The Longing

Chapter 57

My sister used to tell me that I need to see the good in people, always.

She tells me stories of the people she met that looked scary but inside, they have a heart of gold.

When we were in college, she told me the story of her best friend, Makenzie. She loved science and blew up their lab twice in one year. One of those, she was with Katie inside the room.

I didn't like her at first for putting my sister's life in danger, but Katie changed my perspective on her. She made me rethink my judgement of people when she told me that Makenzie saved her life before she earned her first medal from the military.

She was out of school by then, but Makenzie intended to graduate. Katie told me that Makenzie risked not taking the most important exam of her life when she heard that Katie lost someone important to her.

She pulled my sister out of the dark corner she was in.

Ever since then, Makenzie and I have been friends since I graduated high school. She's also one of the reasons I graduated college with a degree on medicine.

When my father and mother couldn't support me financially because my studies were expensive, and when my sister tried her best to make sure I take it, Makenzie stepped up and poured all her savings so I could become a doctor.

Because of her, I was able to save everyone around me, even my own family.

"That human must be destroyed before she takes all of us out!" A rough growl came from my far right, snapping me out of my thoughts.

Human? I internally gasp. Right, we're talking about what to do with Katie once she get's captured.

"No, please. You don't understand! She thinks the kingdom killed our parents, you can't kill her!"

I shout in panic, this conversation took a dark turn after Van mentioned who was attacking them which was probably the last thing I heard before I dissociated.

"I did not give you permission to speak, human."

The general in front of me growled loudly, sending fear into my veins.

Van's eyes turn to slits, annoyance reflected in them. "Watch yourself, pup. She may very well be the only thing that can stop the girl from eliminating your comrades."

"Who you calling pup, traitor?" The general roars, his muscles tensing as if preparing to attack Van where he stands.

"You, dickhead." Sen defends her brother, her body ready as well if the general does commit.

They taunted each other with words even I can't say in front of anyone. It went on and on until a commanding and booming voice resounded in the room.

"Settle down."

The king commands as he sits upon the highest, his throne. As he does, he looks fucking bored with whatever it was.

"I apologize, your Grace."

But there was no sincerity in the general's voice like he didn't mean it. I wouldn't even doubt it.

After all, he hates humans. He made it very clear for all the time we've been here. He hasn't stopped talking about how he despises the humans and our way of survival.

He's basically saying we're stupid.

Which is why my frown is always turned on him, unable to understand what made him think that way. Admittedly, humans are stupid but we make due.

But stupidity for humans is optional.

"We need to capture her and kill her. It's the only way to guarantee victory." A she-wolf, I think that's what they call their women here, speaks.

"No, killing her is definitely not neccessary." I say in a tone of panic.

"We must. She's stronger than most, we cannot afford another loss or risk another attack from her. No one knows her intentions nor do we know if she intends to stop."

"Her head rolling at the floor is the only right answer to this problem." That damn general again.

"Stop! You just need to bring her in and talk to her!" I exclaim, desperation dripping from my voice.

"Please, trust me. I know my sister. Once you listen to her, you'll understand why she's doing this. My sister doesn't initiate first unless you did something wrong to her."

I catch the eyes of the King, his glare pointed at me, as if offended. Was it something I said?

"Are you accusing us of something, child?" He spoke lowly, but the threat in the air was clear.

I gulp inwardly.

"What are you talking about? I'm just saying that my sister is a reasonable woman. Please, just talk to her and this'll all end." I pleaded, my voice above a whisper.

The she-wolf speaks, determination in her tone.

"Sire, attacking the kingdom is punishable by death, no matter the reason. An attack against the kingdom is an attack against the crown. We must take action."

Oh for fuck's sake.

No-"

"Take the girl and hide her." The Queen commands, cutting me off.

I stare at her, confused. What?

"Kris-" Sen was about to say something but the King held his hand out, stopping her from speaking. With a defeated sigh, Sen took a step back and hid behind her brother.

