Chapter 018. Alpha’s Command

Saeris had said it because the words needed to leave her. Like poison expelled from a wound, it was necessary and healing. Even if every eye in the room dismissed her. Even if every Lycan looked at her like she was nothing but a trembling wolf who had wandered into a den of beasts too fragile to snarl openly.

They underestimated her—all of them.

“It seems the assassin has... removed himself from the conversation,” Vaelen’s voice drawled, almost bored.

That meant one thing.

“Not surprising. The desperate often meet a coward’s end and sometimes, that can be the employee too.”

Lubbow stepped back into formation. It must have been what the guard had come to report. She noticed the sharp line of his collarbone where the fabric had dipped, a large scar—probably ran lower. But her eyes moved past him, locking again on the true source of danger in the room.

His voice was quieter now, but it filled the space like mist. “But the question still stands, someone let that man into my court.” Into her room to kill her! The words roared in her head. “And harmed my mate. This, I find…”

The throne room suddenly went several degrees cold.

The entire court went still.

Down the hall, by the entrance, Samkiel stood with smug satisfaction carved across his face. And before she could even register the blur of movement—

Vaelen was no longer on the throne.

He was in front of Lord Farrow.

The man hadn’t even had time to brace before he was on his knees. Forced there.

“Repeat those words,” Vaelen said. Saeris’ heart slammed inside her ribs at the pure command, the utter wrath.

Farrow’s neck muscles strained, and sweat broke out on his forehead.

“I said,” Vaelen intoned with such horrible calm, “repeat.”

The noble stammered, “I d-didn’t say any—”

A sudden crack of bone stole the rest of his lie. Vaelen’s boot had driven down, hard and unforgiving, right against the noble’s kneecap. He screamed as his leg buckled inward, bending in a direction no leg should ever bend. Her knees almost forgot how to hold for a moment.

Gasps rippled through the court, a ripple of discomfort, but no one dared move.

“You thought I wouldn’t hear it?” Vaelen’s voice was ice.

Lord Farrow whimpered, cradling his twisted leg, trying to crawl back, but Vaelen stepped around him. “Your words reached me just fine. Whispered filth often does.”

He crouched, slowly, until he was eye-level with the noble. “But I want you to say them again. Say them so the others can hear.”

Mother above…what had he said?

The noble was sobbing, shaking his head. “P-please… I didn’t—”

Without waiting, Vaelen gripped him by the back of the collar and shoved him flat to the floor. One boot pressed down against the base of his spine.

Then more pressure.

And more.

The noble’s back bowed in the wrong direction.

Another scream tore out of him, animalistic and raw, as something along his lower spine cracked—a deep, wet snap that made Saeris’s stomach lurch.

Vaelen straightened. “You’ll piss blood the next time you so much as look at her with hate in your eyes.”

The noble sobbed, face to the floor.

Golden eyes found her across the room.

‘Breathe.’

He passed it again through that link he’d in a way created—soft and steady.

She did.

As if her body listened to him more than it ever had to herself.

She was so royally, thoroughly screwed.

Vaelen smiled and said to the room, “Anyone else?”

No one answered. Only the noble’s broken wheezing filled the air, and Saeris tried as much as not to cringe.

Vaelen stepped over his body and walked back toward the throne with the same calm he had always worn. Like violence was merely a tool. One of many. And Saeris watched him the entire way—watched as the male the court believed to be hers reclaimed the throne, a king who did not need to raise his voice to be feared.

Samkiel looked pleased from where he stood, and though she’d just watched Vaelen shatter a man, Saeris didn’t feel sorry for the noble … didn’t fear Vaelen, either. Worse… she was starting to feel alive by his side.

“Now,” Vaelen said, as if they’d merely been interrupted, “on the matter at hand. Which was a failure, an offense, a treason, and someone must bear its weight.”

He glanced to the side, cool and deliberate. “Logic dictates it should be whoever was responsible for preventing it.”

He turned his eyes to Lord Cassius.

The noble paled.

“You are responsible for the courthouse’s order, are you not?” Vaelen asked, voice like cold steel. “You see to its security. Its peace. You are paid handsomely for that responsibility. And yet...” He tilted his head ever so slightly, an elegant, terrifying motion. “A stranger climbed into her chambers, unnoticed.”

“Y—Your Majesty—” Cassius’s words stumbled over each other, “I swear to you, I had no part in this. I didn’t—”

“I didn’t ask if you did it.” Vaelen’s eyes gleamed. “I said you were responsible. You are the Chamberlain, are you not?” His voice remained perfectly level. “Do you think the punishment for such negligence will not fall on you?”

“Your Majesty, surely you cannot—”

“Cannot?”

Cassius opened his mouth to argue—only to choke as Vaelen whispered, “Kneel.”

The command wasn’t shouted, yet it rippled through the room like thunder dragged through silk.

Cassius dropped. His knees cracked against the marble, and a strangled breath escaped him as if gravity itself had turned traitor. Even Saeris felt it. The tremor of command vibrating in her bones.

It wasn’t like the sharp snap of a dominant Alpha’s order.

No—this was deeper. Sovereign. It sank into her marrow like fire sealed in ice.

Cassius hadn’t chosen to kneel.

He simply couldn’t do anything else.

Silence claimed the court. The council—so powerful, so proud—was still as statues.

“Crawl to her.”

The rest of the court recoiled as if struck. Mor’s eyes were wide, the others just as shaken, everyone but Ria, whose face remained unreadable. And maybe Saeris would have reacted the same…if she hadn’t already felt that dark coil of power stirring beneath the shock, easing her.

Cassius hesitated. Just for a second.

Then he obeyed.

Dragging himself forward, hand over trembling hand, across the cold marble floor, past the lords, past Ria, past the limp body of Lord Farrow … no one had touched him yet. No one had cared enough to.

Cassius stopped at the foot of the stairs, sweat beading on his forehead now.

Her stomach turned.

“Beg her forgiveness,” Vaelen said. “For allowing this to happen. For making her feel unsafe beneath my roof. My command.”

Yes, her soul seemed to say regardless. This—him. The Lycan King of Tenebrous; a true alpha, more true than she ever saw, or heard.

Cassius trembled. Looked up at her with wide, bloodshot eyes.

Saeris stared down at him, at this powerful man reduced to a beggar under Vaelen’s will.

She should’ve felt triumphant. But all she felt was the fraying edge of something she used to believe in—justice, once clear and bright, now reduced to ash. Now it all bled into shades of power, and Vaelen Duskbane held every drop.

“And I might consider looking the other way,” Vaelen finished.

She was going to vomit.

No. She wouldn’t.

She inhaled through her nose, exhaled through her mouth, and counted the breaths. Then, slowly, she lifted her chin—eyes burning—