Chapter 17
Karina
Hudson doesn't speak immediately. He retrieves the fallen photograph, examining it with an expression I can't read before carefully placing it on his desk. When he finally turns to me, his eyes have lost some of their coldness.
“You truly didn't know?”
I shake my head, still struggling to breathe normally. “They never told me anything about...this.”
Hudson moves to a cabinet against the wall.
He pulls out a crystal decanter, pouring amber liquid into three glasses.
“Elena was hunted relentlessly after she challenged the old order. Many wanted her dead. Others wanted to leash her. If her intention was to keep you away from this world, it not surprising that she kept this all from you.” He hands a glass to Damien, then offers one to me.
I take it with shaking fingers. “Despite how much it’s stunted you and your wolf. ”
“Lockhart is picking up where they left off with her mother it seems,” Damien remarks. “He’s been hunting Karina.” He pauses. “That’s why we’re here. They attempted to abduct her from her apartment and again last night from the Bellandi compound.”
“Anselm must be getting sloppy with his security if outsiders were able to breach his walls.”
“The Bellandi security protocols aren’t what concern me, father. It’s Lockhart’s obsession with my mate.”
“Wouldn’t you be obsessed with such a rare female within claw’s reach?” Hudson continues, settling into his chair with the glass cradled in his hands. “Lockhart wants power, and more territory. He gets both with her.”
“He will never have Karina,” Damien snarls.
The whiskey burns my throat as I take sip, but I welcome the distraction from the chaos in my mind. “So, what now? Do I spend the rest of my life running?”
“You take up your birthright.”
I nearly choke on my second sip. “My what?”
“You are the rightful heir to the Rosewood pack lands—territory that’s been disputed since your mother disappeared.
Your uncle, Remus, was her successor, but he didn’t hold it long.
You may very well be the last of the true Rosewood line.
Remus died childless. With the right backing, you could take back what’s yours. ”
“I don't want territory.”
“Are you rejecting my son? Because he is my heir and will inherit this pack and territory.”
I feel Damien's immediate, violent rejection of that idea. His wolf snarls beneath his skin, protective and possessive.
“I'm not rejecting him.”
Hudson assesses me with new interest. “So, you accept what you are? What your bloodline means?”
My head spins with too many revelations. Elena Rosewood. Female alpha. Disputed territories. I've spent my entire life running from the wolf inside me, calling her a monster, keeping her caged. What if she's been something else all along—not a curse but a birthright?
“I don't know what I accept yet,” I admit, setting the whiskey glass on Hudson's desk with a soft clink. “But I know I won't keep running.”
Damien moves closer, his presence steadying me even without physical contact.
“The full moon is tomorrow night,” Hudson says, rising from his chair. “If you complete the bond with my son, you’ll be under Marek protection. No wolf would dare challenge a pair carrying both our bloodlines.”
My jaw tightens. “Is that why you’re suddenly fine with me at Damien’s side? Because of who my mother was?”
“Don’t mistake practicality for acceptance,” Hudson replies coldly.
“I had plans for my son. Years of negotiations with the DeLupo pack, territory exchanges, political alliances—all of it undone because of you.” His gaze pierces through me, weighing my worth against his abandoned ambitions.
“But I’m not blind. A Rosewood female bound to my son?
That’s a power play no alpha in his right mind would turn down. ”
Damien bristles beside me. “You will take care in how you speak about her.”
“Watch your tone,” Hudson warns sharply. “I am still your Alpha.” His attention snaps back to me. “Yes, this changes everything. Marek and Rosewood united could forge the strongest pack the West Coast has seen in centuries. The wolves you’ll create…”
“I’m not a broodmare,” I bite out. “I won’t be used to churn out some super-pack just because my mother was an alpha.”
“You think too small, girl. This isn’t about breeding. It’s about reclaiming what was stolen when your parents vanished. The Rosewood lands lie fractured, carved up by lesser alphas who fed like vultures. With you as heir, and my son by your side, we could restore the order that should have been.”
“What if I don't want any of it? I want Damien, but that’s it. I don’t need lands or packs. None of that. Just him.”
“Then you're a fool,” Hudson says bluntly. “Lockhart won't stop hunting you. Neither will the others who want the Rosewood territory through you. You can run, but eventually someone will find you. The question is whether you'll face them as a victim or as the alpha you were born to be.”
