Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Lucifer
I stood by the window. Moonlight leaked through the slats of the blinds, carving thin strips of light across the desk.
My hand gripped the windowsill—fingers tightening, releasing, tightening again.
Footsteps echoed down the hall. The healer passed by with a tray of medicines, then back with an empty one.
Over and over. Liam's door sat half-open, warm yellow light spilling out—the same color as the sunlight in the garden earlier.
But Liam lay inside, his back wrapped in gauze, lips pale, breathing so shallow it was like a thread I couldn't hold onto.
Elena was in another room. Also being treated. The healer said her abdominal wound had reopened, wolfsbane seeping into her bloodstream. Worse than last time.
They'd been fighting for their lives for nearly a day now.
I stared at my reflection in the window glass—blurred outline, expression invisible. My fingers curled against the marble sill, cold seeping through my skin, but I didn't pull away.
What was I supposed to do?
The thought rose with a surge of heat. I should kill her. My wolf stirred inside me but made no sound. It lay there, tail down, like something was pinning it in place. I waited for it to roar, to say "kill her." Nothing came.
A werewolf and his wolf share one mind. Which meant deep down, I still wanted to spare her—even after she'd been tied to the Butcher Squad, even after she'd hurt Liam.
My knuckles went white against the sill. What was I doing? Did I have a weakness now? Was I this goddamn emotional?
I didn't know.
I was a mess.
"Lucifer."
Lina's voice came from the doorway. She didn't knock, just pushed in with a cup of tea in her hands. She walked over and set it on the corner of the desk, then her hand landed on my arm, fingertips pressing lightly against my sleeve.
"The healer said Liam's not out of danger yet." Lina's voice was soft, thick with concern. "Are you okay?"
"I know."
"Lucifer, how could Luna be connected to the Butcher Squad?" Her voice dropped lower, like she was thinking it through for me. "The assassin at the banquet last time, and those two today—all from the Butcher Squad."
I turned. Lina's eyes gleamed strangely in the moonlight, and for a split second, her worried expression seemed to vanish into the dark. "Done?"
She paused, fingers still on my sleeve, and didn't pull back. "I'm just thinking, maybe everything she did before—being good to us, to Liam—maybe it was all calculated. Maybe she was just building trust so she could—"
"Enough!"
My growl bounced off the walls. Lina flinched. I yanked my arm away. She stood there, the hand that had been on my sleeve now hanging at her side. She bit her lower lip like my tone had wounded her, eyes beginning to redden.
"Leave."
"Lucifer—"
"I said get out!"
I was running. Even as the accusations screamed louder in my head. Elena's deceiving you. She betrayed your trust. She's connected to the Butcher Squad. She wanted Liam dead, wanted Hale destroyed. Maybe the Gray family's in on it too—
Lina looked at me, lips moving, but said nothing more. She didn't leave either. I was breathing hard, moonlight streaming in, her words still hanging in the air—"calculated," "building trust."
My mind flooded with images from the past weeks. Her tenderness. The way she cared for Liam. How she threw herself in harm's way. The fragrance she made, the food she prepared, the "I love you" she'd whispered in bed, fingers tangled in my hair. Was it all fake?
A knock at the door.
"Come in." I pulled myself together as best I could. "How's Liam?"
My beta and the healer entered together, faces tense. My heart jumped. "He—"
"Liam's out of danger," the healer said. "The bleeding's stopped, most of the wolfsbane is cleared. As long as he rests, he'll be fine."
My shoulders dropped—just for a moment, like a rope had been cut. I nodded, tried to speak, but my throat was too dry.
The deputy and healer exchanged a look. The healer stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Your Majesty, there's something else..."
"Say it."
"About Luna." The healer's voice lowered. "When we were treating her wound, we found something... unusual."
I looked at him. Unease spread like an invisible net closing in. "What?"
"She's a hybrid."
The words landed like a bomb. The room went silent. I stood there, hand still on the windowsill, unmoving.
"Hybrid?" I repeated. My tongue felt paralyzed.
"Yes." The healer frowned. "Blood tests confirmed it."
Lina had been quiet this whole time. Now she spoke. "But she has no scent. Hybrids have werewolf blood too. How is that possible?"
The healer didn't look at her. He looked at me. "There's a spell on her—ancient magic, the kind only someone with witch bloodline could cast. That spell's been masking her scent the whole time. That's why we couldn't smell anything on her before."
"But the magic's weakening now." The healer explained. "The knife wound in her abdomen—the poison seeped in and reacted with the magic. The spell's breaking down."
I stood by the window, fingers sliding off the sill to hang at my sides. Mixed blood. The Gray family sent me a hybrid as Luna.
This was what Elena had been hiding.
Why didn't she tell me?
Didn't she trust me? Didn't she believe I loved her? Or did she just not trust me at all?
I clenched my fists. My chest ached—tight, suffocating.
But more than that, there was fear. Elena was a hybrid.
Keeping her alive just got a hell of a lot harder.
Hale's obsession with pure bloodlines was practically pathological.
In the Elder Council's eyes, Gray had sent a hybrid, slipped her into my bed, made her Liam's mother in name—so she could legitimately take over everything.
Liam, the succession, the Luna position.
She saved Liam for this. She was good to me for this.
She threw herself in front of that blade, made the fragrance, knelt down to tie Liam's tie—all of it was for this. In their eyes.
But what about in mine?
The dying words of those two Butcher Squad wolves kept spinning in my head.
Elena hid being a hybrid. What else was she hiding? What was her real connection to the Butcher Squad—
My fist slammed into the desk. The teacup jumped, tea splashing across a stack of papers. My wolf roared inside me, loud enough to shake the air.
"Is she awake?" I asked coldly.
"Still unconscious," the healer said, then added after a pause, "But we got her back."
Damn it—I felt relief.
I turned toward the door, took two steps, then stopped. I knew what I was supposed to do. A hybrid sent by the Grays, posing as a pure blood Luna, threatening Hale's bloodline succession. Under Silver pine law, she should be executed. I should handle it myself.
Kill her. Execute her.
But I couldn't walk through that door. My feet stopped at the threshold. I pinched the bridge of my nose and turned back around. My voice came out hoarse, didn't even sound like me. "Exile her. When she wakes up, send her out of Silver pine. Tell the Grays the alliance is off."
"Lucifer!"
Lina's voice rang out sharp. She stepped forward, hands still clasped politely in front of her, but they were shaking.
"What did you say? Exile?" Her pupils trembled, staring at me like she was seeing me for the first time.
"Elena not only hid being a hybrid, she's connected to the Butcher Squad and nearly got Liam killed—and you're just going to exile her? "
She was more agitated than the deputy and healer combined. Her chest heaved.
The deputy and healer exchanged glances, then stepped forward and bowed. "Your Majesty, Lina's right. Under Silver pine law, hybrids must be detained. And attempting to murder a Hale royal heir—the punishment shouldn't be so...soft."
I looked at them. The deputy saw my expression and lowered his head, swallowing the rest of his words. Only Lina kept staring at me. Her lips moved, but in the end she said nothing and took half a step back.
The study fell silent again. I stood there watching the sky gradually lighten outside the window. The moonlight receding, gray-blue light creeping up from the horizon.
The burning rage kept getting crushed down until only numb coldness remained.
What else could I do? I couldn't do it. I hated myself.
I should've treated her like decoration.
I shouldn't have softened at her wounded look, shouldn't have let my defenses down bit by bit, shouldn't have drowned in her tenderness until even my hands went soft.
Damn it. Damn it all.