Chapter Thirty Four
The doors of the Council chamber swung open, the heavy sound of iron on stone carrying down the corridor. Voices spilled out with the delegates, low murmurs woven with suspicion, clipped laughter that cut sharper than steel.
Alpha de Silva walked among them as though he owned the hall.
His gold watch glinted in the low light, just enough to command attention without looking ostentatious, his smile crafted into a careful weapon.
At his side, Lyra moved like a shadow in silk, her hand brushing against the arm of one councillor, her laughter light and deliberate.
Where he wielded authority, she wielded charm. Together, they were smoke and venom.
"You heard her, didn't you?" de Silva's voice was pitched low, confiding, drawing the men beside him closer.
"So eager to chase blood. So reckless with her people's safety—and yours.
The North has always been wild. Now they want us to believe they can tame the rogues with their savagery?
" He shook his head, just enough to suggest sorrow rather than anger.
"It's only a matter of time before that savagery turns on all of us. "
I stiffened at the words, my jaw tightening. Lucien's hand lightly brushed my elbow, a reminder not to rise.
Not here, not yet.
Lyra leaned in toward another councillor, her amber eyes shining with false innocence.
"You must understand," she said, voice honey-sweet.
"I tried to reason with her once. I thought she might change.
But she thrives in chaos, it feeds her. Perhaps that is what the North breeds.
" Her gaze flicked, for just a breath, toward Dax before darting away as though it had never landed.
A ripple of unease shivered through the group. Whispers sparked too low to catch the words, but sharp enough to feel their edge.
Dax stood apart, silent. His face was unreadable, carved from stone, but his presence alone drew eyes. When one of the younger alphas looked to him, searching for some sign, Dax gave none. He neither denied nor defended.
The silence was answer enough, and de Silva knew it.
"War comes not from strength," de Silva said, lowering his voice, forcing the men around him to lean closer, "but from carelessness. And carelessness is what the North offers us."
The councillors murmured, their steps slowing, their eyes shifting toward me with something colder than doubt.
Lucien's hand curled into a fist at his side. I met de Silva's smile across the hall and understood.
It was not the clash of armies that would break them first. It was the steady drip of poison in the ears of men too willing to drink it.
I couldn't stay here any longer.
These Alphas hadn't bothered to listen to me during the meeting, there was nothing that I could do now that would change their minds.
I didn't have the snake oil charm of de Silva. If I was going to turn the tides, I needed something solid.
The Council corridors finally fell away behind us, their hushed venomous whispers replaced by the quieter hum of Eclipse Hollow's private wing.
My steps were steady, but my pulse still drummed from the poisonous charm Alpha de Silva had spread so effortlessly. The way those Council members had leaned in, nodding, whispering, already repeating his words as though they were their own.
The doors of the library closed with a soft thud, shutting the outside world away. Moonlight sifted through the tall arched windows, dust motes glimmering in the pale wash of silver. The familiar scent of old parchment and cedar oil was grounding, but tension clung to the air.
Lucien leaned against the long oak table first, arms crossed, eyes sharp as he watched Dax and I enter. His smile was there, sly and practiced, but the edges held something harder.
"Interesting little performance in the corridor," he said lightly. "I almost applauded. De Silva should take his show on tour."
I shot him a look as I set my stack of notes down, bitterness seeping into my voice. "He knows how to work a crowd. That's what makes him dangerous."
"And what makes you vulnerable," Lucien countered, his gaze flicking between me and Dax, a knowing glint in his eyes. "Especially when some people are only too happy to let the Council think they're the picture of scandal," he added, smile widening pointedly at Dax.
Dax ignored the barb, moving instead to unroll a brittle scroll across the table. His large hands smoothed the paper with care, fingers brushing closer to mine than they needed to.
I didn't pull away. I couldn't. I didn't want to.
His nearness was grounding, his steady focus like a balm after the venom of de Silva's manipulation.