“I don't know how to be an alpha.”
“Neither did your mother. Elena was twenty-three when she first manifested alpha traits. Younger than you are now.”
My wolf perks up at this information, pressing closer to my consciousness like she's been waiting for this conversation her entire life. The sensation is so intense it makes me dizzy.
“How do you know so much about my mother?” I ask, sinking into one of the leather chairs facing his desk. My legs won't support me anymore.
Hudson exchanges a look with Damien that I can't interpret. “Because I was there when she challenged the Blackrock Alpha for territory. Watched her tear his throat out with nothing but claws and fury.” His stare drifts somewhere far away. “Your mother was magnificent. And terrifying.”
I try to picture the woman who made me pancakes every Sunday morning sinking her teeth into someone’s throat, and the image won’t come. It’s like trying to merge two strangers into one body—impossible.
Across from me, Damien studies his father with sharp suspicion, the shift in his posture betraying unease. Hudson, however, seems wrapped in memories of a woman I barely recognize.
“How well did you know my mother?” The question scrapes from my throat before I can stop it.
Hudson blinks, dragged back to the present. For a flicker of a heartbeat, something fragile crosses his face, gone as quickly as it came beneath the impenetrable mask of alpha composure.
“I knew her quite well,” he says finally, rolling the amber liquid in his glass before swallowing a mouthful.
His next words fall like stones in a pond, rippling outward, disturbing everything I thought I knew.
“Better than most. She was meant to be mine. Before your father came strolling in with his idealistic notions and pretty words. I was…sidelined.”
Hudson Marek wanted my mother. Still wants her, judging by the bitterness lacing every syllable.
“Our families had an arrangement,” he continues, his gaze roaming over my features like he’s cataloguing every hint of Elena he can find. “The Rosewood and Marek bloodlines were to be united through marriage. The match was decided before either of us came of age.”
I stare at him, the truth clicking into place. The bitterness in his words isn’t about land or politics—it’s about my mother. Hudson Marek loved her, and she chose someone else.
“But she didn’t want you,” I say before I can stop myself. “She wanted my father.”
His jaw clenches, a muscle ticking hard beneath his skin. “Marcus was a nobody. A beta with pretty words and reckless ideas. He filled her head with nonsense about challenging the old ways, about females leading as equals.”
The disdain in his tone makes my blood heat. I see it clearly now—the pride she wounded, the jealousy he’s nurtured for decades. It’s not just old politics. It’s an obsession.
“Those ‘reckless ideas’ worked for them,” I shoot back, steadier now, defending parents I barely had time to know. “They loved each other. They had me.”
Hudson’s composure cracks, just slightly. “And look how that ended,” he snaps. “Both of them dead. Their land splintered. Their daughter raised blind to her own bloodline.”
Beside me, Damien stiffens. The air shifts with him, heavy and lethal, like the seconds before a storm breaks.
“Enough.” His words slice through the room, cold and final. The effect is immediate—Hudson falls silent, his authority undercut by the force of his son’s fury. “You don’t get to speak about her parents again.”
“Watch yourself, boy—”
“No.” Damien steps forward, placing himself between me and his father. “We didn't come here for your approval or your politics. We came here because Karina is being hunted, and I need to keep her safe.”
My heart hammers against my ribs as I watch the standoff between father and son.
“You forget your place,” Hudson snarls, rising from his chair.
“And you forget yours. She is mine to protect. Mine to defend. Not your second chance at securing a Rosewood.”
Hudson's nostrils flare as he scents the challenge in the air. “You dare—”
“I dare everything for her.” Damien's hand finds mine, his grip warm and steady. “We're done here.”
I squeeze his hand back, drawing strength from his touch as the tension between father and son crackles like electricity in the air. For a moment, I think Hudson might actually lunge at Damien.
“You would choose her over your family? Over your pack? Over everything I've built for you?”
“Without hesitation,” Damien replies.
My wolf stirs beneath my skin, recognizing and savoring his loyalty. For the first time since this nightmare began, I feel something other than dread and uncertainty. A fierce, protective joy that this man, this predator who intimidates everyone else, has chosen me above all.
“Then you're a bigger fool than her mother was,” Hudson spits. “Very well. Take her to the east wing. She'll stay there until the full moon.”
“She stays with me,” Damien counters.
“You know our traditions. It’s better for her to be sequestered. Kept under lock and key.”