Chapter 151

Chapter 151
Caleb's POV

The corridor lights were a sickly white, like an overexposed photograph that drained all color from everything they touched.

I followed the captain of the shadow guards through three security checkpoints, my leather shoes echoing hollowly against the metal floor.

Just moments ago, I had met with Alexander.

The man who stood at the pinnacle of werewolf power hadn't even bothered to rise when addressing me.

His face was paper-white, his eye sockets sunken, but those gray-blue eyes remained sharp as a hawk's, carrying a suffocating pressure that made it hard to breathe.

I knew what he was enduring.

This was the backlash from having a fated bond forcibly severed.

I was fortunate in a way—I had been spared the delayed agony because when I unilaterally rejected Lucia, I hadn't yet realized I loved her.

And then she died.

I was also unfortunate. Her death had dissolved the rejected bond along with her.

I hadn't even earned the right to suffer the bone-shattering, muscle-tearing pain on her behalf.

So that suffering remained purely on the spiritual plane, yet it was far more prolonged than any physical torment that might have offered release—

I'll admit, that pain nearly destroyed me. It nearly robbed me of any possibility of loving someone else.

It also cost me the ability to treasure Fiona from the very first moment I met her.

For a time, I convinced myself that because I was a bastard son of the Gray Wolf Clan, marginalized by my family, perhaps I had never been worthy of that supreme bond.

But I knew that was just a convenient excuse I'd crafted for myself.

So this time, when Alexander presented me with that seemingly impossible condition, I felt genuine terror.

He told me to think carefully about where I stood.

I no longer had the luxury of standing aside, waiting to play it safe. I had to take a clear position—

I needed to help them pry open the mouth of that dying Purple Wolf guard.

In return, the royal family would spend the next year supporting me to become the new Alpha of the Gray Wolf Clan.

For a moment, I thought I'd misheard.

"Why me?"

My response had been immediate.

"If I accept your deal, Fiona will think my heart isn't pure. She'll believe I'm only saving her, only helping her, for the sake of power."

"Fool."

Alexander had laughed coldly, struggling to raise his hand to point at his own chest.

"Caleb, you can only catch everything she is if you climb high enough and stand firm enough. The strong have the right to talk about purity. The weak can only talk about feelings."

Those words hit like a sledgehammer, shattering my pathetic pride.

Yes, I was a coward.

I'd always thought I was taking shortcuts, using some roundabout method to prove myself. But in reality, I was just running away.

Running from facing my own incompetence, running from facing the disappointment in Fiona's eyes.

And now, Alexander had placed this key in my hand.

Even if that key was coated in poison.

"We're here."

The guard captain's voice interrupted my thoughts.

Before us stood a heavy alloy door marked with a "Critical Care" sign.

"He's inside," the captain said, stepping back and gesturing for me to enter. "His Majesty said you may use any means necessary. Just don't let him die."

I took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

The hospital room reeked of disinfectant and blood.

Lucian lay on the bed, wrapped head to toe in bandages like a mummy. His head bristled with various tubes, and the heart rate line on the monitor traced a feeble rhythm.

Hearing the door open, he struggled to open one eye—

The other was wrapped tightly in gauze.

"Professor Thorne? Are you here to mock me too?"

I said nothing, simply walked to the bedside and pulled over a chair.

"Lucian," I said softly, my fingers resting gently against his temple. "We're not here to talk about mockery. We're here to talk about... truth."

I closed my eyes, summoning that gray, cold spiritual power within me.

It was the Gray Wolf Clan's unique hypnotic gift.

"Look into my eyes, Lucian."

My voice became ethereal and distant, as if coming from somewhere far away.

"You're tired. You're in pain. You want to sleep. Sleep, and the pain will stop."

Lucian's one visible eye began to glaze over, his previously tense body gradually relaxing.

"Tell me, why did you do this?"

I guided his consciousness, diving into that chaotic, dark ocean of his subconscious.

There, I saw a thin young boy.

He stood alone in an empty training ground, surrounded by countless mocking voices.

"No wolf spirit!"

"Useless!"

"Shame of the Purple Wolf Clan!"

The boy gritted his teeth, gripping a wooden sword tightly in his hands, swinging it over and over until his palms bled.

That was Lucian's childhood.

Because he was born without a wolf spirit, his family had treated him as disposable from the start. His father Halson wouldn't even look at him, and his siblings used him as a punching bag.

He craved power, craved recognition, craved proof of his worth.

The scene shifted. The boy had grown.

He stood in a dim laboratory, facing a group of human scientists in white coats.

"Do you want to become strong?" a voice asked him.

"Yes," he answered, his eyes burning with mad flame.

"Then become our test subject. We'll give you power, even if it's artificial."

So he accepted the modification.

He glimpsed another world.

In that world, there was no discrimination based on wolf spirits, no oppression by bloodline.

There, a marshal called the Holy Mother smiled and extended her hand to him.

"Join us, Lucian. We're building a truly equal world. A better world. One that no longer judges heroes by bloodline."

That became his faith, and his obsession.

"I did it for the family..."

Lucian on the bed suddenly spoke, his voice a dreamlike murmur.

"The Purple Wolf Clan... is too weak..."

"The so-called genius with potions... it's all a gimmick..."

My fingers trembled slightly as I continued guiding him. "Go on. What's a gimmick?"

"Since my grandfather's generation... we've been collaborating with the Human Medical Association..."

A strange reverence appeared on Lucian's face.

"A bloodline without utility... won't be favored by the Arctic Wolf Clan..."

"So the best way to maintain a lie... is to disguise it as truth..."

"Fendia—she's a brilliant child, a once-in-a-century genius. She must become the new Alpha King's Luna..."

"Only if their children carry the strongest bloodlines... can the Purple Wolf Clan avoid decline..."

The truth was like a cold scalpel, peeling away layer after layer of the Purple Wolf Clan's glamorous exterior to expose the rotting flesh beneath.

So the Purple Wolf Clan's rise had been nothing more than a dirty transaction with human capital, an illusion built on pharmaceuticals.

And everything Lucian had done—all his mad actions—weren't just for family glory, but to cover up this collapsing lie.

"I just... wanted my family to acknowledge me..."

Lucian began to struggle painfully in his sleep, the monitor's readings spiking erratically.

I withdrew my hand and opened my eyes, my forehead covered in a fine sheen of cold sweat.

I looked at the man still muttering on the bed, my heart a tangle of emotions.

He was a madman, a brainwashed fanatic.

But he was also pitiable.

He had spent his entire life trying to fill a bottomless abyss.

I stood, straightening my collar, and turned toward the door.

"Record everything."

I told the shadow guard captain outside, my voice cold as ice.

"Every word he said. Record it all and deliver it to Alexander."