Chapter 19
I scoffed, lips curling back enough that my teeth caught the moonlight. “This is my city They built these towers with my money. These streets remember my name.”
Alfred’s gaze didn’t flinch, though I smelled the sour tang of pity leaking off his skin. “Not anymore, Alpha Shawn. They call you the fool who crowned the maid. The fool who gave a wolf her throne”
The sound that tore out of me wasn’t laughter, it was something deeper, half-growl, half-roar, a jagged thing that made the windows tremble. I seized a vase and hurled it. The porcelain exploded against the wall in a spray of shards, as though I’d cracked open bone.
“Get out,” I snarled, voice thick with the beast crouching beneath my ribs.
For a moment, he lingered, eyes softening, mournful, like he was watching a pack mate gone rabid. Then he left, boots echoing until the door shut.
I staggered to the window. My reflection stared back, bloodied shirt, pupils blown, the wolf behind my eyes pressing to get out. Across the skyline, Vale Tower gleamed, tall and sharp as a fang Her tower now.
Lit like a crown of silver fire.
I pressed my hand to the glass, claws itching beneath my skin. “She didn’t just survive me. She erased me.”
Whiskey burned down my throat. Neat. Always neat. Blood smeared the glass from claw marks still searing my shoulder. The suite reeked of liquor, copper, and fury, crystal shards scattered like fractured moonlight.
Stella hadn’t just taken my company, my pack, she’d carved something out of me, and it wouldn’t stop bleeding.
The elevator chimed. A warning bell.
Footsteps followed, quick, arrogant, full of heat.
Then came his voice. My son.
“You really did it this time, Dad.”
Mark stormed in, dragging Lydia with him. She reeked of perfume and bravado, heels striking like knives. Gold earrings swung like blades, lips crimson, hair lacquered to perfection. Not prey.
@viper
I raised my glass. “Nice of you to show up, son. Checking if Daddy’s still breathing, or here to finish the job?”
He kept coming, chest heaving
“Do you even understand what you’ve done? Do you have any idea what you’ve unleashed?”
A laugh scraped its way up my throat, dry and jagged “Enlighten me, Mark. You know how I adore your tantrums”
His voice cracked with fury. “if you had known, if you had just listened, Mom wasn’t some maid. She was a Vale. The Vale. The bloodline that bound half the packs of Milan under their crest. And you.” he jabbed a finger at me, trembling”-you pissed it all away. For Marga.”
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That name still burned. My lip curled, a snarl breaking loose. I turned slowly, letting him see the madness in my eyes, letting the wolf push just far enough forward that my teeth gleamed too sharp.
“You ungrateful little brat. You think this is all my fault? You think I knew she had power like that? No. She was nothing when I met her. Nothing but a girl with soft eyes and a spine I thought I could break. I made her. I gave her my name, my pack.”
Mark pointed to the shattered glass, as if it were holy proof. “You gave her chains. You caged her. And now she’s the one with the moon behind her. She’s giving back what you fed her for thirty years, and she’s not going to stop until you’re ash.”
Lydia finally spoke, her voice velvet wrapped around venom. “You built a kingdom, Alpha Shawn But you crowned yourself in arrogance and pissed on the moon’s favor. Now what? What happens to us? To the twins? You think they’ll survive as outcasts, stripped of silver, after being raised in silk and gold? You think wolves forgive weakness?”
Her eyes flicked over the broken floor. “All this, because you couldn’t see the diamond beneath the rags.”
I snapped.
The wolf surged through me, and before I even thought, my hand cracked across her face. She staggered back, teeth bared, cheeks blooming red. Silence hits the room like a kill-blow.
“Don’t you dare,” I growled, voice slipping into the rasp of the beast. “Don’t you dare talk to me like you’re anything but a footnote in my story. You are prey under my roof. Watch your tongue, or I’ll rip it out.”
Mark lunged, grabbing my collar, his eyes bright with tears and fire. “You’re insane.”
I shoved him off, claws unsheathing just enough to leave marks across his sleeves. “Stella was never meant to rise. She was a servant. Marga had class. Marga had poison. She understood
me.”
“She burned us!” Mark roared, spit flying. “She left us in ruin, and you let her! You both killed Mom long before she rose! You-”
I laughed, a bitter, feral sound. “And now you dare to claim loyalty? You begged me to make Marga your mother. You licked her hand like a pup, called her Queen. Don’t you wash your hands now, boy. You all stood beside me while we bled your mother’s soul dry.”
His eyes filled, the tears catching the dim light like silver coins. He looked at me-looked through me as though he finally saw what I truly was.
I reached for the gun resting on the bar, my movements slow, deliberate, letting him watch. Lifted it. Pointed it at his chest. Steady as a hunter before the kill.
“You want absolution?” My voice was smoke, low and dangerous. “You stood there. You helped. You killed her spirit piece by piece. And now you want forgiveness because she turned out to be wolf royalty? Pathetic.”
He didn’t flinch. Just stared at me. And cried.
For the first time in my life, I hated the reflection staring back at me through his face.
Slowly, I lowered the gun. The metal kissed the bar with a soft thud. My rage, though, stayed
Chapter 10
6:51 pm
molten.
Mark’s sobs made me want to vomit. Weakness was rot.
I lit a cigarette, inhaling deep until the smoke curled around us like a ghost. “If she won’t come back to us,” I said, measured, cruel, “then we’ll bleed her through the veins she still calls family.”
Mark’s head snapped up, eyes wide with horror.
“She wants to play Queen of Wolves?” I smiled. “Then we’ll see how long her kingdom stands when her pillars fall.”
Lydia stepped forward, heels striking like gunshots. The red mark still burned on her cheek, but her voice was steady, lethal. “I know a pack. Serbians. Mercenaries in human skin. They don’t ask questions. They don’t leave bodies. They kill clean, as though the moon itself sharpened their claws.”
gave
her one of my long, measuring looks. My silence was its own test.
“Are they still breathing?” I asked finally.
Her smirk was sharp. “They don’t die easily.”
‘Good.”
swirled my drink, the ice melted long, the whiskey warm as blood. My gaze cut back to Mark, and he looked at me as though I’d finally unmasked myself. As though he realized he wasn’t just my heir, he was my creation.
‘We start,” I said, the wolf’s hunger dripping through every word, “with Ken.”
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6:51 pm
STELLA’S POV
Lucia Morh is a passionate storyteller who brings emotions to life through her words. When she’s not writing, she finds peace nurturing her garden.