Chapter 31

ALPHA RUNE 

I clutched a small scrap of blue silk—a ribbon I had taken from her at the clinic before the abduction—to my face. Mari had needed to change her into something clean after Alpha Tristan had dug his filth-laden claws into her during the full moon. He had hoped the infection would kill her, and even then, she had survived, only to die on a lonely stretch of highway.

The ribbon was the only thing left in the world that still carried her scent. Bluebells. Rain. Life. My wolf was a whimpering, dying creature in the back of my mind, howling for a soul-tether that had gone slack and cold.

Suddenly, the heavy door creaked open. I didn't look up. I didn't care if it was an assassin coming to finish me off or a ghost coming to haunt me. I had given an order, and whoever was standing there was clearly inviting my wrath.

"Rune?" Carmen’s voice was unusually soft, stripped of its habitual warrior’s edge. I heard her footsteps falter as she took in the sight of the Conqueror on the floor. "Rune... by the Moon, why are you doing this to yourself?"

"Carmen, I told the staff that I didn't want to be disturbed," I said through the tears, my voice cracking and sounding utterly pathetic.

"Holy fuck, Rune, you’re unraveling. You are completely falling apart," she whispered, stepping into the room. "Talk to me. I’ve seen you bleed out on a battlefield and crack a joke while the healers stitched you up. Why is this girl—this one girl—doing this to you?"

I wiped my face with the back of my hand, but the moisture wouldn't stop flowing. "Leave me, Carmen. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to explain it."

She didn't leave. Instead, she stepped closer, kneeling a respectful distance away on the plush rug. "Who was she, Rune? Truly? You’ve had many women. You’ve had lovers and consorts. I’ve known every face in your life since we were pups running in the mud. But you’re about to turn the entire world into a slaughterhouse for someone I’ve never even heard of. You and Kayvon won't say a word, and your collective mood is poisoning the entire pack. Please... help me understand why our Alpha is dying inside."

I looked at her then, my eyes bloodshot and my voice a shattered ghost of its former self. "She wasn't just a girl, Carmen. She’s my mate. My fated mate."

Carmen recoiled as if I had struck her across the face. Her eyes searched mine, filled with a sudden, sharp disbelief. "Your mate? Rune, that’s... that’s impossible. We would have known. The pack would have felt the cosmic shift. You’ve lived for decades without a scent, without a pull. You’re telling me a Lockwood reject was the one the Moon Goddess chose for the Conqueror?"

"I don't expect you to understand," I muttered, barely audible, clutching the blue silk tighter. "It was new. It was quiet. I was trying to protect her... I thought I had time to tell the world. I thought I had forever."

As we were speaking, the door swung open again, more forcefully this time. Kayvon walked in, his expression grimmer than I had ever seen it. Standing behind him was a man I recognized—Khalid, one of the most elite alchemists and scent-trackers in our territory.

"Rune," Kayvon said, his voice flat and devoid of hope. "I know you didn't want to believe the scouts. Neither did I. So I brought Khalid here. I had him perform the tests on the remains from the crash site." He didn't even acknowledge Carmen’s presence.

I stood up slowly, my legs feeling like they were made of lead. "Proof. I want undeniable proof, Kayvon. I won't accept a pile of ash as her without absolute certainty."

Khalid stepped forward, holding a small, silver-trimmed leather case. He looked at me with a pained sympathy that made my stomach churn with nausea.

"Alpha," Khalid began, his voice clinical but gentle. "A wolf’s scent is not merely a smell. It is a biological signature, a molecular resonance. It is as unique as a fingerprint or the sequence of your DNA. It is written into the marrow and the very blood. While it can be hidden with maskers, as we saw during the abduction, it cannot be mimicked, and it cannot be truly erased, even by the most intense fire."

He opened the case, revealing two small glass vials.

"The first vial contains the essence extracted from the piece of fabric you brought back from the dungeon cell in the Twilight Zone," Khalid explained. "The second contains the trace residue I extracted from the carbonized remains at the crash site on Highway 25. I have performed a molecular resonance test to compare the two."

He paused, looking down at the floor as if the next words were a death sentence.

"The data is conclusive, Alpha. Using the resonance formula where Sara is the spectral signature of the Lockwood lineage, they are an identical match. The chemical markers, the lunar resonance in the blood... it is Sara Lockwood. The woman in that burnt car was your mate."

The world seemed to tilt on its axis. The last sliver of hope I had been clinging to—the idea that this was a trick, a body double, or a grand deception—was instantly incinerated by Khalid’s technical certainty. My wolf let out a final, agonizing yowl in the back of my mind and then went completely, terrifyingly silent.

"I am... deeply sorry for your loss, Alpha," Khalid whispered.

I didn't hear him. I didn't hear the wind howling outside or the sound of my own heart thudding in my ears. I felt a cold, numbing void expanding in my chest, swallowing everything I was, everything I had built.

"Get out," I said. It was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of a mountain.

"Rune, we need to discuss the mobilization. We need to plan the strike against Tristan—" Carmen started, her warrior instincts taking over.

"GET OUT!" I screamed, the sheer force of the roar shattering a glass decanter on the side table and blowing out the candles.

They both flinched, backing toward the door in the sudden gloom. I looked at Kayvon and Carmen, the two people I trusted most in this world, and I felt nothing but a hollow, bone-deep exhaustion.

"The pack is yours for now," I stated, turning my back on them to stare out the window at the gray, mocking sky. "Kayvon, Carmen... you run the council. You lead the vanguard. I don't care about the borders anymore. I don't care about the taxes, the treaties, or the wars."

"Rune, you can't just abdicate your responsibility," Kayvon urged, his voice full of concern.

"I’m not abdicating," I said, my voice dead and flat. "I’m mourning. And if either of you breathes a single word to me about anything other than my own grave, I will consider it an act of treason. Leave me in the dark. It’s the only place I belong now."

I heard the heavy door click shut. I was alone in the silence. I sank back to the floor, the scrap of blue silk pressed to my lips, waiting for the sun to set on a world that no longer had a reason to turn.

"I'm sorry, Little Miss Blue Eyes," I whispered into the silk. "I failed you. I failed the only thing that ever mattered."