Chapter 29 Magma - Aleksandr’s POV
I drummed my fingers against the polished surface of the council table, counting each tap to keep my temper in check. Ten days since Amelia had arrived, and these fools still pushed for their ridiculous ball. Ten days of watching her eyes flicker with Kaela's golden light when she laughed, of seeing her shoulders straighten a little more each day, of feeling Skoll grow increasingly certain she was the one. And still, they doubted.
"Your Highness," Councillor Blackthorn said, his voice carefully modulated to sound reasonable while his scent betrayed his frustration, "we must be practical. Miss Lovelace's birthday is in three days. The fact that her eyes occasionally change colour is hardly proof that she can shift."
I felt Skoll surge forward, his rage bubbling beneath my skin like magma seeking release. My canines lengthened painfully against my lower lip, and I knew my eyes had flashed purple when Blackthorn flinched slightly.
"We've been through this," I said, my voice deepened by Skoll's influence. "The ball will be arranged when I say it will be arranged. Not before."
Kane cleared his throat, ever the diplomat. "No one questions your authority, Your Highness. But your hundredth birthday approaches, and the curse's manifestations grow stronger by the day." He gestured toward my partially shifted state. "We must have contingencies."
'Contingencies?' Skoll snarled in my mind. 'Kaela is our contingency. She is our balance. Our salvation.'
I clenched my fist, feeling claws dig into my palm as I fought for control. "The girl stays. The work continues. If you want to be useful, find more resources for Elder Nora's research, not plans for a fucking ball."
Elder Nora, seated at the far end of the table, nodded approvingly at my words. Unlike the others, she'd seen Amelia's progress firsthand—the way her eyes would shift from their natural mismatched blue and green to brilliant golden tones when her emotions ran high, the faint shimmer of fur that sometimes appeared along her arms before vanishing like morning mist. Small victories that meant everything to Amelia and Kaela, even if they weren't enough for the council.
"This meeting is adjourned," I announced, rising from my chair before anyone could object. "I have other matters to attend to."
As they filed out, I caught Kane watching me with that calculating gaze of his. He knew, better than the others, what was happening—not just the curse's progression, but my growing attachment to Amelia. Whether that made him ally or enemy remained to be seen.
When the chamber door closed behind them, I allowed myself a moment of weakness, sinking back into my chair and pinching the bridge of my nose. The morning's visit to Blackwater replayed in my mind, blood and silver and screams blending together in a symphony of justified vengeance.
I'd gone to his cell before dawn, while the castle still slept. He'd cowered when he saw me, his once-proud form reduced to trembling submission. The silver wounds on his back had barely begun to heal—precisely as intended—and the scent of infection hung in the air like rotten fruit.
"Please," he'd whispered when I drew the knife. "Please, no more."
But I'd thought of Amelia's scars, of the cigarette burns that patterned her legs like constellations of pain, of the rib that still ached when she breathed too deeply. And mercy had evaporated like morning dew under a brutal sun.
"Today," I'd told him as I pressed the silver blade against his skin, "you'll feel what it's like to have silver fragments embedded so deep they touch bone."
His screams had echoed through the lower levels, a sound that should have satisfied the darkness in me. Instead, with each cut, I'd felt Skoll's hunger for justice grow, insatiable and vast. We'd left him unconscious, his back a ruined canvas of silver-laced wounds that would never properly heal. Just as Amelia's never had.
'He deserved worse,' Skoll growled now, pulling me back to the present. 'They all do.'
"I know," I murmured, rising from my chair and moving to the window that overlooked the garden where I knew Amelia would be waiting later. "But she wouldn't want this."
Skoll fell silent at that, knowing I was right. For all that had been done to her, Amelia retained a gentleness that sometimes left me breathless. She'd asked about Blackwater once, her voice careful as she inquired whether he was still in the castle. I'd confirmed it without elaborating, and the relief in her eyes had been palpable—not because she cared for him, but because she feared what might happen if he returned to Frozen Mountain with the knowledge that she wasn't truly wolfless.
The past ten days had transformed her in subtle ways. Her body, starved for so long, had begun responding to regular meals and proper care. Her face had lost that gaunt, haunted look, her collarbones no longer standing out in sharp relief beneath her skin. Her hair, once dull and brittle, now fell in glossy waves around her shoulders. And her eyes—those striking mismatched eyes—had begun to glow when her emotions ran high, Kaela pushing forward in moments of joy or fear or determination.
Most importantly, she laughed now. Not often, and rarely without catching herself as if surprised by the sound, but it happened. The first time I'd heard it—a small, rusty thing that escaped when Mira had tripped over nothing while carrying tea—I'd felt Skoll go completely still inside me, enraptured by the sound.
I moved from the council chamber to my office, where stacks of paperwork awaited my attention. Running a kingdom involved more administrative tedium than most people realized, a fact that sometimes amused Amelia when I complained about it.
As I settled behind my desk, my thoughts returned to her and Kaela, and to the nightly ritual that had developed over the past week. Each evening at seven, I'd find her in the meditation garden, usually seated by the pond where Elder Nora had first worked with her. Sometimes Nora would still be there, but increasingly, Amelia preferred to work alone, with only Kaela's presence for company.
And mine, when I arrived.
The hours crawled by as I signed documents, reviewed proposals, and dictated responses to diplomatic inquiries. Through it all, part of me remained fixed on the approaching evening, on the moment when I'd see her again. It was becoming an addiction, this need to be near her, to see her face light up when she noticed me approaching.
'She is ours,' Skoll insisted as the clock edged closer to seven. 'Kaela is my balance. Mine.'
"We don't know that for certain," I murmured, though I found myself hoping it was true. Not just because it might break the curse, but because the thought of Amelia belonging with someone else made my chest tighten painfully.
At precisely six fifty-five, I set aside the last of the paperwork and stood, stretching muscles cramped from hours at my desk. Without consciously deciding to do so, I found myself checking my reflection in the window, straightening my shirt, running a hand through my hair. Like a teenager preparing for a first date.
'Pathetic,' I thought to myself, though without real heat.
'Good,' Skoll countered approvingly. 'Alpha should look good for mate.'
"She's not our mate yet," I reminded him as I left the office, nodding to the guards who snapped to attention as I passed.