Without hesitation, the two guards standing near the door walked towards me and grabbed both my upper arms, hauling my ass to wherever it is they're going.

Before I could protest, the door closed behind us.

Silence.

Then the Queen lets out a laugh, so cruel it shook the bones of everyone inside the room. "That men, is where you are wrong. No human shall ever rule beside me. They are beneath me."

A murmur of agreement swept through the chamber.

At the far side of the room, Van and Sen exchanged a glance. A silent conversation passed between the siblings before they slipped out unnoticed. While the wolves debated strategies and battle formations, they headed toward the one person who needed to hear what had been said.

The King sat beside the Queen upon their elevated thrones, gold and obsidian woven together beneath them like symbols of divine authority. His broad shoulders remained perfectly still, yet irritation simmered beneath his composed exterior.

'How can they be so...plain?' He thought, disappointed with how his armies have become soft.

If it were him, he would have captured the human first. Broken her. Learned everything she knew.

Make her bleed.

Make her scream.

Make her beg.

Only then would death be granted.

The King's jaw tightened.

"Take your squadrons," he ordered, his deep voice echoing across the chamber. "Fight for your home."

The room fell silent.

"And do whatever is necessary to kill the girl."

Several commanders nodded. The King leaned back against his throne.

A cruel smile touched his lips. "No mere human can slaughter all of you. Eventually she will tire."

"That is how pathetic they are."

Laughter erupted throughout the hall.

The Queen smiled beside him, then she raised a single finger. The room immediately quieted. A guard rushed forward and bowed deeply.

The Queen leaned down and whispered into his ear.

The guard's face paled. Yet he obeyed without hesitation. He hurried from the chamber. The moment he vanished, an uncomfortable silence settled over the room.

Nobody spoke.

Nobody moved.

Even the Queen's smile faltered.

Minutes later, the massive doors groaned open, and the atmosphere changed. Not gradually. Instantly. The temperature seemed to plummet.

Conversations died.

Breaths caught.

Because he stepped inside.

For the first time that evening, true fear entered the room.

He wore no crown.

No jewels.

No symbols of authority.

Yet every eye followed him.

The Dark Alpha moved with frightening stillness, his boots striking the floor in slow, measured steps. There was no arrogance in his posture. No need for it.

Because power radiated from him naturally. The kind of power that could not be learned, could not be inherited, and could not be stolen.

His eyes were empty.

Not cold.

Not angry.

Empty.

As though emotions themselves had abandoned him long ago.

The warriors nearest to the entrance instinctively stepped aside. No command was given, no threat was made. Their bodies simply knew better.

The King watched from his throne and the Queen remained seated. Yet for the first time all evening, their elevated seats felt meaningless.

Their crowns suddenly looked like decorations.

Their authority like an illusion.

Because if the King and Queen ruled through armies, titles, and fear...

Titus ruled through existence alone.

The hall belonged to him the moment he entered it.

Even the Queen felt her stomach twist. She hated that feeling. Hated how small it made her feel. But yet she hid it well behind a practiced mask.

After all, Titus would never attack them.

Not yet.

"Titus."

The Queen's voice sounded far less commanding than before.

"You are called to the front of the lines." His gaze shifted towards her as the entire room held its breath.

"We have information that there are humans invading the kingdom and they are wearing soldier's uniforms."

A flicker, barely noticeable.

But it was there, and the Queen saw it, everyone did.

The mention of soldiers and uniforms, the trigger. The wound she had spent years exploiting. The thing that turned the Dark Alpha into a living nightmare.

The Queen smiled.

There it was, the proof that she still held the leash.

"Destroy every last one of them."

Titus stared at her for several seconds. Long enough for sweat to gather on the backs of warriors.

Long enough for the Queen's confidence to crack.

But then he nodded. Nothing more. No words, no oath, no declaration. Just a single nod.

The room released a breath.

The Queen nearly smiled in triumph.

She still controlled him, she still held power over the beast. How fortunate the Moon Goddess had been to place such a weapon in her hands.

