Alpha's Regret

The doors slammed open.

Kade filled the doorway, and for a second, my heart stuttered. Not with love. With memory. With eighteen years of lookingat that face and thinking *mine*.

He looked wrecked. Hair disheveled, eyes bloodshot, Alpha aura crackling like broken glass. Mira clung to his arm, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at me. At my hand in Darius’s. At the mark onmy neck Darius’s mouth had left ten minutes ago — not a bite, just a claim. Yet.

“You,” Kade snarled, and the room iced over. His gaze snapped to Darius. “You stole my mate.”

Darius didn’t move. Didn’t even tense. He just shifted, putting his body between me and Kade like it was instinct. Like I was his to protect. “I claimed an exiled wolf,” he said, voice bored. “You rejected your Luna. Choose your words carefully, pup.”

Pup. Kade, Alpha of the strongest pack in three territories, just got called *pup*. His face went white, then red.

“Elara is Silverfang property,” Kade bit out. “Beta’s daughter. Our laws—”

“Your laws say a rejected, exiled wolf is packless,” Darius cut in, silver eyes glowing brighter. “She crossed into *my* territory. She said *yes* to *me*. She’s mine under Lycan Law, which predates your pathetic pack by a millennium.”

He turned his head slightly, not taking his eyes off Kade, and murmured to me, “Go to the balcony, little wolf. Let me handle the trash.”

Trash. He called Kade trash. Six months ago I would have defended Kade. Now? My lips twitched. I wanted to watch.

But I also didn’t want Darius to kill him. Not yet.

Kade needed to *hurt* first.

I stepped around Darius, ignoring his low warning growl. “Kade,” I said, and his eyes flew to me. So much in that look — shock, anger, and something that looked like… fear?

“You said I was empty,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “Wolf-less. A burden. You threw me to the forest to die.”

“I was—” He ran a hand through his hair. “Mira, the pack council, they said a Luna had to be strong—”

“You didn’t fight for me.” The words weren’t a question. They were a verdict. “You turned your back. You let them laugh.”

His throat worked. “I made a mistake.”

The room went silent. Alpha Kade of Silverfang just admitted fault. Infront of another King. In front of Mira, whose nails were digging into his arm hard enough to draw blood.

Darius made a sound. Not quite a laugh. “A mistake,” he repeated, tasting the word. “You carved your mate’s heart out in front of three hundred people and called it a mistake.”

He took one step toward Kade. The guards at the door went to their knees, heads bowed. The pressure in the room doubled. This was King. This was power that didn’t need to shout.

“Tell me, Alpha,” Darius said softly, deadly. “If I walked into your territory, rejected your Luna, and left her to die, then came back crying ‘mistake’ when a stronger male claimed her… what would you do?”

Kade’s jaw ticked. He knew the answer. Any Alpha would rip that male’s throat out.

“She’s not— she doesn’t have a wolf,” Kade tried, but it was weak. We all heard it.

“Not yet,” Darius agreed. And then he looked at me. *Really* looked. And smiled. “But she will. Because I don’t choose broken things, Kade. I choose dormant weapons.”

My breath caught. *Dormant weapons*. No one had ever called me that.

Kade flinched like he’d been struck. “Elara, please. Come home. We can fix this. The rejection—we can do a reversal rite—”

“Over my dead body,” Darius said pleasantly.

“Don’t tempt me,” Mira spat suddenly, finally finding her voice. She pointed a shaking finger at me. “You seduced him! You wolf-less whore, you—”

She didn’t finish.

Darius moved. One blink his hand was around Mira’s throat, lifting her off the floor, Kade’s arm knocked aside like it was nothing.

“No one,” Darius said, voice gone arctic, “calls my Queen a whore and keeps their tongue.”

Kade roared, shifting mid-lunge, claws out. His Alpha wolf was huge, gray and scarred.

Darius didn’t even shift. He just *looked* at Kade, and the Alpha wolf slammed into the ground like he’d been hit by a truck. Whining. Submitting. Alpha Kade, submitting in his own skin.

The curse marks on Darius’s arms — I’d just noticed them — flared white-hot.

“I can smell your regret from here, Alpha,” Darius said, dropping Mira. She crumpled, gasping. “It reeks. But it’s too late. You had a Luna. You chose a puppet.”

He walked back to me, picked up my hand, and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. Right there. In front of Kade. Claiming me again without a single word.

“Get out of my castle,” Darius told Kade, not even looking at him. “Crawl back to your pack and tell them how you lost the Moon Goddess’s second chance because you were too weak to defy your council.”

Kade shifted back, naked and shaking, humiliation and rage warring on his face. His eyes met mine, and for the first time, I saw it. The truth.

He didn’t want me back because he loved me.

He wanted me back because he just realized what he lost.

“Elara,” he whispered.

I took a step back. Into Darius. Into safety. Into *choice*.

“My name,” I said, voice clear as a bell, “is Queen Elara. And you are dismissed, Alpha.”

Darius’s rumble of approval vibrated through my back.

Kade stared for one more second. Then he turned, grabbed Mira, and stormed out. The doors boomed shut behind him.

Silence.

Then Darius turned me in his arms, bracketing me against his chest. His silver eyes searched mine. “Are you alright?”

I should have said no. I should have been shaking. I’d just banished my childhood mate, watched a King bring him to his knees, and been called *Queen*.

Instead, I wrapped my arms around his waist and breathed him in. Frost. Pine. *Mine*.

“I’m better than alright,” Itold him. “I’m free.”

His mouth found mine again, slower this time. Deeper. A promise, not a brand. When he pulled back, his thumb traced my bottom lip.

“Good,” he murmured. “Because tomorrow, we wake your wolf. And then—” his eyes flashed — “we make him kneel for real.”

A knock. One of the guards. “My King. The curse readings. They’re… gone. The marks are fading.”

Darius froze. Then he looked at me, and for the first time, the Lycan King looked *stunned*.

“Little wolf,” he whispered, “what are you?”