Chapter 4

Blade's pov

“Take a look at this.” He handed the documents to me.

Hazel's name was on top of the papers, I stared at it for a long moment before I let myself believe it.

"Say that again," I said. The doctor blinked twice. "Alpha blade?"

"The name," I said. "Say the name."

He looked down at his own documents like he needed to check it wasn't a mistake. "Hazel Creed," he said. "She came in this morning with a young boy. My assistant ran the standard scan on every new arrival, like you asked us to do months ago. Her numbers came back so high the machine flagged it twice. We thought it was broken." I let my warm spit settle in my chest.

"Are you certain that this is not a different woman with the same name?" I said.

"I have her photo right here." He held out his phone, and I made myself look.

It was her. The same face I had just watched crumble under my hand less than an hour ago. The same woman I had thrown into the dark room myself, the one I had planned to kill the moment I finished questioning her.

I laughed, but there was nothing funny in it.

Fifteen years. For the past fifteen years I had searched every continent under my rule for a woman whose body could hold my child, and the Moon Goddess had decided to hand her to me wrapped inside the one person I hated more than anyone alive.

"Alpha," the doctor said carefully, watching my face. "Is something wrong?"

"You have no idea," I said.

I turned the phone back toward him and started walking, my legs moving before my mind had fully caught up. The doctor hurried after me, his shoes slapping against the stone path.

"Sir, if I may ask, do you know her?"

"I know exactly who she is," I said. My jaw was so tight that it ached. "She is the woman who killed my niece."

He stopped walking, I didn't bother to wait for him.

"Alpha." A voice called out from behind me before I had gone more than a few steps.

I turned and saw the old seer, the same one who had spoken at my grandmother's apartment earlier, hurrying toward me as fast as her legs could carry her. One of my guards moved to stop her, but I raised a hand and he backed off.

"Not now," I said. "I don't have time for this."

"Alpha, please," she said, slightly out of breath. "I saw something else. After you left, I saw it again, clearer this time and I need to tell you about it."

"Whatever it is, it can wait." I turned to keep walking. "I have somewhere to be."

"It cannot wait." Her voice was firm enough to make me stop again. For an old woman, she had a way of speaking that made you listen whether you wanted to or not. "Alpha, I have served your family since before you were born. I would not chase you down like this if it did not matter."

I let out a hard breath and faced her fully. "Fine, speak and be quick."

She folded her hands in front of her, her eyes distant like she was looking at something only she could see. "I saw a star," she said. "A single star in the sky and as I watched it, it split into two."

I waited for more, but she just stood there.

"And?" I said.

"Both halves were whole," she continued. "Not broken pieces, they weren't fragments. Two complete stars, each one fully formed, shining on their own."

I frowned at her. "What does that mean?"

"I do not know, Alpha."

My patience snapped. "You stopped me in the middle of something important to tell me you saw a star, and you don't even know what it means?"

"Visions do not always come with their meaning attached," she said, unbothered by my tone. "Sometimes I see the picture long before I understand it but I felt it in my bones that you needed to know this one immediately. It's connected to you."

I studied her face for a moment. She had never once given me a false warning in all the years I had known her, even when I hadn't wanted to hear what she had to say.

"When you understand it," I said, "you come find me. Not before."

"Yes, Your Grace."

I didn't wait for anything else. I turned and headed straight for the underground rooms, my mind already pulling itself back to the one problem that actually mattered right now.

I crossed the courtyard fast, past the guards who straightened the moment they saw my face, past the fountain my grandmother insisted on keeping even though I hated the sound of it. My wolf was pacing inside me, restless and confused, torn between the hatred I had carried for eight years and something else that had woken up the second I saw her name on that paper and refused to go back to sleep.

I hated that it made sense. Of course it was her, the one person who could save my bloodline.

By the time I reached the entrance to the underground rooms, two of my men were standing guard outside the door, exactly where I had left them.

"Open it," I said.

One of them fumbled with the keys, his hands shaking slightly under my stare. The lock clicked, and I pushed the door open myself before he could finish.

The room was dark except for a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. She was sitting on the floor in the corner, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Her cheek was still red from where I had struck her earlier.

She lifted her head when the light from the hallway spilled in, and her eyes went wide the second she saw me standing in the doorway.

"Please," she said before I had even said a word. "Please don't kill Ian. I'll tell you anything you want, just don't hurt him."

I said nothing. I stood there and studied her the way I would study a problem I hadn't solved yet.

She was breathing hard, watching me the way prey watches a predator that hasn't decided whether to strike. Good. She should be afraid of me.

"Get up," I said.

She flinched at the sound of my voice, but she didn't move.

"I said get up." I took a step closer. "Or should I have my men do it for you?"

She scrambled to her feet slowly, using the wall behind her for support. Even standing, she kept her eyes down, refusing to look directly at me. Her hands were trembling at her sides.

"You killed my father in front of me," she said quietly, her voice cracking. "What more do you want from me?"

I almost told her the truth right there that everything had changed the moment my doctor handed me those papers but I didn't say any of that. Instead I reached out and grabbed her chin, forcing her face up so she had no choice but to look at me. I could see the fear in her eyes clearly, and something underneath it too, something that looked almost like defiance, buried deep but still there.

"You are going to wish I had killed you tonight," I said, as I kept my voice low. "Because what I have planned for you now is so much worse than death."

Her lips parted like she wanted to ask what I meant, but no sound came out.

I let go of her chin and turned toward the door, my mind already racing through everything I would need to do. I would need to keep her alive. I would need her healthy, cooperative, and pregnant before the two years my grandmother's seers had warned me about ran out.

I would need to marry the one woman on earth I hated most.

"Take her upstairs," I told my men. "Clean her up. Feed her and make sure nothing happens to her."

One of them frowned in confusion. "Alpha, I thought you wanted her—"

"I said clean her up," I snapped, cutting him off. "If a single hair on her head is harmed before I say so, I will kill every person responsible for it myself."

I walked out without looking back at her, my chest became tight. Behind me, I heard her voice, small and confused, asking one of my men what was happening, why I had suddenly changed my mind.

She had no idea that the blood I had wanted to spill for eight long years, was about to become the only thing keeping my throne and my entire bloodline from collapsing into nothing.