"Go," she commanded.

Titus turned.

The massive doors opened once more.

And as he disappeared into the darkness beyond, every warrior in the chamber felt the same thought crawl into their minds.

The King was powerful.

The Queen was feared.

But Titus?

He was something else entirely.

And the moment he chose to stop obeying, their crowns would mean nothing.

For behind an army of thousands, behind walls of stone and ranks of loyal warriors, the puppeteer sat trembling on her throne.

Praying the monster never realized the strings had already begun to rot.

Everyone around me has told me that we should never cross lines that were there for a reason.

Fuck those lines, they're nothing but a mere obstacle than I can cross anytime if I feel like it.

And right now?

I feel like running.

The recoil kissed my shoulder as the bullet tore through the field and punched straight through a wolf's skull before he could complete his transformation.

I could do this all day and not tire. I can fight a whole army of them and not break a sweat with how fucking furious I am.

Nobody can stand in my way and expect to come out of here alive. I intend to kill everyone who stops me from getting their precious crown.

Their so-called ruler killed my family.

My mom.

My dad.

And now they have my sister.

It's only a matter of time before I get to them no matter how many enemies I come face to face with.

I. Will. Never. Stop.

Even if I'm gonna be the one who's gonna knock on death's door.

Let's see how it likes it when the roles are reversed.

Another bullet of mine went straight to a wolf's head, his body dropped instantly.

Dead before he even hit the ground.

My scope shifted.

Another target.

Another shot.

Another corpse.

The battlefield had become a shooting gallery.

My gallery.

Blood painted the dirt, bodies littered the ground, bloodcurdling screams echoed through the air.

But that doesn't mean anything to me.

None of it was enough.

Not even close.

Because those wolves I've shot and killed isn't the one I wanted.

They weren't the King and the Queen.

Now they were the real deal. They were the people who murdered my parents, took their heads off. They were the people who took everything from me.

And they were still breathing.

My finger tightened around the trigger and I sent another shot.

A wolf collapsed.

Another.

And another.

The barrel of my rifle grew hot. My muscles screamed, my lungs burned.

I didn't care.

The only thing I cared about was the image burned into my mind.

My mother's lifeless eyes, my father's blood.

The pain.

The helplessness.

The rage. God, the rage.

It had become something alive inside me, like a monster clawing its way through my ribs. It demanded blood, vengeance, and more.

And I will deliver.

"More," I whispered, my voice sounding like broken glass. I slammed a fresh magazine into the rifle, my knuckles raw.

"Show me more of them. I want to watch them choke on their own teeth."

I want to watch them bleed, as how I've watched my own parents' blood drip to the ground, their head delivered in a box.

God, I just can't get rid of it.

Stop it, Katie. You're losing control.

I smile in craze, I have no interest whatsoever in stopping. I will finish this til' I kill those fuckers.

"Katie, we need to fall back and reload!" one of my lieutenants shouted over the din, his face pale beneath the grime. "We're overextended!"

They can kill my men, crush their spirits, tear through their bodies, but I will not stop.

This is the reason why I asked for recruits. Because they're my shield, they'll be the one taking the hit so I could get to the top.

And they can't stop me when there's people in front of me.

They'll have to get through them to get me.

My gaze turned to Ally, no emotion in them. "No one retreats. We kill them all."

"But Cap-" I cut her off and aimed my rifle at her.

"If you even step back an inch, I'll shoot you myself since you'll be pretty fucking useless by the time you retreat, no?"

But my fury wasn't enough to rewrite the laws of war.

From the eastern ridge, a collective, terrifying sound rose above the gunfire—a deep, harmonized howl that shook the very dirt beneath our boots.

My eye turned back to the battlefield, my soldiers stopped in their tracks as they find the source of the noise.

The werewolves have also halted attacking and are looking towards the right, their breaths caught in their throat.

And then I see him.

Fucking Titus.

And he brought men with him.

