Chapter 59
"You."
The voice cut through the throne room with such chilling calm that every sound ceased. The clash of steel outside the palace walls faded into nothing, and even the soldiers surrounding the throne instinctively lowered their weapons.
There was something in that single word that made the air itself feel heavier.
King Lazarus stiffened.
His sword was still buried through Catalina's abdomen, pinning her against the ancient stone beneath the throne. Blood seeped from the wound in steady streams, staining the white marble beneath her into a crimson pool.
Every breath she took was labored, yet her eyes remained fixed on the man standing behind the King.
Lazarus slowly turned around.
His raised hand never completed its descent. A much larger hand had wrapped around his wrist, stopping it with frightening ease.
Titus.
He stood behind the King without a single hint of fatigue, his broad shoulders rising and falling in calm, measured breaths.
His face expressionless, but his golden eyes were locked onto Lazarus with such intensity that the King instinctively took half a step back.
Memories that had long been buried clawed their way back into his mind. A frightened little girl, his girl.
Black raven hair stained with blood.
The scent of iron.
The face standing before him now.
Lazarus immediately tried to wrench himself free, but Titus' grip is not loosening. No, he refused to.
"Release me, you imbecile!" the King barked, twisting violently against the Alpha's hold. "A filthy rat possesses more loyalty than you!"
The veins along Lazarus' arm bulged as he pulled with every ounce of strength he possessed. But Titus gave nothing away, remaining perfectly calm and still whilst holding the hand that has once taken from him.
The King's breathing became uneven.
For the first time in centuries, genuine fear settled into his eyes.
Ever since Lazarus has been crowned, he had felt power more than he can imagine, he commanded armies of werewolves and played with the shapeshifter's vulnerableness.
After years of ruling, he had always thought he was the strongest in the room.
With a furious roar, Lazarus finally managed to pull himself free by sacrificing his own injured wrist. He staggered backward and got another sword from one of his guards before charging without hesitation.
The throne room erupted into chaos.
His blade danced through the air in deadly arcs aimed for Titus' heart.
The Dark Alpha did not move until the final instant, and he sidestepped while catching Lazarus' wrist.
He drove his elbow into the King's ribs deeply, earning a muffled gasp from the ruler.
The loud crack of bones silenced the room. Everyone stopped fighting and turned to look at the spectacle happening.
Lazarus staggered, but he refused to fall. Groaning in pain, he resorted to other means as bones snapped and stretched as an enormous brown wolf burst forward, towering over every warrior in the throne room.
Titus didn't wait for the transformation to finish, he met the werewolf head-on.
For several seconds, neither beast nor man yielded.
Then Titus planted one foot firmly into the floor and drove a devastating punch directly into the wolf's chest.
"I don't need my beast to end you. You're not worthy."
The impact launched him across the throne room. The King's massive body tore through two pillars before crashing into the steps leading toward the throne.
"But you did take something from him." Titus growls.
The wolf retreated to mere flesh, to brown and crimson. Lazarus struggled to stand while blood poured freely from his mouth. Several ribs protruded unnaturally beneath torn flesh.
Even then he laughed. A broken, bitter laugh.
"You think this makes you righteous?" Lazarus rasped.
"You think I murdered her because I enjoyed it?"
Catalina's eyes remained fixed upon him despite the haze clouding her vision.
The King coughed violently before continuing.
"I was protecting my future."
The throne room fell silent.
"A Seer came to me decades ago. She spoke of a child blessed by the Moon Goddess, a pure-blood heir destined to reclaim the throne."
His bloodied gaze drifted toward Catalina. "She told me that child would prevent my ascension."
Lazarus smiled bitterly.
"That child was Catalina."
Fragments of memories flooded Catalina's mind, her hold on herself shattering.
A palace garden. Soft laughter. Warm hands brushing through her cheeks.
"I learned the truth," Lazarus continued. "The little girl I had taken from the Rogue King and hidden within these palace walls wasn't merely another orphan."
His smile twisted.
"She possessed a bloodline purer than my own."
Jealousy darkened his expression. "I had spent years clawing my way toward that throne. I refused to lose everything to a child."
Catalina's breathing became uneven. "So I became someone she trusted."
His words felt like knives.
"I raised her. I comforted her. I became the father she believed she had." He laughed quietly.
