Chapter 256

Chapter 256
Hades’ POV

The night air bit my face as I pulled up to the pack gates. Lanterns threw pools of amber across the stone path; the compound smelled of wood smoke and wet earth. Matt met me at the entrance, posture rigid, breath visible in the cold. He’d left the torches lit all the way to the holding cells. That, and the way he kept glancing at the sky, told me tonight was not a good night for soft choices, yet.

“How’s the girl doing?” I asked, dropping my jacket into Matt’s hands like handing off a problem.

“She’s fine, Alpha.” His voice was clipped. He wouldn’t let anything else show. I appreciated the discipline. “Food and blankets are ready.”

Good. I let the corner of my mouth pull up the barest fraction. “Take me to that wretch,” I scoffed, and Matt made way with a tight nod toward the prison wing.

The corridor smelled of iron and old straw. Cells lined the walls like teeth. The woman sat in the second cell, head bowed, hands folded. When I stopped, she looked up. Her eyes went wild; she scrambled to her knees without me saying a word.

“Alpha Hades, please… show mercy,” she begged, voice shaking. Her mouth trembled around the words like she rehearsed them a thousand times.

I saw the outlines of whips on the wall, implements neatly hung like trophies. The old me would’ve wanted to string her up there, let her feel the pain she’d sewn in others. I could have watched the blood mark the straw and called it balance. For years, that hunger had driven me: to make the guilty suffer so the rest of us could breathe.

But the memory of Serena—her laugh like wind through glass, the way she’d looked at me after I’d shoved my loyalties aside for a night—stayed in my hand. I couldn’t be the tyrant tonight. Not with her in my life. Not when she trusted me to be better.

I stepped closer; the cold bit through my clothes and into my bones, but I kept my voice low and steady.

“You wanted to mess with me, Nia. Why the fuck did you do that?” I sneered, letting the accusation hang like a stone. “I did everything. I gave you my word for two years. Then what? You ran. For a decade I searched for you.”

Her face crumpled. She swallowed, words jagged. “Alpha—please. It was your uncle back then. Pious… he wanted Liam dead. I’m just—” She swallowed again. “I’m just a low servant. He convinced me Liam would never want to settle for a woman like me. He said I—”

“Also?” I cut in, eyes narrow. I wanted every lie peeled from her like old paint.

She flinched, then went on, voice hollow. “Also, Liam wanted to be with another woman—his real mate—and I—” She hiccupped on the admission. “I couldn’t let him go on while I got nothing.”

My teeth clenched. “You’re evil, Nia.” The word tasted like rust. “So you wanted to take revenge on his daughter? Is that why you ran away with her after manipulating her? Is that why I wasted ten years searching? Because you were greedy?”

“Greedy,” she repeated, voice small. “Yes. The girl would’ve fetched me better money as a strip dancer. Her mother forgot about her after Liam died. She moved away, remarried… I thought— I thought I could make something of her.”

The lie sat there, ugly. I inhaled slowly, feeling something older than anger curl in my chest. It should have been simple: condemn, punish, close the book. Instead the pages felt heavier; the faces of those I loved pressed against them.

“Shut up,” I said. My voice didn’t shake, but it carried the kind of finality that demands obedience.

She looked away, eyes full of panic and regret. I turned to Matt. “Find her family,” I said. “I want her returned to them. Soon.” The command left no room for debate.

Matt’s brow furrowed. “And Nia? Do I… carry out the cruel death sentence you planned for her betrayal, Alpha?”

I thought of the whip marks, the endless tally of retribution I’d once loved. I pictured Serena at my shoulder, those steady hands that calmed my restless fists. 3 months ago I might have given the order without a second’s hesitation.

I shook my head. No.

Matt stared at me, astonishment plain as bone. “No?” he echoed.

“Not tonight.” I checked my watch, eight o’clock exactly. The glow of the digits felt obscene in that place. “Feed her. Clean her. Let her go. She’s pardoned.”

Whispers rippled through the corridor. Nia stared like I’d handed her sun. “I… I’m pardoned, Alpha?” she whispered, as if the word might fracture.

“You’re lucky,” I said without anger now. “There’s someone who wouldn’t want me doing otherwise.” I didn’t explain. I didn’t have to.

Matt hesitated, then nodded and hurried off with the obedience of a soldier. Nia dropped back onto her knees, the sound of her gratitude soft and ugly. I chose to ignore it and instead stepped out into the night to take the quiet for myself.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, cutting through the silence like a knife. I pulled it out. Serena’s name flashed on the screen. My heart punched the base of my throat hard enough to hurt.

I answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Come to my house.” Her voice was flat, stripped of warmth. No preamble. No hello. There was something brittle in the syllables.

I bristled with a protectiveness so immediate it tasted like iron. “Serena—what’s wrong?”

She spoke again, quicker this time. “Now, Hades. Please.”

There was an edge to the plea that rolled under the words, a different fragrance on them, an urgency that I didn’t like. She’d sounded stranger than when we had talked barely 30 minutes ago when I dropped her off; she had been methodical, and soothing. This was hollow and tight.

“What could be the issue?” I asked aloud, already moving. The pack’s night watch shifted at my movement; they understood, silent and efficient.

Her words were reason enough to drop the rest of the night’s plans. I slid back into the compound, breath steaming in the cold, every muscle keyed to speed. The thought that she might be in pain, or scared, or worse, unprotected, made the decision for me.

“Come to my house,” she’d said. Short. Imperative. Different. Her voice had carried a weight that didn’t belong to trivial worries or parental theatrics.

What could be the issue?