Titus's main army had arrived. They didn't just join the fray; they descended like an avalanche of fur, fangs, and razor-sharp claws. Hundreds of massive, werewolves tore down the slope on all fours, moving with a devastating, supernatural speed that no human infantry could match.

Fuck.

"Hold the line!" I roared, but my voice was swallowed by the sudden, horrific chorus of my own men dying.

The beasts slammed into our flanks. In a matter of minutes, the unstoppable force of my vengeance was brutally cut in half.

I watched, paralyzed by a sudden, sickening vertigo, as thirty of my best soldiers were literally torn limb from limb, their uniform shredded like paper by the monstrous vanguard.

Half my men. Gone. Just like that. Eaten alive.

Something snapped inside my head. The rage didn't vanish, no.

It became worse.

It curdled, twisting into a jagged, deranged hysteria. A high-pitched, breathless laugh escaped my lips.

If someone were to look into my eyes right now, they'd think I'm a psychopath.

"You want to play then? I'll give you something to chew on."

Katie, this isn't you.

I fired blindly into the oncoming horde, my vision blurring into a haze of static and red. I was losing my mind, drowning in the sheer scale of the slaughter. We were being annihilated by monsters.

"Retreat! It's a rout! They're eating everyone!" someone yelled. A massive brown wolf lunged, its jaws snapping shut over the speaker's throat, cutting the scream short.

I just kept firing bullet after bullet, refusing to let go of the trigger.

I made a vow.

I promised.

I will.

But then I noticed the retreating forms of women and men in green. The soldiers were retreating, hands covering their wounds, fear behind their eyes as some crawl away.

I hesitated.

I had two bullets left and I couldn't fire.

No, no, no.

I have to finish this.

I gripped my rifle tightly, an internal war happening apart from the war on the battlefield.

There was barely a sound of guns going off anymore.

I sat there, on the tree, dumbfounded.

Did we lose?

Did I fucking lose?

Katie...

I need to take their heads.

I need to burn their thrown.

I need to get my sister back.

I can't give up, never. I would rather die than live another day knowing I forfeited because of some mere wolves.

I shot my remaining bullets and changed to a new magazine. I drop down from the tree and started shooting again.

I will not surrender.

A wolf came too close, but I was fast enough to pull out my knife and slash through his neck. The blood exploded on my face, covering half of it.

I clicked my tongue, laughing at the fountain of blood.

My men recovered from fear and started shooting again. The gunshots echoed through the air which sent me reassurance.

I watched them fight.

"Look at them dance," I whispered, unhinged. My rifle clicked dry, but I just kept pulling the trigger, staring blankly as a small dirty white-coated wolf closed the distance, its brown eyes locked on my throat.

I didn't even try to dodge. I wasn't ready to die, not yet. I'll move once it comes too close, then I'll take its eyes out.

The beast leaped, its jaws wide, completely covering the sky.

I waited for the distance to be met.

I waited for those claws to come close to my face.

But then the world exploded.

A massive, silver-furred silhouette slammed into the wolf mid-air, tearing through the small wolf, its neck twisted like candy.

The sudden contact of another threw me backward onto the blood-soaked mud.

Through the ringing in my ears, the heavy, rhythmic thump-thump-thump of my heart began to shake me from the haze.

From the western pass, a flare ignited the smoke-choked sky in brilliant white.

Flares.

Lennox.

The old man barged in like a bulldozer, then came along his own army behind him.

Lennox's wolves hit Titus's own men with a savage, primitive ferocity, teeth tearing into flesh, blood spraying across the mud.

He stood at the front of them, a silver giant cutting a path through the enemy using nothing but his raw strength and lethal claws.

He reared back, unleashing a booming, authoritative howl that commanded the battlefield, rallying my scattered, terrified human soldiers while his own pack tore into Titus's lines, throwing the enemy's momentum into chaotic disarray.

I caught his stare the moment he turned back to his human form, letting his men do their job.

He walked towards me with confidence, and anger.

"Just what do you think you're doing, young lady?"

