Chapter 16 Bring Him Back - Aleksandr’s POV
The reports spread across my desk blurred as my mind drifted back to the girl—Amelia. The way her heterochromatic eyes had widened at the sight of food, how she'd flinched at sudden movements, her body tensed for blows that never came. Four hours had passed since I'd left her in the eastern tower suite, and I found myself checking the clock with irritating frequency. Skoll paced restlessly in my mind, his agitation feeding mine, his thoughts circling back to her again and again. 'She smelled of fear and silver,' he growled for the hundredth time. 'And pain. Old pain.'
I pushed back from the desk, irritated by my own distraction. A territory dispute between northern packs required my attention, yet here I was, thinking about a half-starved slip of a girl with secrets in her eyes.
'Not just any girl,' Skoll reminded me. 'Ours.'
A sharp knock interrupted before I could argue with my wolf. Three precise raps—Sylvia's signature. "Enter," I called, straightening in my chair.
The door opened to reveal the castle's head healer, her steel-gray hair pulled back in its customary severe bun, her white coat immaculate as always. Her face gave nothing away, but I caught the tension in her shoulders, the tightness around her eyes.
"Your Highness," she said with a slight bow. "I've examined the girl as requested."
I gestured to the chair across from me. "Sit. Tell me everything."
Sylvia lowered herself into the chair, her movements measured and precise. Even after three centuries of service to the crown, she maintained the formality our positions demanded. It was one of the many reasons I trusted her judgment.
"How is she?" I asked, not bothering to hide my impatience.
"Physically?" Sylvia's mouth thinned to a hard line. "She's been systematically abused. The silver burns on her back are extensive—both old, scarred ones and fresh wounds that are still raw. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing."
Something cold and deadly uncoiled in my chest. "Explain."
"The fresh cuts required significant cleaning. There were silver fragments embedded in the wounds—the kind that only happen when someone deliberately keeps a silver blade dull." Her professional demeanor cracked slightly. "It's a technique designed to maximise pain and slow healing. I had to dig out the fragments and stitch the deeper wounds closed."
Skoll's rage flooded through me, bringing my wolf dangerously close to the surface. I felt my eyes flash purple, my canines lengthening slightly before I forced them back.
"Continue," I said, my voice dropping to a register that made even Sylvia tense.
"The patterns of the cuts suggest multiple incidents over years, not months. There are layers of scarring—silver burns that healed badly because they were never properly treated." She met my eyes directly. "This wasn't a single incident of discipline gone too far, Your Highness. This was sustained torture."
I nodded once, unsurprised but no less furious. "And her other injuries?"
"She was reluctant to show me anything beyond her back," Sylvia said carefully. "But I observed cigarette burn scars on her arms, similar to what you'd find on her legs, I suspect. There are bruises around her neck consistent with strangulation, relatively recent. And she favours her left side when she moves—an old rib fracture that never set properly."
My hand tightened on the arm of my chair until the wood creaked in protest. "Malnutrition?"
"Severe and long-term. Her body shows all the signs of sustained food deprivation—muscle wasting, delayed healing, anemia. I'm surprised she had the strength to make the journey here." Sylvia's clinical detachment wavered again. "She ate less than half the lunch provided. Her stomach has likely shrunk from prolonged starvation."
Each detail fed the growing fury inside me, Skoll's rage blending with my own until I could barely distinguish between us. 'We will hunt them,' my wolf promised darkly. 'We will make them beg for mercy that won't come.'
"And her wolf?" I asked, though I already knew what Sylvia would say.
The healer shook her head. "I can't sense one. No scent, no presence. If the rumours that she's wolfless are true, it would explain much of her treatment. You know how traditional packs view the wolfless."
I nodded slowly. Wolfless wolves were rare—perhaps one in ten thousand births—and often treated as lesser, especially in remote packs that clung to old superstitions. But Amelia wasn't wolfless. I had felt her wolf's presence, heard its thoughts woven through her own. Skoll had sensed it too, though he couldn't explain why others couldn't.
'She's hidden,' Skoll insisted. 'Trapped somehow. But there.'
"Is that all?" I asked Sylvia.
"For now. I've given her a salve for the burns and will check on her daily. She'll need time to heal, both physically and..." she hesitated.
"Mentally," I finished for her. "I'm aware."
"She's remarkably resilient," Sylvia observed, rising to her feet. "Most would be broken beyond repair after such treatment."
I dismissed her with a nod, my mind already moving to what needed to be done. As soon as the door closed behind her, I pressed the intercom button on my desk.
"Councillor Kane to my office. Immediately."
Kane arrived within minutes, his lean frame slipping through the door like a shadow. One look at my face and his expression shifted from neutral to wary.
"Has Blackwater already left city limits?" I asked without preamble.
"No, Your Highness. His escort is preparing to depart within the hour," Kane replied carefully.
"Detain him immediately. Silver cuffs. A cell in the lower levels."
Kane's eyebrows rose fractionally—the most surprise he ever allowed himself to display. "Of course, my king. And the reason I should give him?"
"Give him none." I rose from my chair, feeling Skoll press against the boundaries between us, his purple bleeding into my vision. "And halt all preparations for supporting the Frozen Mountain Pack. The warriors stay. The medical supplies stay. Everything stays."
"The agreement—" Kane began.
"Is void," I cut him off. "Blackwater delivered the girl as promised. I never specified what would happen after."
Kane studied me for a moment, taking in the purple glow of my eyes, the slight elongation of my canines, the deadly stillness of my posture. He knew better than to question me when Skoll was this close to the surface.
"It will be done, Your Highness," he said with a slight bow.
"Go. Now."
When the door closed behind him, I moved to the window overlooking the city, my hands clasped behind my back to keep from smashing something. The rage building inside me was dangerous—the kind that had leveled cities in my youth, before I'd learned to contain it.
'They hurt what's ours,' Skoll seethed. 'They will pay in blood.'
For once, I didn't disagree with my wolf's bloodlust. The Frozen Mountain Pack had delivered Amelia to me as a sacrifice, a throwaway bargaining chip. They'd beaten her, starved her, cut her with silver, and treated her as less than nothing.
And for that, they would learn why kings are feared.