Chapter 337 337
Sabine POV
“Don’t you know who I am?”
The words hit me like a bucket of ice water, ripping me out of the stunned fog I’d been trapped in. My spine stiffens instantly.
Even with my wolf forcibly suppressed, I can feel it his aura rolling outward, heavy and merciless, pressing down on Didier, Caroline, and Gilles alike. The Alpha King’s presence. The most powerful aura in existence.
Well… almost.
They clearly haven’t met Aurélie yet. She’d give him a run for his money.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Didier murmurs, his head bowing immediately. His neck dips in instinctive submission to the Alpha King of the shifter world. “Forgive me. I didn’t recognise you.”
I fight to keep the fear clawing up my throat under control. His presence awakens something ugly inside me an old dread I haven’t felt in a long time. The same suffocating fear that drove me to run in the first place.
I can feel his gaze settle on me, sharp and probing. Something deep inside me lifts its head, compelled to meet his challenge.
The moment I do, I regret it.
A smirk curves his lips brief, knowing before it fades into a frown.
“What happened?”
For a second, I wonder if my eyes are betraying me. He looks… concerned. His attention is fixed on the blood staining my clothes, soaking through me.
“She was attacked,” Gilles answers calmly. “By men.”
My eyes snap to Gilles. He’s the only one standing tall, chin lifted, unflinching as he faces my brother head-on.
He really is insane.
“Damn it, Gilles,” Damien snaps, throwing his arms out in frustration before turning to bark orders at his warriors. “I’ll have to send men to clean it up. Did you leave much of a mess?”
Ice water is dumped over me again.
Damien knows Gilles.
Not only that he knows exactly what Gilles is capable of.
“Yes,” Gilles replies easily, almost pleasantly. “Quite a mess. There were four of them. I reached her just in time one had her by the throat.”
A deep, furious growl rips from Damien’s chest. He storms a few steps away, issuing rapid instructions to his men.
While the King’s attention is elsewhere, Didier looks at me in utter disbelief then quickly drops his gaze back to the ground as Damien turns again.
“My men will handle it,” Damien says sharply. “Can you take them to the site?”
“Of course,” Gilles smiles, as if he’s agreeing to a routine errand.
What in the sweet Lord’s name is happening?
Gilles climbs out of the pickup and slips into one of the SUVs. The engines roar, and the vehicles disappear back toward the diner.
My stomach churns violently. I know what waits for them there. I know the horror they’ll walk into.
“Time to leave,” Damien says, approaching the back of the truck. “Time to come home, Sab.”
He extends his hand to help me down.
This feels wrong.
Too controlled. Too calm. Too polite.
My eyes flick to Didier and Caroline. I want to say something to apologise, to explain but where do I even begin? They need to keep moving. They can’t be found.
“I’ll come,” I say quietly, “but my friends can stay.”
“No,” Damien replies without hesitation. “You all come. I think I’d like to hear what you’ve been doing, sister.”
The sharp, barely audible gasps beside me say everything.
The truth is out.
I’m the Alpha King’s hidden sister and they’ve been harvesting fruit and vegetables with me for six months.
I climb out of the truck, already wanting to apologise to Didier and Caroline for lying, for dragging them into this mess.
My gaze drifts down the road behind us. The SUV carrying Gilles is long gone.
“They won’t hurt him, will they?” I whisper without meaning to.
Damien follows my line of sight. “Don’t worry,” he says evenly. “Gilles will return to the family grounds later.”
He gestures toward the car. I hesitate but climb in.
As the vehicle pulls away with Didier and Caroline beside me, Damien and a warrior in front I glance back just in time to see it.
They kill the truck driver.
One swift, fatal blow.
“What are you doing?” I scream.
“He was driving drunk,” Damien replies coolly. “A matter of hours before he wrapped his truck around a tree or worse, ploughed into a family. I’ve done the human world a favour. And I couldn’t leave him alive to talk.”
I can’t speak.
People are dying because of me.
All he did was offer us a ride.
The car falls silent. Caroline and Didier mind-link beside me, refusing to look my way. They’re angry I can feel it.
I hope, once they understand, they’ll forgive me. That they’ll see why I hid. Why I lied.
The drive stretches on for hours. I’ve lost all sense of direction when the car finally slows, passing through a modest gated entrance nothing extravagant. Almost… rural.
The house comes into view large, elegant, surrounded by gardens that spill into open fields. A stone-cobbled drive curves toward it.
As I step out, it hits me.
This is their new home.
The royal family’s quiet refuge.
The front door bursts open.
“Auntie Sab!”
A small boy barrels into me, wrapping his arms around my waist and nearly knocking me off balance. Dominique my nephew. The Alpha Prince clinging to me with all his might.
Behind him, she emerges.
Just as regal as the first day I met her.
Delphine steps forward, my niece at her side… and then I see the baby cradled in her arms.
My breath catches violently. My hands fly to my face as the realisation crashes over me.
She’d been pregnant.
She’d been pregnant when I left her at the lake house.