"To what do I owe this pleasure, old man?" I reload my mag and kept it at my torso, but my finger remained on the trigger.

"Katie, pull yourself together. For fuck's sake, stop throwing away the lives of these men!" Lennox's voice boomed through the atmosphere, his deep and cold rumble that could send fear to your souls.

"We're holding the line, but your perimeter is gone. You need to fall back behind my wolves now!"

I didn't fall back. I didn't care about other people's opinions, and I didn't care that Lennox had just saved my life.

There's a reason I'm doing this and they don't even bother to ask me why.

They just want me to stop.

They just want to achieve peace.

But they don't want the truth.

Through the parting smoke, the spray of blood, and the pile of butchered beasts, I saw him.

Titus.

He stood in his human form at the dead center of the battlefield, a giant among giants, his massive chest heaving.

His handsome face covered with the fresh blood of my people, and he looked down at Lennox's advancing forces with a low, rumbling growl of pure malice.

The monster inside me tore completely free.

It was him who didn't do anything.

It was him who watched as my sister weeped.

He didn't offer her comfort nor condolences.

Nothing.

He's cold.

He's cruel.

I dropped the empty rifle, drew a heavy, silver-plated combat blade that I found on the ground, and sprinted straight to his direction.

I didn't feel the claws grazing my cheeks, didn't hear Lennox roaring my name as I slipped past his clashing wolves.

I cut through two snarling betas who got in my way, dodging their claws by millimeters and driving my blade upward into their jaws, my movements purely feral, driven by a psychotic desperation to reach the alpha who stole my world.

Titus easily spots me. A cruel, blood-soaked snarl pulled back his lips as he stepped over the bodies of my men, his massive, naked claws flexing as they dripped with crimson.

I shook in anger.

The battlefield seemed to fall away, leaving only the two of us in a cleared circle at the epicenter of the madness.

"Stop this madness." He starts.

"Madness? You care about nothing for this people yet you follow their Queen like a love-sick fool."

He growls, "I follow no one. I am here to defend this land, nothing more. And the person standing right in front of me is a threat to that safety."

"Why are you attacking Mystic Heart?"

My vision turned a violent, absolute red. Anger ran through my veins like boiling acid as his words registered.

He was the one who had been holding my mom and dad's severed heads. How dare he? Why was he questioning my motives?

I stretch my neck and shoulders, pulling them back. "If you fight me, Titus, I won't stop until we're both dead."

Hesitation flickers in his eyes but just for a moment and was replaced with a blank expression.

"Then with everything I have, I will protect my land and her."

Her.

I lunged.

I aimed for his right thigh which he dodges quickly with a jump, then repositions himself a few feet away from where he was.

I attacked him again with my blade in my hands, I throw with my right and it lands on the tree behind him.

I missed.

I fucking missed.

Stop.

Fury fueled my drive, blinding me to my own defenselessness. I kept coming for Titus, sending strike after strike, after strike with my bare fists and whatever rage I could weaponize.

Titus hadn't even gone on the offense yet; he just kept casually blocking my moves, his massive arms batting my strikes away like flies.

I tried swiping him off his feet with a low kick, but he saw it coming. He stepped back effortlessly, suddenly pulling his massive arm back to punch me square in the stomach.

The pressure registered within seconds as I stumbled backward. The force so devastatingly strong I could feel the pain linger, radiating through my spine.

I grunted, coughing violently as I took a few steps back. With my recklessness, I forgot he's a lot stronger than me. But that doesn't mean I'll give up.

Like I said, I'll die trying.

Stop it.

I grabbed my knife that was sheathed at my waist just to throw it again at Titus. He easily leans to his side and so my knife misses him by an inch.

In the blink of an eye, before I could even draw a breath, he was suddenly right in front of me. His massive, clawed hand wrapped around my neck, and he threw me violently to the far right.

My back hits a tree, I gasp for air when it constricts my lungs. I coughed, dark blood spilling from my mouth. I spit the copper taste onto the ground but kept my vengeful eyes locked tightly on Titus.

