Chapter 12 (2)

Her eyes flew open immediately.

She jerked upright, her body spasming with cramp and exhaustion, and then she collapsed forward, her forehead hitting the floor with a sound that should have hurt. She didn’t seem to feel it.

“Alpha.”

The word came out as a sob, cracked and broken.

“Alpha, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—I wasn’t trying to offend you, I swear, I swear I wasn’t—”

She tried to push herself up, but her arms gave out. Her ruined hands scraped against the marble, leaving faint smears of dried blood, and she cried out—a sound of genuine pain, physical and desperate.

“I thought—”

She was crying now, ugly, desperate tears that made her face blotchy and red.

“I thought she had stolen it, I thought she was presumptuous, I thought I was protecting your honor, Alpha, please, please believe me—”

She dragged herself forward on her knees, her silk gown bunching around her legs, her hair falling into her face.

She looked wild.

Unhinged.

The perfect, polished Lady Morgana reduced to something base and begging.

“Please,” she whimpered, reaching for my leg.

Her bloody fingers wrapped around my boot, clutching like a drowning woman.

“Please, Alpha, I’ve served you for years, I’ve been loyal, I’ve been everything you wanted—don’t throw me away, please, don’t let her take my place, I’m begging you, I’m begging—”

Her voice broke completely, dissolving into racking sobs that shook her entire body.

She pressed her forehead against my knee, her shoulders heaving, her grip on my boot tightening until her knuckles turned white beneath the blood.

“Am I not your favorite anymore?”

The words came out choked, desperate, a child’s plea in a woman’s voice.

“Am I… am I nothing now? Tell me I’m something, Alpha, please, tell me I still matter to you—”

I looked down at her.

I felt nothing.

No pity, no anger, no satisfaction at her destruction. She was a tool that had overreached, a blade that had cut without permission. And now she was begging for the hand that wielded her to forgive the wound.

I reached down and took her chin in my hand, forcing her face up to meet my eyes.

Her makeup had run in black streaks down her cheeks. Her lips were trembling, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps.

She looked at me with absolute terror—the terror of someone who has realized they are disposable, who has seen the abyss open beneath their feet.

“Stand,” I said quietly.

She blinked, confused, her mouth opening and closing without sound.

“I said stand.”

She scrambled to obey, her legs buckling beneath her, her hands flailing for purchase on my arms.

I didn’t help her.

I watched her struggle, watched her claw her way upright through sheer desperation, until she was standing before me—swaying, broken, her ruined hands hanging at her sides.

I pulled her into my arms.

She went rigid for a moment, then collapsed against me with a sob that sounded like relief.

But I didn’t hold her like a lover.

My arms closed around her like a cage, my hands pressing into her back with calculated pressure—not comfort, but possession. A reminder of who held the power to crush her.

She was trembling against me, her face buried in my chest, her tears soaking through my shirt.

“Alpha,” she whispered, the word muffled. “Alpha, I love you, I’ve always loved you, please—”

“Enough.”

The word cut through her babbling like a blade.

She went still, her breath hitching.

I held her there for a moment longer, letting the silence stretch, letting her feel the weight of my decision.

Then I pushed her back just enough to look into her eyes.

“You still hold your position,” I said, my voice flat, emotionless. “For now.”

Hope flared in her eyes—ugly, desperate hope.

“Not because you deserve it,” I continued, watching the hope flicker and die.

“Not because I forgive you. You are here because you are useful, Morgana. Because your family has influence I still need. Because your presence in my household serves political purposes that have nothing to do with you.”

Her face crumpled, but she didn’t look away.

“You exist at my pleasure,” I said, leaning close enough that she could feel my breath on her face.

“You breathe because I allow it. You hold your title because it serves me to let you hold it. The moment you forget that—the moment you overreach again, the moment you touch what is mine without permission—I will destroy you. Not just your position. You. Do you understand?”

She was shaking, nodding frantically, fresh tears streaming down her face.

“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes, Alpha, I understand, I swear, I’ll be good, I’ll be perfect—”

I released her and stepped back, watching her stumble, catch herself, stand there swaying with her bloody hands clasped in front of her like a supplicant.

“Go,” I said, turning away from her to look out the window.

“Have your hands treated. Then return to your chambers and stay there until I summon you.”

I heard her hesitate, heard her breath catch as she considered begging more, apologizing more, crawling for my forgiveness.

But she must have seen something in my posture—the set of my shoulders, the rigid line of my back—that told her she had used up whatever mercy I was willing to grant.

“Yes, Alpha,” she whispered.

I didn’t turn around.

I stood at the window and listened to her gather the bloody pages with shaking hands, to her soft footsteps retreating across the marble, to the door opening and closing with a soft click.

Then I was alone.

I looked out at the garden below, at the east wing where they were preparing chambers for Evelina, and I felt the familiar cold settle over my heart.

Two women.

One broken by my hand, kept alive only because she was useful.

One saved by my blood, elevated because she was valuable.

And me, standing between them, holding the threads that connected us all—the puppet master who felt nothing for either of his dolls, only the cold satisfaction of control.

My wolf stirred beneath my skin, restless, unsatisfied.

Ours, he whispered, the word directed eastward, toward the girl I had left sleeping in the servant’s quarters.

Soon, I promised him.

Soon.