MasukIRENE*******The walk to the clinic felt like walking to hell. My heart was a frantic, trapped bird in my chest, beating against my ribs with every step. The maid moved silently ahead of me, her footsteps echoed on the stone. I could only hear the roaring of my own panic.We reached the familiar hallway, the clean, sharp smell of herbs and medicine hitting me. The stern head healer was there, talking to his apprentice. He looked up as we approached.I noticed the door to Rowan’s room was open. The bed inside was empty, stripped of its sheets.My steps faltered. “Where is he?”“Ah Miss Irene,” the healer said, giving a short nod. “You are looking for the Beta?”“Yes,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I was told he asked for me.”The healer’s brow furrowed. “He did, earlier. But he is not here. Once his fever broke and he could sit up, he became… restless. He insisted on being taken to his own quarters. Said he couldn’t heal surrounded by the smell of sickness.” The old man shook h
IRENE ****Under the cool canopy of the garden behind the pack house, the omega maid had found me a basket of soft, undyed wool and two knitting needles to keep myself busy. I sat on a stone bench, the weak autumn sun doing little to warm me, and fumbled with the needles. I didn’t know how to knit. The tangles of yarn mirrored the tangles in my mind.Frustrated, I cursed under my breath as I sighed heavily. I was feeling unsettled. Where was Dante? What’s Rowan's current situation now? The waiting was its own kind of torture. Dante had put my confession on hold, tied to Rowan’s recovery. It was like living with a sword hanging over my head by a single, fraying thread.My thoughts were a restless animal, pacing in a cage. Rowan’s pale face. Dante’s haunted eyes. The feeling of Rowan’s hands on my arms in the dark. The taste of wine and regret. The roaring fear when Dante said he could smell another man on me.I was so deep in the awful spiral that I didn’t hear her approach until he
DANTE **********I didn't run to the clinic. An Alpha does not run. But my steps were long and fast, eating up the stone corridors. The healer's words echoed. Urgent. What could be urgent? Was he worse?The thought sent a cold spear of dread through my chest, right next to the burning coal of my anger.The clinic was quiet. The smell of herbs and blood was still there, but fainter. The old healer stood outside Rowan's door, talking softly with his apprentice. They bowed when they saw me."He is awake, Alpha. The fever is down. He is weak, but his mind is clear. He insisted on speaking to you alone."I gave a short nod and pushed the door open.Rowan was propped up on more pillows now. The greyish pallor was gone from his face, replaced by the waxy look of someone who had brushed against death. But his eyes were open, and they were clear. They tracked me as I entered and closed the door."Alpha," he said, his voice a dry rasp. He tried to sit up straighter, wincing."Stay down," I ord
DANTE****The air outside the pack clinic was cold and clean, but it did nothing to clear the fog in my head. Memories of—Irene’s tear-streaked face, Rowan’s blood on my hands, the unspoken strain between them—it all swirled together, a sickness no enemy could cause.I pushed it down. The Alpha had work to do.The patrol meeting was in the war room, a lower hall lined with maps and weapons. My men, both the deltas, betas, and Gammas stood up when I entered. Their faces were grim, streaked with dried blood from the night’s fight.“Report,” I growled, taking my place at the head of the scarred wooden table.Kael, his arm bandaged, stepped forward. “We killed seventeen rogues, Alpha. No survivors from their attack party. But we tracked their path back. They came from the Blackwood, on the Northern Pack’s border.”“The Northern Pack,” I repeated, the words like ice. So it wasn’t just a random band of outcasts. It was a message. A challenge from my old rivals, sent with starving, despera
IRENE Time lost all meaning in the small, sunlit clinic room. It could have been minutes or hours. We just stood there, Dante and I—side by side—at Rowan’s bedside. The only sounds were the ticking clock on the wall. Rowan’s shallow, ragged breathing, and the pounding of my own heart.My mind was a storm. Seeing Rowan so broken wiped away the messy tangle of our betrayal and left behind something raw and simple: he was Dante’s heart. Not in the way I was, but in a way that was just as vital. He was his brother in all but blood, his shadow, his other half in ruling this fierce, wild world. And he was lying here because of me. Because our secret had created a crack, a distraction, a moment of doubt that had nearly cost Dante his life, and had cost Rowan… everything.Dante hadn’t moved. He was a statue of grief and fury, his eyes never leaving Rowan’s face. The tension between us hadn’t gone away; it had just been buried under the heavier weight of possible loss.Finally, the old h
IRENE I must have cried myself to sleep on the marble cold stone floor. When I woke up, the first light of morning was grey and weak, streaming through the high window. My body was stiff and aching, my head pounding. slowly I sat up, brushing tangled hair from my face, and looked around the empty, silent room.Dante wasn't back.The memory of last night crashed over me like a cold wave—the furious confrontation, his brutal kiss, his terrifying accusations, the way he'd dragged me, the wild look in his eyes when he said he could smell another man on me. My heart clenched with a fresh, sick fear. But under that, a new, sharper worry began to poke through.He had left to fight. He had run into the night because of an attack. And he hadn't come back.Just then, the door opened quietly. A young maid, different from the stern one last night, slipped in. She gave a small, nervous bow. "Miss Irene. I am here to help you bathe and dress. The Alpha King instructed it."I was too tired and w







