Chapter 11: The Hollow Crown

The pack had learned how to live without him.

That was the first thing Iria noticed.

Not openly—no one said it out loud—but in the way the territory breathed. The way guards no longer stood as straight at the eastern gates. The way council members spoke louder than they should. The way decisions were made quickly, cheaply, like people afraid to hesitate.

The Blue Alpha had been gone for months.

And the crown he left behind was hollow.

Iria stood at the edge of the upper corridor, watching the council chamber doors from a distance. She had no business being there. She knew that. But ever since Kael vanished, lines that once mattered had started to blur.

Servants lingered where they shouldn’t. Warriors argued openly. Betas challenged orders.

The pack was still standing—but it was rotting from the inside.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

The voice came from behind her, calm but sharp.

Iria didn’t flinch. She turned slowly.

Lorien Vale. Head of the council. A man who smiled too often and meant it none of the time.

“You say that every time,” she replied evenly.

“And every time I’m right.”

His gaze slid past her, toward the chamber doors. “This isn’t a place for spectators.”

“I’m not a spectator.”

That earned her a look—measured, assessing.

“No,” Lorien said after a pause. “You’re something worse. You’re a reminder.”

Iria held his stare. “Of what?”

“Of instability.”

There it was. The word no one dared say when Kael had ruled.

Before she could respond, the chamber doors opened. Voices spilled out—heated, overlapping, impatient.

The council was breaking early.

That never happened.

Lorien’s jaw tightened. “Go back to your quarters, Iria.”

“Or what?”

He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Or you’ll start asking questions you don’t want answered.”

She smiled then. Not because she was amused—but because fear no longer worked on her the way it used to.

“I’ve been asking questions since the day he disappeared,” she said. “You just stopped controlling the answers.”

She walked past him before he could stop her.

Inside the chamber, the air was thick with the aftermath of argument.

Three council members lingered, speaking in hushed tones. They stopped when they saw her.

Good.

Let them be uncomfortable.

Eldric, the oldest among them, cleared his throat. “You’re bold today.”

“I’m tired,” Iria corrected. “There’s a difference.”

She moved to the center of the room, where Kael used to stand. The realization hit her unexpectedly—that she had never been allowed here when he ruled.

Not once.

Now no one stopped her.

“Where is he?” she asked.

Silence.

Not the shocked kind. The practiced kind.

Eldric sighed. “We’ve discussed this—”

“No,” Iria cut in. “You’ve avoided it.”

She looked at each of them in turn. “You said he left. You said it was his choice. But you’re running a pack like men afraid of a ghost.”

One of the younger councilors snapped, “Watch your tone.”

“Or what?” she echoed again. “You’ll exile me? Silence me? Kill me?”

That one landed.

Because none of them answered.

Iria felt it then—the shift. The truth she hadn’t let herself consider.

Kael didn’t just disappear.

He was removed.

“You didn’t plan on me noticing,” she said quietly. “Did you?”

Eldric’s shoulders sagged. “You were never meant to matter this much.”

That hurt more than any threat.

Before she could respond, a sudden ripple of energy cut through the chamber.

Every head turned.

Every wolf within the walls felt it.

A presence.

Ancient. Familiar. Dangerous.

Iria’s breath caught.

The Blue Alpha was back.

Kael stood at the edge of the territory, boots dusted with road and blood.

Not fresh. Old.

He looked thinner. Sharper. Like something that had been carved down instead of fed.

The bond—the one he had buried, locked away—pulled violently now. Not toward the pack.

Toward her.

He closed his eyes briefly, jaw tightening.

So she was still alive.

That was good.

That was dangerous.

“You’re late,” said the voice beside him.

Kael didn’t turn. “You’re still talking.”

The man chuckled. “You came back anyway.”

“I didn’t come back for them.”

That was the truth. Or close enough to it.

The pack gates loomed ahead, open in a way they never should have been. Guards scrambled when they recognized him. Shock rippled outward like a wave.

Whispers started instantly.

Kael walked forward without slowing.

Let them see him.

Let them remember.

By the time Iria reached the outer courtyard, the pack was already gathering.

She pushed through bodies, heart pounding—not with relief, but with something sharper. Anger. Confusion. A sense of betrayal she hadn’t named yet.

Then she saw him.

Alive.

Changed.

Their eyes met across the space.

The bond snapped taut.

Not warm. Not comforting.

Electric. Violent.

Kael’s gaze lingered on her for half a second too long before he turned to the council members rushing toward him.

Iria didn’t miss that pause.

And she didn’t miss what it meant.

He had come back knowing exactly what he’d left behind.

And he still hadn’t explained why.

As the crowd erupted around them, one truth settled cold in her chest:

The Blue Alpha hadn’t returned to reclaim his crown.

He had returned to finish something unfinished.

And whatever it was—it involved her.