Chapter 153

Chapter 153
Alexander's POV

"Alexander."

Diana's voice dropped, her eyes rippling with something almost devotional, like holy water held in trembling hands.

"I mean... hypothetically speaking—if fated mates truly cannot be together, would they all suffer like you are now?"

For a moment, I couldn't formulate an answer.

Because from the very beginning of this conversation, I'd been staring at the top of her head.

Those fluffy white wolf ears that used to perk up so expressively—they were truly gone.

"Your ears..." I reached out instinctively, wanting to touch where they'd been, but my hand froze mid-air. "When did this happen?"

"Two days ago." Diana touched the top of her head, a complicated expression crossing her face. "On my eighteenth birthday..."

I stared at her in shock.

When werewolves turn eighteen, if their bloodline is stable, their ears naturally recede into human form. It's the mark of adulthood, the passport to full integration into both werewolf and human society.

Diana had always worried her bloodline wasn't stable enough, feared her ears wouldn't recede, dreaded being mocked as some kind of freak.

But she'd succeeded.

During my most chaotic, overwhelming days—while I'd been drowning in everything related to Fiona—she had weathered her coming-of-age alone, completed her transformation without me there to witness it.

"Happy birthday, Diana." My voice came out soft, barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry. I forgot."

Crushing guilt swallowed me whole. During the most important moment of her life—that sacred threshold when she transformed from juvenile to true werewolf—I had been absent.

I didn't even know the exact moment when she'd endured that metamorphosis of pain and hope.

I reached out, my movements stiff and uncertain, and pulled her into an embrace.

Diana's body went rigid for an instant before she yielded, leaning against my shoulder. Her warmth should have been comforting, but it only shattered me further.

"It's all right, Alexander."

Her voice was feather-light, muffled against my clothes. "I don't care about those things. As long as you're safe, and Father and Mother, and everyone—that's all I need to be happy. I've already lost Julian. I can't lose you too."

I tightened my arms around her, wanting to say something that might atone for this debt, but the words dissolved into voiceless sighs before they could form.

"It's just..."

Diana didn't pull away. She remained against me, though her voice carried a tremor barely perceptible beneath the surface. "You still haven't answered my question."

My heart contracted violently.

I released her and looked into those clear eyes now clouded with worry. Her gaze flickered, as if she feared the answer yet couldn't help but ask.

I wanted to tell her the truth—that the pain felt like having your spine extracted while still alive, that it was spending the rest of your existence with a soul torn in half, forever hemorrhaging.

But I couldn't.

I couldn't infect her with that despair, especially not on the day she'd just come of age.

"I'm truly sorry, Diana."

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to suppress the image of Fiona's retreating figure. That scene was like a white-hot brand, searing my nerves with every recollection.

"Right now... I genuinely cannot answer you."

I opened my eyes and met hers, my expression pleading and exhausted in equal measure. "Because that kind of pain is too heavy. I hope you never have to face it, never have to endure suffering like this."

Diana looked at me, her eyes reddening at the edges. She seemed to read something in my face—a barely contained collapse teetering on the brink.

She sniffled and forced a smile. "All right. I understand. Go on—Father's still waiting for you."

---

"You've come."

My father's voice sounded especially aged in the dim space.

I knew he'd be relieved to see me pull myself together. But I also knew he understood—I wouldn't have sought him out unless I'd already confirmed the results, already brought back proof.

"Alexander," Father sighed, his gaze drifting through the quiet glass on his desk toward me. "Some things, once they've passed, are simply past. I'm sorry, but I cannot defend the conflicts and decisions our people made three centuries ago—whether they were humane, whether they were soaked in cruelty and ruthless betrayal. Because history has always been written by victors, and survival often matters more than humanity."

"I don't care."

I cut him off, stepping forward and bracing both hands on the desk, locking eyes with him.

"All I need you to tell me is whether there's a way to solve this. I don't care what triggered it back then, whose conspiracy it was, whose desperation. I don't give a damn about three-hundred-year-old grievances or so-called justice versus evil. I only care whether she can survive."

Crack!

The sharp sound exploded through the study.

My face whipped to the side, stinging pain blooming instantly across my cheek.

George had risen to his feet, chest heaving violently. He pointed at my nose, his finger trembling. "I thought you'd be more rational than Julian! As the Alpha King of the entire North American continent, you should understand what it means to weigh costs and benefits! But now, for the sake of one woman—"

I turned my head back slowly, probing the numbness in my cheek with my tongue, then laughed.

The sound was full of mockery and desolation.

"You want to say I've disappointed you?"

I looked at him, my gaze dripping with derision. "You never once believed I was the one who should have been chosen. And I've never lived my life trying to prove anything to you. I sit in this position not to perpetuate your absurd notion of glory, but because I have the power to protect those I want to protect."

George froze, seemingly unprepared for such heretical words from me—someone who'd always been so restrained.

I pulled a thick file from inside my coat and slammed it onto the desk.

"This is everything I've managed to gather over this period."

I jabbed my finger at the document, my voice trembling slightly with intensity. "About the curse on the Golden Wolf bloodline. The truth, in fact, has always been sitting out in the open. No one deliberately suppressed it, and no one wanted to admit the mistakes made back then."

It had simply sat there, weathered by wind and rain, occasionally leafed through by moldy air and indifferent hands.

It didn't matter who saw it, because no one cared enough to believe.

But I believed. I cared. And more than that—I was going to resolve this.

"Even if it means sacrificing yourself?!"

George's head snapped up, his roar filling the room, his eyes bloodshot.

I nodded seriously. "Yes."

"Alexander! Do you even understand what you're saying?! The Arctic Wolf Clan and the Golden Wolf Clan shared the same ancestry over a thousand years ago! Do you think it's a coincidence that throughout history, only the Arctic Wolves have been able to suppress their loss of control through fated bonds?"

He lunged forward and grabbed my collar, but he couldn't budge me in the slightest.

Father had grown old. Before me now, his only option was submission.