DEREK
For a moment, I didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
Maggie’s confession echoed in my ears–loud, ugly, final.
Cassandra.
Cassandra had hired rogues to attack Elena.
The day of our wedding.
I stood rooted to the floor, staring across the small interrogation room at Maggie’s battered figure, my heart thundering in my
ears.
Every instinct in me screamed for blood.
For vengeance.
But I made myself think.
Made myself choose.”
Maggie had been telling the truth. I felt it. Saw it in the way she shook with guilt, in the way she couldn’t meet Elena’s gaze without crumbling.
And if that was true-
If even half of it was true-
Then Cassandra was going to pay.
I didn’t remember moving.
One moment I was standing stiffly beside Elena; the next I was tearing from the room, my boots hammering ag…..st the tiled floor, my fists clenched so tightly my nails cut into my palms.
I barely saw the corridor ahead of me. The guards scrambling out of the way. The doors swinging open before me.
All I could feel was Erebus, snarling and clawing just beneath my skin, desperate to break free.
My breath heaved. My vision blurred at the edges.
If I looked down at my arms, I was sure I’d see fur and claws instead of skin.
Behind me, I heard Elena calling my name.
“Derek! Wait–Derek, slow down! Please!”
Her voice, so full of panic, cut through the red haze for a second–but not enough to stop me. I couldn’t stop. Not yet.
Not until I did something about this.
I barreled through the final set of double doors, into the front operations office of the Sentinel stronghold.
The Captain of the Guard–a thickset wolf with dark silver hair and a craggy face–stepped in front of me, hand on the grip of his weapon.
“Alpha,” he said sharply. “Stand down.”
Chapter 224
I stopped only because he gave me something tangible to focus on. Something to tear into.
+25 BONUS
“I want Logan of Blackwood arrested,” I snarled, my voice low and savage. “I want him brought up on charges of sedition against the Alpha Council.”
A few guards shifted nervously at the word.
“And,” I said, my voice dropping lower, tossing a look back toward Elena, my voice turning deadly, “assault.”
The Captain hesitated, studying my face carefully. Then he nodded once, brisk and sure.
“We’ll dispatch hunters immediately, Alpha,” he said. “Consider it done.”
I turned finally, breathing hard, feeling Elena’s presence like gravity itself behind me.
She was pale, trembling. Her hand hovered uncertainly in the air, like she wasn’t sure if she should reach for me or not.
She looked…
Goddess.
She looked like the whole world had been ripped out from under her. And maybe it had.
Something in me broke at the sight.
Erebus snarled, not in anger this time, but in pain.
I stepped forward and gently but firmly took her arm, leading her away from the growing knot of guards and Sentinels, out through the broad glass doors into the cool afternoon air.
Outside, the world felt muted.
It was full daylight, but the moon hung low over the parking lot, silvered and watchful. The sharp smell of pine trees drifted on
the wind.
I led Elena to a battered park bench by the edge of the lot, guiding her down carefully until she was seated, her hands folded rigidly in her lap.
She stared straight ahead, unmoving.
I crouched down in front of her, lowering myself to her level.
“Logan,” she said finally, her voice ragged. “He-”
I covered her shaking hands with mine.
“He’ll pay,” I said fiercely. “He and Maggie will both be held criminally accountable for their actions. They’ll be formally charged and tried by the Alpha Council Tribunal. I’ll make sure of it”
Her eyes–those beautiful, haunted eyes–lifted to mine.
I swore again, silently, at the devastation I saw there.
Her whole world had shifted. And all I could do was try to steady the ground beneath her feet.
I would not fail her again.
ELENA
The world spun around me, slow and heavy. Like gravity had shifted, as though something inside me had broken loose and the axis was tilted wrong.
I felt like I was moving underwater–every breath a struggle, every blink a war against the grief trying to pull me under.
Chapter 224
+25 BONUS
I could still see Derek in my mind, looming in the interrogation room like a storm about to break. His face had been carved in fury, hands curled into fists that looked ready to snap bone. His whole body vibrated with the kind of rage that no words could reach.
