Chapter 5

ELARA'S POV

This is the first time in a long time I have returned from a hunt without a kill . This is the first time in a long time that my heart beats erratically.

And my body thrums with impatience and warmth.

Ronan? Ronan!

It was truly Ronan.

His lips were painfully familiar and his kisses held the reminder of my deadly addiction to him.A taste I had force-fed to memory, then tried to poison.

I thought him dead, along with everyone I have ever known. I closed up that part of my heart that had known him and only him, brick by brick, until it was a silent tomb.

Now, he is back. And I nearly killed him.

I still would have killed him if he was going to rat me out to my husband. The thought ,a cold stone in my stomach.

It is the truth. The wife, the mother, the weapon—all of them would have done it to protect the greater mission.

But he isn't going to. He is going to help me burn it all down.

The promise hangs in the air of my mind, beautiful and fragile as a soap bubble. And just as likely to pop. I let myself float on it for three breaths, feeling the terrifying, forgotten lift of hope.

Then I let the cold in.

Why? Why would he?

Because he hates the Alpha? I hate the Alpha. That is not a bond; it is a common enemy. Common enemies make for temporary allies and permanent betrayals.

Because he loved me once? Love is ash. It is the scent carried on the wind from a pyre. It does not build strategies or guard backs. It is a vulnerability, and I have carved all of mine out.

He took the Alpha’s gold. He made a deal. A man who makes one deal can make another. A better one. What is my secret, my war, compared to the wealth and favor of the most powerful Alpha in five territories?

The logic is a cold knife, turning and it's twisting my guts out.

If he walks into my husband’s hall tomorrow and speaks my name, he will be a hero. Rich. Powerful. Secure. He would be trading a ghost from a dead world for a throne in this one.

And I would be dead by sunset.

A strange calm settles over me and it's not peaceful, it's acceptance of an unseen fate.

Fine.

If that is his choice, then I will make mine, I will not go quietly. If Ronan thinks to trade my life for a promotion, he will learn the final lesson of a woman clothed as death: I will always take my enemies.

I will spend my last breaths not pleading, but ensuring that I pull out the spine from Ronan and crush the skull of the alpha.

The plan forms, clean and lethal, in the back of my mind. A contingency. A final strike but why?

Why do my hands shake as I slide open the terrace door to my husband’s side of the house?

Why does the silk of my nightgown feel like a stranger's skin? The scent of him—of blood and forest and Ronan—clings to me, a secret that feels louder than a scream.

I walked to my children's room through the hallway filled with monuments of the man who destroyed my world.

Polished marble. Trophies of conquest. The portrait of him, painted in the year I gave birth to my first son, hangs serene and smug.

I used to look at it whenever I passed through here and felt nothing but a cold, patient hate. Now, walking past it, a new, terrifying feeling sparks: a reckless, giddy defiance.

I reached the room, listened at the door for any sign that my children were still awake. I heard nothing but I still went in anyways.

My son, Lucan, was a small mound under his quilt, breathing the deep, untroubled breaths of the innocent.

The sight of him is a physical ache, a reminder of the one pure thing built in this house of lies. I brushed his dark hair from his forehead, and he stirred, stretching lazily beneath the cover.

I went over to zev’s bed and he was still awake, eyes set intensely on me,

"Mama?" he mumbles, voice thick with anxiety.

"Yes, little wolf. Why aren't you asleep yet? Are you not tired, my sweet one?”, I answered

"You were gone," he whispered.

"Yes baby, but just for a little walk. For myself. Im sorry I got you worried", I whispered back

He nods, already drifting off. "Don't get lost, Mama. Lucan and I were scared".

"I won't baby, I won't," I promise, watching sleep envelope his tiny body.

They are the reason for every careful step, every masked smile. I never want them to see me as any other thing but their mother and that's why I have to be careful.

Leaving their room, the residual warmth evaporates. The mansion feels colder. As I turned toward my room, I froze.

A figure stood outside my door and it wasn't the usual guard. Seline, my maid, her face pale in the lamplight. And beside her, arms crossed, is Kael—the Alpha, my husband.

My blood turns to ice.

He knows.

The thought is a spike of pure terror. Has he seen the mud on the hem of my hidden trousers? Smelled the forest and blood I tried to scrub away? Has Ronan already betrayed me?

Seline dips into a curtsy and flees, leaving me alone in the long hallway with him.

Kael’s gaze is not one of cold suspicion. It burns with something else—a raw, frustrated fear. He closes the distance in two strides, his hands coming up to grip my shoulders, surprisingly not to hurt, but to check.

"Where were you?" The question isn't a command. It's a plea, rough with worry.

My mind races, playing innocent. "What do you mean? I couldn't sleep, I—"

"Elara," he cuts me off, his voice dropping. "You vanished. No note. No guard. For hours. In the middle of the night." His eyes search my face, and the genuine fear in them is more disorienting than any accusation. "With the killer still out there? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?"

The realization hits me like a blow. This isn't a suspicion. It's possession. It's the fear of a man who has marked something as his and is terrified of it being damaged or taken.

How ironic!

The part of me that is his perfect wife stirs, responding to the script. My eyes well with manufactured tears, my lower lip trembling just enough.

"I... I needed air. Everything felt too much, the deaths, you always being unavailable and I am starting to feel overwhelmed. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you, I'm just….. I'm just really tired. ", I explained.

He pulls me into his chest, a sigh shuddering through him. His embrace is stifling, a cage of genuine concern.

"I know baby, I know but I'm here now and if you ever need me, I'm always going to make time for you but please, don't do this again," he murmurs into my hair, his voice thick. "You don't leave this house without telling me. Not now. Not ever. I cannot lose you, the kids will be devastated without you, I would be mad without you."

The words were like chains. A prison sentence. A claim that makes my skin crawl even as I lean into it, my cheek against the fine linen of his shirt.

"I won't," I whisper, the perfect, penitent wife.

He holds me for a long moment before leading me into our room. He watches as I wash my face, his gaze a worried weight. He believes her. He loves her. This man who wiped out my world is terrified of losing his.

As I lie beside him once more, his protective arm heavy across me, the final, chilling layer of my reality settles in.

I am not just fighting a monster.

I am lying in the bed of a man who loves the ghost I pretend to be. And if he ever discovers the real woman—the mother, the survivor, the traitor in his arms—his love will be the first thing he uses to destroy me.