"Then I invited her into the deepest part of the forest."
She remembered.
The flowers.
The birds.
The promise of an adventure.
"When no one remained to hear her cries..."
His voice hardened.
"I drove my knife through her body."
Tears rolled down Catalina's cheeks. She was just a child taken advantage of. She remembered how she tried to call for help, for her friends, for Titus.
But none of it came to her rescue, she was all alone on that dirt floor, and she never forgot it.
"I left her there to die."
Lazarus closed his eyes. "I shifted into the face I killed who tried to trespass on my land. I later sent two assassins to dispose of the body."
His brow furrowed. "Then Titus tried to come for me, but he was merely a child. He was simply driven by emotions that he forgot what was really important."
Catalina finally understood.
The assassins had never come to finish the job, they had saved her. Taken her beyond the werewolf kingdom.
"I assumed they had replaced her body with a corpse that looked like her, and so whoever is buried beneath this godforsaken land is not your beloved."
They raised her in the human world as their own daughter. Everything she believed about her past had been built upon a lie.
Lazarus laughed weakly.
"I have never loved her, and I shall do it again when given a chance to protect my seat."
The Dark Alpha stood before him in complete silence, no fury remained on his face.
He looked upon Lazarus the same way one would look upon an insect.
Without warning, he reached forward as his hand closed in around the King's head.
Lazarus' eyes widened.
"Titus, wai-" The plea never finished.
With one brutal motion, Titus ripped the King's head clean from his body. Blood erupted across the throne room. The headless corpse collapsed onto the marble with a heavy thud.
The Dark Alpha stood unmoving, Lazarus' severed head hanging effortlessly from one hand.
No triumph crossed his features. No satisfaction.
Only silence.
"NOOOO!"
The Queen stumbled down from the throne, horror consuming every trace of her composure.
But she never noticed Lennox.
He had discarded his massive war hammer somewhere amidst the battle. A single longsword rested in his hand, and crossed the distance in seconds in one clean slash.
The Queen's scream ended instantly.
Her head rolled down the marble steps before finally coming to rest beside Catalina, its lifeless eyes forever frozen in terror.
Lennox immediately rushed toward her. The sword pinning Catalina to the stone remained lodged deep within the ground.
He gripped its hilt with both hands.
"Hold on," he whispered.
With every ounce of strength he possessed, he pulled and the blade finally tore free.
Catalina cried out as unbearable pain ripped through her body. The moment the sword left her, her strength disappeared with it.
She collapsed backwards.
Lennox barely managed to catch her before she struck the floor. "I've got you."
Before he could lift her, another pair of arms gently took her from him.
Titus.
His hands, capable of tearing a king apart without effort, cradled Catalina as though she were made of glass.
She looked up at him through half-lidded eyes. The monster who had reduced an entire throne room to silence was gone.
In his place stood a man looking at her with such quiet devotion that it made her chest tighten.
There was longing in his gaze.
An affection so deep that words could never hope to describe it. As though he had searched for her through lifetimes and had finally found the one soul he refused to lose again.
How long she had missed him.
It was the last thing Catalina saw before darkness gently claimed her.
Once more.
I feel so fucking cold.
Not the kind of cold that seeps beneath your skin during winter or sends shivers crawling down your ass.
This was different.
It was empty.
It felt as though my body had been stripped away, leaving only my consciousness drifting through an endless sea of darkness.
There was no ground beneath my feet, no sky above my head, and no damn sound to remind me that I still existed.
The pain from the throne room had disappeared, replaced by an unsettling numbness that frightened me far more than the sword ever had.
"Are you here?" My voice barely existed.
Silence.
"Am I still alive?"
Still nothing.
Just as I lowered my head in disappointment, a familiar warmth spread through the darkness.
I smiled before I even realized I was doing it.
"I was beginning to think you weren't coming."
"I have never left."
The voice was as calm as ever, gentle enough to quiet the fear clawing at my heart.
"Then why couldn't I hear you?" I asked.
"You were carrying too much pain," the voice replied.
"When the heart is consumed by suffering, it often forgets how to listen."
I let out a tired sigh. "That sounds like something you'd say every time you avoid answering a question."
A soft laugh echoed through the void, warm and oddly familiar.
"You've become bolder."