"We don't have time for squabbling," Dax said, his voice even, though the muscle in his jaw ticked. "If someone's framing the North, it's deliberate. Calculated. We need proof before de Silva convinces the rest of the Council to act."
I leaned in, scanning the faded ink alongside him, my shoulder brushing his arm. Our whispers overlapped as they traced patterns of rogue movements across the borders. He was good at this, seeing what others missed, piecing together fragments into something whole.
Every time he caught a thread and passed it to me, our eyes met, lingering, unspoken words resting heavy between them.
Lucien, perched on the edge of the table, tilted his head, watching the closeness with amused skepticism. "Adorable. Truly. But in case you've forgotten, people are sharpening blades out there while you two bond over ink and parchment."
I didn't rise to it. "What's your point, Lucien?"
"My point," he drawled, "is that it always comes back to de Silva. He doesn't want war just to settle scores. He wants influence. Power. The rogue attacks, the staged chaos, it all gives him leverage. And yet here we are, reading maps like students before exams."
Dax's head lifted, his stare steady. "Speculation won't hold up against his theatrics. We need evidence. A link between him and the rogues, something irrefutable."
I glanced at Dax, nodding in agreement. The thought lodged cold in her chest: they were racing against a man who spun lies into truth with nothing but a smile, and the Council was listening. They had to be faster. Smarter. Sharper.
I reached for another stack of reports, Dax steadying the pile and our hands brushed again. The warmth of the touch lingered even as I lowered my voice.
"If we're right about de Silva... finding proof might be the only thing standing between peace and a war that destroys everything."
Lucien's grin flickered, something sharper lurking beneath the humour. "Then let's make sure we find it before he writes the ending for us."
The library had gone quiet after an hour of scouring through old records, the air thick with the smell of parchment and candle smoke.
Lucien leaned back in his chair, long legs stretched out, watching Dax and I move about the table like we were caught in some unspoken rhythm.
My hand brushed his when I passed him a stack of documents, his shoulder grazed mine as he leaned over to read.
I couldn't tell if Dax noticed but that now familiar prickle of heat lingered strongly enough to distract.
"Gods, I'm choking on the sweetness," Lucien drawled, snapping the quiet. "If I have to watch one more longing look over dusty tomes, I'll claw my eyes out. Consider me mercifully excused before I become the world's most unwanted third wheel."
I shot him a glare over the top of my notes, though I felt my mouth twitch, fighting a smile. Dax didn't even look up, though the corners of his mouth betrayed him.
"Try not to stab anyone on the way back," I muttered.
"No promises," Lucien said with a smirk, pushing away from the table. He paused at the door, leaning on the frame, dark eyes glinting. "Do try to remember there's a world-ending conspiracy going on, not just your epic tale of star-crossed reconciliation. Don't get too distracted."
He vanished before I could think of a reply sharp enough to chase after him.
Silence settled again, softer this time. The fire popped in the grate. Dax had already returned to his work, focused, bent over a series of sealed communications. I pulled together loose pages from their frantic note-taking, stacking them into neat piles.
The rhythm of it was calming. Order amidst chaos.
I shifted a folder aside and my hand brushed against a heavy envelope tucked at the back of the table. Sealed in dark wax, its edges worn with handling, the script across its front was precise and deliberate. It was addressed to a Southern Alpha I didn't recognise.
My chest tightened. Something about it felt wrong.
"Dax," I said softly, but he didn't look up. He was absorbed, ink smudged faintly on his knuckles.
I broke the seal with careful fingers, sliding out the folded letter. The parchment crackled as it opened.
My eyes skimmed the first lines and the blood in my veins seemed to turn to ice.
It was from Alpha de Silva. Dated weeks before the first invitation to peace talks had ever reached the North.
The words bled arrogance: talk of optics, of staging diplomacy, of "entertaining the fantasy of unity" until the North inevitably revealed their "true savage nature." The tone wasn't one of negotiation.
It was mockery.
At the bottom, beneath the flowing signature of de Silva, were others. Recognisable names. Names that mattered. Names that belonged to Alphas of the largest Southern Council packs.
