6

Pearl Gem

PRESENT

The taxi rolled to a stop in front of what remained of my father’s old home. I paid the fare and stepped out.

For a long moment, I stood still, staring at the worn-out structure that once held laughter, love, and life. Five years had passed since that night, but the pain hadn’t aged. It was still fresh. Still bleeding.

Since then, I had worked endlessly. Days blending into nights. I took over my mother’s flower trade, I delivered blooms to those who ordered. I took over my father’s shoes trade, selling only to nobles outside the castle walls. I scrubbed noble floors, cleaned their home, smiled through their cruelty, all for moon coins to keep my brother alive in prison and my father breathing in a hospital bed.

The only one who never left me… who never said “I told you so”… was Royce. My best friend. My only constant.

But me?

I had become a shell of who I once was. A storm bottled in a girl’s body. A ghost that no longer remembered what it meant to live.

And it was all my fault.

I walked inside and collapsed onto the tattered couch, every breath heavy with regret. I should never have loved him. I should have known better. I should have stayed in my place.

Now, for that one sin… I would rot slowly. And die in ninety days.

Tears pooled in my eyes until a soft gust of wind blew through the window. A photo of my mother fluttered from the wall, catching my gaze.

I looked up. She stared back at me from that frame, kind, tired eyes. It was as if she was speaking… or maybe the universe was whispering.

And then I heard it again. The doctor’s words echoing like a curse.

“Ninety days left to live.”

The truth settled in my bones, cold and absolute. If I was to die, then I would not go quietly. Those who shattered my life… must bleed.

My mother died for a crime she never committed. My father faded into nothingness.

Bright thrown into a cell and forgotten.

And me? I was ruined.

Kade King. Queen Lysander. They should not sleep soundly. They should not breathe easy while my family is scattered and broken.

The Moon Goddess seem to have turned her back on me. Fine. So be it.

If she will not fight for me, then I will fight for myself.

I stood, fists clenched, fire rising in my chest. As I moved toward my mother’s portrait, when all of a sudden I heard it. The unmistakable sound of cars pulling up outside.

I rushed to the window. And there… for the first time in five years… I saw him.

Kade King Majesty.

The very breath in my throat froze. No… this can’t be real. My body stiffened, chilled to the core. Am I hallucinating already?

I backed away from the window, heart thudding, and took a deep breath. Slowly, I crept back to peer through the curtain, just in time to see him alight from the car.

But this was not the boy-prince I once knew. No. This was a King.

He stepped out like the very world owed him air.

His presence struck like thunder, lethal and silent. He wore a crisp white shirt tucked into obsidian trousers tailored with such perfection they clung to every muscle. A heavy fur coat, regal and golden-dark, draped across his shoulders like a mantle of war.

Golden jewelry glinted against his skin… rings, chains, a pair of earrings shaped like a dagger dangling from his both ears. And then there was the tattoo, inked along the right side of his neck, trailing into his collar. A bold, black crest. Not there five years ago. A mark of power, rebellion, and danger. Something that signify him as the one true King of the Wolf Empire.

His curly hair had grown longer, pulled back in a loose, effortless style that framed his chiseled face. His jaw was sharp, dusted with the kind of stubble that made him look cruelly handsome, sinful, even. His eyes, those golden, swept over the surroundings with cool calculation, like a predator surveying its territory.

When his polished shoes touched the soil of my father’s yard, it was as if the Empire itself bowed to him.

The silence outside crackled. Even the wind paused to watch.

Every Omega nearby stopped to gasp or stare. The hum of murmurs swept through the streets like a storm. His Majesty’s return was not a visit. It was an event.

And all I could think was... Why is he here? Why now? Has he come to break what’s left of me?

The knock came at last. Sharp, precise, breaking through my daze.

I stood there, my breath shallow, my body trembling, my pulse like thunder in my ears. But I forced myself to walk forward, step by painful step, until I opened the door and there he was.

Kade King Majesty.

A storm wrapped in up in a formidable form.

Five years had passed but seeing him again made time feel like a cruel trick. Everything I’d buried came flooding back in one soul-crushing wave. The hate. The betrayal. The shame and beneath it all… something deeper. Something I didn’t want to name.

His eyes found mine and just like that… The world stopped.

He didn’t blink. He didn’t breathe. Neither did I.

There was power in that silence. A haunting pull. The kind that reminded me why falling for him had been so effortless. And why it had nearly killed me.

I swallowed hard, forcing down the lump of grief and rage rising in my throat. My body moved before my heart could interfere.

I bowed deeply, Omega instinct taking over, my voice calm despite the storm within.

“Your Majesty.”