He was walking calmly toward me, his sword still sheathed as if he doesn't have any intention to use it.

As if I'm not worthy.

The sheer contempt of it made me feel worthless and weak.

I stood up carefully, calming myself down and taking a deep long breath. The pain is gone but the numbness is there.

The acute pain faded, replaced by a dull, throbbing numbness.

My adrenaline had probably worn off the moment I stopped running toward Titus, completely disappointed and sickened, remembering a time when I actually thought he was on my side.

How wrong I was.

"You're never going to win against me." He said.

"There's only one way to find out." I sprint toward him, and when he raises his arms I slip under it and slide toward my knife at the bottom of his boot.

I grab it and didn't hesitate to stab Titus with it. He grunts in pain, the knife hanging at his back. He may be big but that makes it a lot more fun for me to target.

He turned to me, the calm facade completely shattered. Pure, unadulterated anger burned in his eyes.

He growled lowly, a sound so primal and monstrous that it echoed through the entire forest, making the very trees seem to shake in fear.

The wind whipped violently around us, blowing my hair across my face.

A stark sign that this battle would end sooner than I expected.

Titus reached behind himself, ripping my knife from his back with a low snarl.

The silver had left a smoking, black chemical burn on his flesh, but his inhuman healing was already fighting it.

He threw the weapon away and finally gripped the hilt of his own weapon.

"You want blood, love?" Titus hissed, the bones in his jaw shifting.

"I'll paint this entire forest with yours."

He swung the massive sword with a speed that defied his size. The air whistled. I leaped backward, the tip of his blade shearing through the front of my tactical vest.

I scrambled for purchase on the slippery mud, but he was already on me, using his massive shoulder to ram into my chest.

I went flying again, crashing through the thick underbrush. My vision blurred, black spots dancing in my eyes. Through the haze, I could see Titus raising his sword for the final, executing blow.

No.

A massive, silver-furred blur slammed into Titus from the side, forcing Titus to shift to his werewolf form.

It sent both Alphas crashing into the dirt.

Lennox.

He had broken through the frontline, his jaws snapping inches from Titus's throat. The two giant wolves rolled over the forest floor, tearing into each other in a deafening frenzy of fangs and claws.

"Get up, Katie!" Lennox's voice reached my ears, strained and breathless as he wrestled the larger Alpha.

Both men had turned back to their human forms.

"Get up and run! I can't hold him down for too long."

I wiped the blood from my mouth, staring at the man who's defending my family's killer.

The same man who made my heart race for reasons I cannot fantom.

The same man who held me when I was losing my shit.

The same man who accepted me even though my eyes are a freak of nature.

Run?

No.

I hadn't come here to run. I forced my broken body off the ground, my fingers wrapping around a jagged piece of glass lying in the mud.

If I was going down, I was taking everyone with me.

With a sickening crunch, Titus managed to pin Lennox, driving his massive forearm into Lennox's throat.

Titus raised his sword again, but this time, it wasn't aimed at me. It was aimed right at Lennox's exposed chest.

"No." I mumble.

I launched myself at Titus's back, driving the jagged glass directly into the side of his neck. He roared, his strike veering off course.

But as he thrashed to throw me off, his massive hand blindly reached back, clamping around my throat with a vice-like grip.

He ripped me off his back and slammed me into the dirt, pinning me beneath one massive knee while Lennox lay dazed a few feet away.

Titus looked down at me, the glass falling off from his neck as his healing ability pushes it out, his eyes completely black with predatory rage.

He didn't use his sword. Instead, he raised his giant, clawed hand, aiming it straight for my chest.

Right over my heart.

I let out one final breath.

But his claws descended.

They didn't pierce my heart. They slammed into the mud, burying themselves deep into the earth just inches from my ear.

The ground trembled beneath his sheer power.

I flinched, my eyes squeezed shut, waiting for the end.

"Look at me," he commanded, his voice a ragged, guttural rasp that lacked the triumph of a killer.

I opened my eyes.

