Chapter 38

ALPHA TRISTAN 

My office was a sharp contrast to the medieval brutality of the hall. It was a modern, clinical space—banks of monitors displaying real-time border feeds and comfortable leather chairs. I sat behind my heavy desk, the weight of the night pressing down on my shoulders like a lead cloak. Yvonne stood to my right, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her jaw set in a hard line of defiance.

Before I could even open my mouth to demand an explanation, Paige fell to her knees on the carpet.

"Alpha Tristan, please! I beg of you to listen," she cried. "I grew up just blocks away from the Lockwood estate. I’ve known Sara since she was a toddler, a sweet girl who wouldn't hurt a fly. She isn't the monster you’ve made her out to be in your head. Please, have mercy on her. She cannot take any more of this."

Yvonne’s lip curled in a sneer of pure disgust. "You’re overstepping your station, Paige. You’re a housekeeper, not a judge or a member of the council. One more word in defense of that murderer and I’ll have you locked in the cellar alongside her. This does not concern you."

Yvonne answered before I even had a chance to formulate a thought.

"Paige... Yvonne is right," I said, trying to maintain my Alpha persona, though my heart wasn't in it. "I understand you grew up with her, but she is merely receiving the punishment for her crimes against the pack and against Claudia."

"Yes, it doesn't concern you," Yvonne repeated, her voice dripping with venom.

"Doesn't it?" Harlan stepped forward, his eyes locking onto Yvonne’s with a terrifying intensity. He didn't bow. As a High Commander, he was her equal in rank, and he stood his ground. "Is it a crime now in the Twilight Zone to speak for the helpless? Or has this pack become a place where only your voice is allowed to ring out, Yvonne?"

Yvonne bristled, her hand twitching instinctively toward the sidearm at her hip. She turned to me, her voice trembling with a mixture of anger and deep-seated resentment. "Tristan, are you seriously going to allow this? He is openly undermining your authority in your own office!"

I leaned forward, the green light from the security monitors casting a sickly, ghoulish glow over my features. "Harlan, have you forgotten the cold of the solitary cells so quickly? I gave you a chance to redeem your honor. Don't throw it all away for a girl who wouldn't blink twice if you were the one rotting on that floor."

"This is a private meeting, Alpha," Harlan said, his voice level, steady, and entirely devoid of fear. "I am not disrespecting your rank or your crown. I am appealing to your soul—if you still have one. What happened tonight... it wasn't justice. It wasn't a legal execution or a fair trial. It was inhuman. It was cruel, sadistic, and brutal. It was fundamentally wicked. If you continue down this path..."

"Are you just going to throw a list of synonyms at me all night?" I interrupted him, my voice rising. "If you’ve got something of actual substance to say, Harlan, then say it and be done with it."

Harlan smiled then, a small, sad smile that showed a side of his personality I hadn't seen before. "If you truly want her dead for what happened to Claudia, then have the courage to kill her yourself. I already feel like a failure for advocating that her life be spared. Be an Alpha. Be the Conqueror you claim to be and take her head. But do not degrade her like this. Do not turn our warriors into a den of cowards who prey on a bound, defenseless woman."

"Watch your tongue," I warned, my wolf beginning to growl low in my throat, sensing the challenge.

"I remember the man you used to be, Tristan," Harlan continued, completely ignoring the lethal threat. "Before the grief for Claudia blinded your judgment. You are allowing yourself to be used as a weapon for someone else’s spite. You’re letting Yvonne use your hand to punish Sara, but this has absolutely nothing to do with Claudia anymore."

Yvonne let out a sharp, jagged laugh that sounded like a physical blow. "Spite? She killed our Luna! She destroyed our future!"

"She’s a target for you because she is a threat to you, Yvonne," Harlan countered, stepping even closer to her until they were nearly chest-to-chest. He then looked at me, his expression shifting to one of grim, heartbreaking realization. "Tristan, how can you be so blind? Yvonne hasn't been acting out of loyalty to the Twilight Zone. She’s been in love with you for years. She’s watched you pine for Claudia, and then she watched you become obsessed with this prisoner. She is taking out a decade of frustration and unrequited love on Sara Lockwood because Sara is the only thing standing in the way of her finally having you to herself."

The silence that followed was deafening, a physical weight that seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room.

I looked at Yvonne. She looked as if she had been struck across the face with a heavy iron bar. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. The manic, flickering light in her eyes died instantly, replaced by a raw, naked exposure that confirmed every single word Harlan had spoken. Paige stood there, dumbfounded, her mouth hanging open as she looked between the three of us.

"Is it true?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper, the realization chilling my blood.

"Tristan..." Yvonne breathed, her face turning a deep, shameful shade of crimson. She looked at Harlan and then at Paige, her warrior’s composure finally shattering into a thousand pieces. "Send them away. Send them away right now!"

I didn't move. I looked at the monitors, then back at Yvonne. I saw the way she was looking at me—not as a commander looks at her Alpha, but as a desperate woman looks at a man she has already lost to his own ghosts. I realized in that moment that I had been nothing but a pawn in a petty game of jealousy I hadn't even known was being played.

The image of Sara on the floor—naked, filthy, and humiliated—flashed in my mind, and for the first time since this nightmare began, I felt a wave of genuine, crushing shame.

"Release her," I said, my voice cold and final.

"Tristan, no—" Yvonne started, her voice cracking.

"I SAID RELEASE HER!" I barked, standing up so violently that my heavy leather chair hit the reinforced glass window behind me. "Paige, take her to the medical wing immediately. Clean her. Feed her. Give her whatever she needs to recover. Harlan, you are to supervise the transfer personally. If anyone—warrior or servant—so much as touches her, you have my express permission to use lethal force on the spot."

I didn't look at Yvonne as they hurried out of the office. I couldn't bear to see the ruin of her face. I just stood there in the heavy quiet of my office, realizing that in my blind quest for vengeance, I had become the very monster that Rune believed me to be.