each word. “But I can’t. I’ll always be this. The girl who got lucky for a little while before reality caught up—”

“Stop.” The word comes out sharper than I intended as I surge to my feet. “Just stop.”

She looks up at me, startled by the force in my voice.

“Do you hear what you’re saying?” I move toward her, my own emotions threatening to overwhelm me. “You’re talking about yourself like you’re disposable.”

“I’m not—”

“Yes, you are!” I can feel her self-loathing through our bond like poison spreading through my veins, and it makes me angry. Not at her, never at her, but at whatever voice in her head has convinced her she’s worthless. “I can feel every word of it…”

I’m in front of her now, close enough to see the shock in her eyes at my reaction. She’s so used to her own internal voice that she doesn’t realize how her self-hatred affects me through our connection.

“Every time you tell yourself you’re not enough, I feel it,” I continue, my voice rough. “Every time you look in the mirror and hate what you see, it hits me. You’re not just hurting yourself, Penny. You’re hurting me too.”

Something in my tone—the desperate edge, the raw honesty—breaks through whatever spiral she’s caught in. She stares at me, really seeing me for the first time since this conversation started, and her expression crumbles completely.

“I don’t know how to stop,” she whispers, and then she’s really crying—not the controlled tears from before, but deep, wrenching sobs that sound like they’re being torn out of her chest. “I don’t know how to make it stop.”

I reach for her, pulling her against my chest, and she collapses into me like her strings have been cut. The sobs that come sound like they’re carrying years of pain, finally finding an outlet after being suppressed for so long.

I hold her while she breaks apart, feeling echoes of her anguish through our connection. This isn’t about recent events or political pressure or even the situation with Jax. This is something she’s been carrying alone, probably since long before we met—maybe her entire life.

Her tears soak through my shirt as I stroke her hair, murmuring quiet reassurances that I’m not sure she can hear over her own grief. My wolf paces anxiously, wanting to fix this, to fight whatever is hurting our mate. But this enemy is inside her own mind, and I don’t know how to battle something I can’t touch.

When her crying finally begins to exhaust itself, the sobs turning to hiccups and then to shaky breathing, I continue to hold her. She goes limp against me, wrung out by the emotional storm.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs against my chest, her voice hoarse. “I didn’t mean to fall apart on you.”

“You don’t have to apologize for hurting,” I tell her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “You just have to let me help.”

She nods weakly, and I help her stand on unsteady legs. She’s still wearing the formal gown from tonight, and I can see how uncomfortable she must be. Gently, I help her change into soft pajamas, my movements careful and nonsexual—just taking care of her the way she needs right now.

When I settle her into bed, she’s already half-asleep from emotional exhaustion. But as I pull the covers up around her, she catches my hand.

“Don’t leave,” she whispers. “Please.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I promise, settling beside her on top of the covers.

She’s asleep within minutes, her breathing finally evening out into something peaceful. But I lie awake beside her, processing what just happened. In the dim light filtering through the curtains, I study her face—the tear tracks on her cheeks, the way her features look so young and vulnerable in sleep.

The woman I’ve been leaning on, the mate I’ve been taking for granted while chasing political ambitions, has been drowning. And I’ve been too focused on crowns and power to notice the depth of her struggle.

The realization settles over me slowly, like pieces of a puzzle finally clicking into place. All those times she seemed distant or insecure, all those moments when she pulled back just when things were going well—she wasn’t being difficult. She was fighting a war inside her own head, and losing.

I think about the Continental King selection, about all the formal events and political maneuvering still to come. About the pressure that will only increase if I actually win. About what that life would do to someone who already feels like she doesn’t belong.

And suddenly, the choice isn’t hard at all.

I can’t do both. I can’t chase the crown while she needs this kind of support. One of us will break under the strain, and I know which one it will be. More importantly, I know which one I can’t live without.

After what feels like hours of watching her sleep, I slip quietly out of bed and make my way to the main room. Elijah is still there, Jax having stepped out. He looks up as I appear. 

“Everything alright?” Elijah asks quietly.

“She’s sleeping,” I say, then pause, gathering my thoughts. The decision feels momentous, but also strangely peaceful. “Elijah, I need to ask you something.”

He waits, patient as always.

“How badly do you want to be Continental King?”

My brother’s eyebrows rise slightly. “That’s a loaded question. Why?”

I take a deep breath, feeling the rightness of what I’m about to say settle into my bones. “Because I’m stepping down from the race. And if you want it, you’d have my full support.”

He doesn’t look shocked, which tells me he saw this coming before I did. 

“Your family needs you,” Elijah says simply. It’s not a question.

“They do.” I run a hand through my hair, thinking of Penelope’s broken sobs, her whispered confession that she hates being herself. “I can’t chase a crown while my mate falls apart. And honestly? I’m not sure I ever really wanted it for the right reasons anyway.”

“The Silent Order still needs to be dealt with,” Elijah points out.

“And it will be. But it doesn’t require me to be the one wearing the crown in the end.” I meet his eyes. “You’d make a better king anyway. You’ve always been better at the political games, and you won’t have a mate who needs this level of support.”

“What will you do?”

The answer comes easily, feeling more right than anything has in months. “Take her home. Help her get better. Raise our son somewhere that doesn’t require her to be anything other than who she is.” I pause, thinking of all the formal events and political pressures that would only make her self-doubt worse. “Think you can handle saving the werewolf world without me?”

Elijah’s smile is genuine, and I see respect in his eyes rather than disappointment. “I think I can manage. You’re making the right choice, Malachi. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is know when to step back.”

Maybe.

When I return to the bedroom, Penelope stirs as I settle beside her. She doesn’t wake, but she moves closer to my warmth instinctively, her body seeking comfort even in sleep. I brush a strand of hair from her face, feeling the absolute righteousness of this decision in every fiber of my being.

We’ll deal with the Silent Order and whatever threat they pose. But after that, we’re done with this world of politics and power plays. It’s time I focus on what actually matters—helping the woman I love remember her worth, and building a life that doesn’t require her to be anyone but herself.

And for the first time in months, I feel truly at peace.