Chapter 26 Chapter 26
Marcus's POV
The war council was over. The enemy had a face, my face, and two names, Nathan and Garry. The betrayals were absolute, a ring of snakes slowly tightening around my empire. My instinct, my entire being, screamed for retaliation. To hunt, to corner, to destroy. But an Alpha leading with rage is an Alpha who has already lost.
“We’re taking a trip,” I announced to Ava that evening, my voice devoid of emotion.
She looked up from a tablet displaying our new, secure shipping routes, her eyes sharp and questioning. “A trip? Marcus, we’re at war.”
“Precisely,” I said, walking to the bar and pouring two glasses of whiskey. “The pack is on a knife’s edge. The council is terrified. Our enemies are watching for any sign of weakness. They expect us to lock ourselves away, to panic. We will do the opposite.” I handed her a glass. “We will show them we are so confident, so untouchable, that we can afford a vacation. It’s a PR stunt, a power move. We project absolute strength.”
She took the glass, her fingers brushing mine. The spark from our bond was a familiar, grounding shock. She saw the logic in my eyes, the cold strategy. It was a language she now understood fluently. She nodded. “Where are we going?”
“My private island. The one place on earth I know is secure.”
The flight on the Stone Industries private jet was silent. We sat across from each other, the quiet hum of the engines a backdrop to the unspoken tension. Ava wasn’t just a passenger. She was studying me, her gaze analytical. I could almost see her connecting the dots, processing my motives. The woman Garry had betrayed would have been terrified. My Luna was calculating the strategic value of the move. The transformation was breathtaking.
The island was a fortress of solitude, a jewel of white sand and turquoise water in the middle of nowhere. The villa was a minimalist masterpiece of glass and teak, built into the cliffs, its security systems seamlessly integrated into the natural landscape. There were no phones, no board meetings, no whispers of traitors. There was only the sound of the ocean and the vast, open sky. And her.
That first afternoon, we walked on the beach, a hundred yards of pristine sand separating us from the villa. Kael’s security team was a ghost presence, unseen but felt. For the first time in weeks, I saw the lines of tension around Ava’s eyes begin to soften. She took off her shoes, letting the warm water wash over her feet, and the simple act felt like a form of defiance against the chaos we had left behind.
“This isn’t just a PR stunt, is it?” she asked, her voice soft, almost carried away by the breeze.
I stopped, watching the waves roll in. “No,” I admitted, the truth a quiet surrender. “I needed to get you away. Somewhere you could breathe. Somewhere he couldn’t reach.”
She looked at me, and in her eyes, I saw not the Luna or the strategist, but the woman I had kissed on the dance floor. “And you? Do you get to breathe here, too?”
“I’m not sure I remember how,” I said, the admission costing me more than I wanted it to.
We walked in a comfortable silence after that, the sun warming our skin. The fake marriage, the contract, the revenge, it all felt like a story about two other people. Here, on this island, we were just a man and a woman, tied together by a bond neither of us understood, facing a war that threatened to consume us both. Her father’s words about a Royal Curse, about our bond being a key to a cage, echoed in the back of my mind. I had dismissed it as the ramblings of a terrified man, another psychological attack. But looking at her now, with the sun in her hair and a strength in her that seemed to grow with each passing day, a sliver of unease worked its way into my soul.
As the sun began to dip toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and violet, we found ourselves at the far end of the island, in a secluded cove protected by a high, rocky outcropping. The sand here was soft and untouched. It felt like the edge of the world.
“It’s beautiful,” Ava whispered, her voice filled with a quiet awe.
She was the beautiful one. The setting sun caught the silver streaks in her hair, making them glow. The last vestiges of the frightened teacher were gone, replaced by a queen who was just discovering the weight of her crown. The respect I felt for her had deepened into something more complex, something fierce and protective that coiled in my gut. This felt real. She felt real.
“Ava,” I started, my voice rough. I needed to tell her. Not everything, but something. That she was more than a partner. That she was becoming my anchor in this storm.
She turned to me, her green eyes soft in the fading light, a hopeful question on her lips.
That’s when I saw it. Just beyond her shoulder, on the damp sand near the rocks. A message, carefully laid out in a line of smooth, black stones.
SHE LOVED THIS VIEW.
My blood turned to ice. It was a place Sarah and I had talked about, a fantasy of a private beach where no one could find us. A place that had only ever existed in my head.
My gaze dropped from the words to the sand beside them. Tucked into the edge of the damp sand, half-buried, was a single, tarnished silver earring. It was a small, delicate hoop with a tiny, dangling feather.
It was Sarah’s.
It was the one she was wearing the night she was murdered. The one the coroner’s report had listed as missing.