Titus was trembling.

The monstrous rage in his black eyes was fracturing, giving way to a profound, agonizing grief.

He wasn't looking at my face. He was staring at the blood-stained military insignia patched onto my tactical vest.

"You call me a love-sick fool for a Queen I despise," Titus growled, his chest heaving. "But you march onto this soil wearing the very uniform of the coward who murdered my mate."

My breath hitched. "What?"

"This land!" he roared, ripping his claws from the mud and gesturing to the blood-soaked battlefield around us.

"I don't give a damn about the King and Queen.

I am the one who holds the true power in this kingdom, but I am tethered to this dirt because she is buried here.

The crown maintains her sanctuary, so I protect their borders.

And you... you come here threatening to burn the rulers who take care of her resting place. "

"You held their heads!" I screamed back, fighting the crushing weight of his knee on my chest, tears of sheer confusion and anger mixing with the dirt on my face.

"I saw you, Titus! You opened the box!"

Titus froze. The hostility drained from his face, replaced by a chilling realization.

"A vision," he repeated softly. He stepped back, completely releasing the pressure on my chest. "A vision in your head. Unclear. Foggy."

I sniffed, "It wasn't just inside my head, Titus. I saw it clearly."

Lennox scrambled to his feet a few yards away, clutching his bruised throat, his neck coated in red. But he didn't attack. He just listened, his silver eyes wide.

"Where?"

"From a witch, Greta."

Lennox's eyes snapped towards mine.

"Do you know who she is, Katie? Which side she is on? And why she showed you that particular moment?"

I hesitated, "N-no. I don't."

"It was a mind game, Katie," Titus said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper as he looked up at the sky.

"A glamour. I was called to the front lines by the King himself.

He told me the army invading wore this uniform," he pointed to me, "the uniform of my beloved's killer.

He knew I would blind myself with rage. Just like he knew you would come for my throat if he manipulated the visions. "

"What do you mean?"

"Greta is the King's sister, Katie. Everyone knows that." Lennox groans.

Fuck.

"What?"

"Greta and the Queen came from the same coven. It's how the King met her. He paid his sister a visit and saw the Queen. They fell in love at first sight and married each other right away."

"We have no news of Greta because she was only introduced once as the King's hidden and favored sister, only to hide her deep inside the forest." Lennox explains.

"Why hide her?" I ask.

"She chose to. She probably saw you coming as well."

I touched my temples, my mind violently spinning. I forced myself to recall the vision.

The severed heads, the blood, Titus holding the box.

I focused on it, pushing past the pain, and suddenly, the edges blurred. The face shifted like water. It wasn't Titus, but then it was.

It was raining, suddenly it wasn't.

Kris was crying, then suddenly she was holding something white and small.

I didn't know who to believe anymore. My entire plan, the slaughtered men, the burning lungs, the rage.

It was all built on a lie.

Is that why Greta didn't want me to fight? She saw what I'll do if I came here. She didn't see me successfully walk out her door so I guess there's a limit to their power.

She held me down.

She hid me for her own benefit.

She was a liar.

A fucking seer.

We were all pawns.

The King and Queen had weaponized my revenge and Titus's grief, pitting the kingdom's greatest threat and its most powerful Alpha against each other to clean up their mess.

They used me, and I fell for it.

They really did see me from the start.

Before I could even process the absolute horror of it, the ground beneath us began to violently shake. But it wasn't the erratic rhythm of wolves fighting.

It was the synchronized, mechanical thud of thousands of heavy, royal boots.

From the shadows of the northern tree line, a slow, mocking applause echoed through the clearing.

"Well," a smooth, silken voice rang out, chilling the blood in my veins. "It seems like the puppets have finally figured out the party trick."

AN: Hi!! sorry loves I'll have to cut this short, the next one is too long so I'll have to make another chapter ?? DON WORRY THO, ILL PUBLISH IT PROBABLY WEDNESDAY OR THURSDAY THIS WEEK DEPENDING ON UR TIMEZONE ??