CHAPTER FOUR

Jean

“You don’t belong to him.”

Those words stuck to me like glue. Even long after Seth was gone, the laughter from the feast crept back in. I just stood there, pressed against cold stone, trying to breathe, but my chest was tight and useless. My wolf’s awake now, clawing and howling in my gut, wild and pissed and very much alive.

Hadn’t felt her like this in… what, years? Not since Agora slapped his mark on me and shoved her under, locked her down.

But now? She’s up.

   I spent days avoiding him.

But you can’t avoid the Alpha King. His presence was like gravity. You could feel it in the air, in your bones, in the way rooms tilt when he walks in.

At meals, even when he looked away, I feel it. Out in the courtyard, his shadow slid past mine, his goons trailing behind like storm clouds. At night, locked in my room, I still felt him somehow. His gaze is a weight, pressing through walls, through dreams.

When we actually do run into each other, it’s... hell.

His sleeve brushed mine in the hall. My hand bumped his when we both reached for the goblet. His eyes caught mine and our wolves snarled at exactly the same moment. 

Every time, I felt a tingling sensation in the pit of my stomach. 

Abigail saw it.

I didn't care though.

She found me in the garden one afternoon, slid onto the bench all graceful and perfect, her dress puddled around her. She was sweetly sweet, but her eyes? Pure venom.

“You seem distracted, sister,” she said, picking a rose and spinning it between her fingers. “Your eyes keep wandering. Not toward your husband, either.”

I tensed up, but I kept my mouth shut. Not giving her the satisfaction of seeing me hesitate. 

She leaned in, voice dropping soft as silk. “Agora expects loyalty, you know. If he suspects otherwise…well. You remember how he handles betrayal.”

“At least I didn't seduce your husband. Oh. You are not married,” I said, smirking.

She stared at me hatefully. 

If words could draw blood, hers would. She wanted to scare me. Wanted me boxed up.

I wanted Agora to notice.

Later, I caught her whispering outside his study door, her voice low and calm. I couldn’t hear the words, but I got the details I needed. She was feeding him doubts, one drop at a time. I smiled to myself as I shook my head.

That night, I couldn't sleep. Another memory claws up from where I tried to bury it.

My wedding night.

The room was dark, shadows everywhere. Agora took his time, stripping me down like I was something to carve, not love. His hands, his mouth, all cold. No warmth. No kindness.

Then his teeth.

He marked me fast. His canines were tearing in while he whispered against my skin, blood running hot.

“Now you’ll never escape me.”

My wolf shrieked, fighting, but his mark slammed the door on her, quieted her down to nothing.

Afterwards, I just lay there. Numb. Shaking. He fell asleep. Me? I was a Luna, a wife, an instrument.

Now, I touched the scar hidden under silk and gems and wondered if even Seth could break it.

 I sulked alone as the rain thundered in the palace. Candles flickered and thunder rumbled. I clutched my cloak tightly. 

And then…

Seth.

He was there, at the far end of the hall, storming at his back, cloak snapping like he sprouted wings. Lightning in his eyes, aura thick enough to choke on. The air? Feels heavy like standing too close to a bonfire.

I should run. Or bow. Or vanish into the nearest shadow before anyone caught us.

But I couldn’t move.

Outside, the storm was losing its mind, and my heart was right there with it, hammering away. I pressed myself against the wall, real subtle, breath shaky as hell.

And then he was right in front of me. Way, way too close. His heat soaked into me, hands on either side of my head, pinning me cornered but not afraid.

Not really.

Lightning pops, painting his jaw in sharp relief, all that raw, pent-up restraint written across his face.

“Why?” he asked, voice scraping low, rough, trembling with something sharp…anger, hunger, who knows. “Why does your wolf answer mine?”

My mouth opened. Nothing. My wolf clawed at my skin, desperate to leap, to claim, to howl. She was inside me, outside me, thrumming through the bond like fire licking up dry grass.

I should deny it. Scratch at him. Lie.

But the truth was right there. Loud, burning, impossible to ignore.

She does answer him.

And I had no idea how to shut her up.

His breath slammed across my cheek, hot and nice, thunder shaking the floorboards.

“Answer me,” Seth growled, voice coming apart at the edges. Fury? Hunger? Both?

What can I say?

I shook my head, pressed into the wall, but there was nowhere left to go. “I don’t know what you mean,” I whispered, and that was a lie. My wolf wouldn’t even play along.

She was losing it. She was screaming. 

Mine, mine, mine.

His jaw tightened, eyes pinned me, heat rolling off him so thick it’s hard to breathe. For a second, his control snapped. His hand lifts, knuckles brush my jaw. Sparks fly, electricity zapping under my skin.

I gasped, body arching into his touch before my brain caught up. Shame and want, a messy collision.

He felt it, too. I could see it from the way he swallowed hard. The way he’s fighting for air, like breathing’s a war he’s barely winning.

“Don’t lie to me, Jean,” he whispered, my name shattering like thunder between us. “I feel it. Your wolf is calling mine, and gods, I can barely keep her in check.”

Lightning split the sky again, turning his face to fire every sharp edge, every crack in that iron control.

I wanted to say something…a thousand things. 

Confess. 

Deny. 

Beg. 

Nothing comes out.

My silence said it all.

Suddenly he ripped his hand away, like he had been burned, body snapping back into armor. He stepped away, cloak swirling, but his presence was still everywhere storm barely bottled.

“If you stay with him,” he said, voice low and lethal, “you’ll break. And when you do, the bond will take everything you love down with you.”

He didn’t wait. Didn't let me beg. He was gone with the next lash of lightning, leaving me pressed to the wall, shaking, haunted by words I couldn’t forget.

And for the first time since I said “I do” to Agora , my wolf didn’t curl up in the dark.

Mine.