Chapter Sixteen

The black SUV hummed low as it cruised through the still city, headlights slicing through the quiet haze of early morning. I sat in the back, bruised and breathless, my side aching from being thrown like a ragdoll. My brother sat beside me, stoic as ever, with Celeste cradled gently in his arms.

We weren’t alone—our driver, Elias, focused straight ahead behind the wheel, silent, sensing the tension but knowing better than to ask questions.

No one spoke. Not since the diner. Not since the word had been spoken like a curse and a prayer all at once.

Mate.

My brother hadn’t taken his eyes off Celeste since she passed out. Not when she shifted in his arms. Not when I whispered his name three times in a row. Not when we passed the river bend, the same one we used to race to as kids.

I looked at her now, limp against him. Hair silver like moonlight, her torn shirt barely covering the bruises that bloomed along her shoulder. She looked peaceful, in a way that made something knot in my chest. Because I knew peace had nothing to do with it.

She had fought like hell. I’d never seen someone move like that outside of our kind. Her punches were calculated, clean. Like someone who had once been trained by warriors. Like someone who had blood older than mine in her veins.

The SUV pulled into the underground entrance of my brother’s building—a secured facility tucked beneath the second tallest tower in the city. Even in the early hours, guards stood stationed at each side, bowing slightly as we passed.

Elias parked, and my brother was out before I could unbuckle my seatbelt, carrying Celeste like she weighed nothing. I followed them into the elevator, my legs shaky and heart beating faster than I cared to admit.

Inside the penthouse, he moved through his space like muscle memory. Past the glass walls, the skyline still blinked with scattered lights. The sun wasn’t up yet, but the horizon was beginning to gray.

He laid Celeste on his bed. Gently. Like she was something breakable. I watched him brush her hair out of her face, then call the pack medic with clipped words and steady hands.

But when the phone clicked off… he just stood there. Silent. Breathing.

Staring.

“Okay,” I finally said, voice sharp in the quiet. “What the hell is going on?”

He didn’t answer.

“Brother.” I stepped forward. “You whispered mate. You—you know what that means.”

“Yes,” he said.

I blinked. “Yes? That’s all I get?”

“She’s mine,” he said, voice hoarse. “The bond clicked into place tonight. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But when her scent broke through, when I saw her truly fight… something ancient inside me just knew.”

I shook my head. “But that doesn’t make sense. Our family doesn’t get mates. That’s the curse.”

“I thought the same,” he muttered. “But something shattered the moment she touched her power. Maybe the curse didn’t account for someone like her.”

“She’s not just some stranger, is she?”

He didn’t look at me.

“She’s not human,” I added softly.

He didn’t deny it.

**

The penthouse was quiet, heavy with tension. Moonlight had long given way to the pale blue haze of dawn, but inside, the darkness still lingered—in silence, in breath, in thought.

The Alpha King stood by the floor-length windows, one hand loosely tucked into the pocket of his dark slacks, the other holding a tumbler of untouched water. His gaze wasn’t on the city but somewhere beyond it, somewhere in the folds of the past and the tangle of the unknown.

Behind him, Victoria paced the living room like a storm trapped in a bottle. Her arms crossed, then uncrossed. She looked toward the hallway every few seconds, as though willing the medic to appear and say something—anything.

She had seen Celeste fight. She had seen her bleed. But she’d also seen the way her body had crumpled into her brother’s arms after the battle was over, like a fire finally burned out.

The soft click of the bedroom door had both of them snapping their heads up.

The medic stepped out quietly, her expression unreadable, though a crease had formed between her brows.

Victoria was the first to move.

“Is she okay?” she asked, voice more fragile than she meant it to be.

The medic nodded slowly, “She’s resting. Stable. Her injuries weren’t fatal, although she has a number of old wounds, like those ones see from the battle grounds. Some of them…” the woman hesitated, “Some of them were… self-inflicted.”

The Alpha King’s jaw tightened.

The medic glanced between the siblings, then continued. “Physically, she’ll heal. But this… this is unlike anything I’ve seen in a very long time.”

“What do you mean?” Victoria asked, eyes narrowing.