And among them, in tight, neat script was Alpha Varyn.
Dax.
I froze. My body went utterly still, lungs forgetting how to breathe. The parchment trembled slightly in my hands as my mind tried to process the impossible.
Behind me, Dax's voice was low, distracted, still bent over his work. "Find something?"
My throat closed, sticky and thick. I couldn't answer. Not yet. The letter felt like a blade in my hands.
The silence that settled was heavy, stretched taut over the library like a wire waiting to snap. My fingers trembled only once before I steadied them, the letter still clutched in my hand.
"You knew." My voice was low, flat, each syllable sharpened to a blade.
Dax finally looked up from the manifest he was scanning over and his eyes flashed amber as he saw the letter in my hands.
He recognised it.
Dax didn't flinch. His shoulders squared, jaw tightening as though bracing against the inevitable storm. "Yes. At first."
"At first?" I stepped closer, the letter shaking now with the anger I fought to contain. "You knew they meant to use these talks as theatre. You knew they had no intention of peace."
His throat worked. For a moment, he looked younger than I'd ever seen him, stripped of the authority he carried like armour.
"Kiera, you have to understand. I was raised in the aftermath of a war that gutted my people.
Half my pack was slaughtered before I was even born.
Children left without parents. Elders gone overnight.
My own mother grew up on stories of ice and blood, of the North Circle tearing through our lands like beasts.
" His eyes found mine, pleading. "I grew up on those stories too. I believed them."
My face stayed still, carved from marble, mask more firmly in place than ever. "So you signed on to the charade."
"Yes," he admitted, the word cracking in the air. "Because when de Silva spoke of optics and diplomacy, I believed it was the only way. To give my people the illusion of safety, even if it was hollow. I never thought—" He broke off, drawing in a ragged breath. "I never thought I'd meet you."
The laugh that scoffed past my lips was sharp, humourless. "Convenient timing, then."
"No." He stepped forward, urgency breaking through the cracks in his restraint.
"You don't understand. I never expected you.
I never expected a mate, not really, and certainly not someone like you.
You don't fit into the stories I was told.
You don't fit into the lies I believed. You made me question everything, Kiera. Everything."
My chest was tight, but I gave him nothing. I couldn't.
Not of the shatter happening inside me, none of the ache that clawed its way through my ribs. I held his gaze with frozen steel. "And all the while, you thought it best not to mention that you were once part of this little performance?"
His hand lifted, hesitant, as though reaching across a chasm. "I wanted to tell you. I swear it. But by then, I wasn't on board with them anymore. By then, you had already changed everything. You made me want this peace to be real. You made me—"
I recoiled from his hand before he could touch me. The rejection was swift, merciless. My voice was icy and cut deeper than claws ever could. "I trusted you."
The silence that followed was brutal. Dax froze, his hand still outstretched, before it slowly dropped to his side.
I turned, each step deliberate, the letter still clenched in my fist.
I didn't look back.
Not when his breath hitched like a man drowning.
Not when the space between us grew cavernous.
I left the library with my spine straight, expression carved in frost, the sound of my retreating footsteps the only thing left behind.
I couldn't bend. I couldn't shatter.
Not on the outside. Not for him to see.
My boots echoed against the stone halls, each step measured, deliberate, as though I could walk the betrayal from her chest.
The letter burned in my hand, its words a poison I couldn't cure.
The North was waiting. My home, my pack, the truth I had to wield before it wielded me.
Outside, the wind whipped against the windows like a warning, carrying the scent of coming conflict.
As I crossed the threshold, a chill settled deep.
War was on its way and my people would be ready.
Back with another chapter! I couldn't leave you hanging again and we're so close to the end now, can you feel it?
Oh Dax...Why does he always insist on breaking her heart?
Was Kiera right to leave or should she have understood that this all happened before Dax was aware of who she really was and who the Northern Circle really are?
I really hope you enjoyed this chapter and stay tuned because I hope to give you the next one soon!