“She’s a wolf,” the medic confirmed quietly, “but for a time… she wasn’t.”

The Alpha King turned from the window.

“Her scent—muted. Nearly human. I didn’t understand it until I examined her. Her wolf side has been dormant, suppressed in such a way that it was like her wolf was in hibernation. Like her soul split, and one half simply went to sleep.”

Victoria stared, stunned.

“A forced rejection,” the medic said softly, almost reverently. “That’s the only thing that could cause this kind of fracture. The kind of heartbreak that doesn’t just wound—it rewrites a wolf’s connection to themselves.”

“She cut her wolf off?” Victoria whispered, incredulous.

“No,” the medic corrected gently. “Her wolf shut down to protect her. Like bleeding out and going into shock to stay alive. And tonight… she woke up. That’s the strength you saw. It was borrowed power—raw and unchecked. Her wolf used every shred of energy left to protect what little connection they still had.”

“She didn’t seem like herself,” Victoria murmured, remembering the way Celeste had fought—how she moved like instinct and memory were dragging her through the storm.

“She’s going to sleep for a while,” the medic said, glancing back down the hall. “Healing will take time—physically, yes, but more importantly, spiritually. She has to reforge that connection with her other half. With Verena.”

“Verena?” the Alpha King echoed.

“Her wolf,” the medic said. “Or… what’s left of her.”

Silence settled again, deeper than before.

“She’s strong,” the medic added after a pause. “But she’s been hollow for so long. It’s a miracle she lasted this way for as long as she did.”

Victoria looked down, arms wrapped around herself.

The Alpha King stepped forward, his voice low and sharp. “Will she be the okay?”

The medic gave him a long, searching look. “Only time will tell?”

**

Victoria stood by the kitchen counter, arms tightly crossed over her chest as she stared at the hardwood floor like it might give her answers. Her brother stood across the room, hands tucked into his pockets, eyes locked on the city skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The silence was heavy, pressing in around them like a weight.

“The medic said she’s stable,” Victoria said, her voice rough from hours of adrenaline and fear. “But what she described… Celeste wasn’t just fighting off a few rogues. She was surviving with every last piece of herself.”

Her brother didn’t move.

“And then,” she continued, turning toward him now, “after all of that—you looked at her like she was the only thing left in the world. And you said ‘mate,” Victoria was going over everything again, slowly.

He finally turned to her, jaw clenched. “Yes.”

Victoria blinked, processing. “So… just to make sure I’m understanding this right… Celeste—that Celeste, my Celeste—is your… fated mate?”

“Yes,” he said. No hesitation. Just that one, heavy word.

Victoria’s eyes widened as she dropped onto the edge of the couch. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” he said quietly. “The bond was muted before. I could sense something—I kept seeing her, remembering her—but tonight… the moment she stopped hiding, when her wolf came through? It was like I was finally breathing real air again.”

Victoria ran both hands down her face. “But we’re not supposed to have mates. Our bloodline—our curse—”

“I know,” he interrupted, his voice sharp with frustration. “We were told it was impossible. That it would never happen to any of us. But it did.”

Victoria looked toward the hallway where Celeste rested. “So… what does this mean for her?”

“I don’t know yet,” he admitted, sitting beside her. “She’s barely hanging on. You saw her. She’s been through more than either of us can imagine.”

“I know,” Victoria said softly. “But that doesn’t mean she can carry this too. Whatever this… mate thing is. It’s not just a title. It binds people.”

“I’m not claiming her,” he said quickly. “Not unless she chooses it. This isn’t about what I want.”

Victoria gave a long exhale. “Good. Because she’s just now starting to feel safe with me. If she finds out she’s been bonded to the most powerful man in the city—”

He gave her a look.

“—the most stubborn, egotistical man in the city,” she corrected, “it might shatter her all over again.”

He didn’t argue.

“I just…” Victoria looked back out the window, her voice smaller now. “I wanted her to have peace.”

“So do I,” he said.

The room fell into silence again, the sky beyond the windows starting to tint with early morning blues and rose-gold streaks. Somewhere in the city, alarms were going off. The world was still turning.