Chapter 70: Claim The Power

Maddox POV

First, there was the revelation.

Hecate was his mate. His fated mate. The words echoed in his skull, bouncing off the walls of his consciousness, refusing to settle. He had known it, somehow. Deep down, beneath the doubts and the questions and the guilt that had consumed him for three years, he had known.

The pull he felt toward her, the inexplicable connection, the way his wolf recognized something in her that his mind could not name. It had never been a mystery. It had never been a question.

She was his. She had always been his.

And there was something else. Something that nagged at the edges of his awareness, a whisper of familiarity that he could not place. The bond did not feel new. It felt old. Ancient. As if it had been there for years, waiting, patient, for him to wake up and see it.

He pushed the thought aside. There would be time to examine it later. Time to ask questions. Time to understand.

Then she tore the pendant from his neck.

The world went red.

Maddox gasped as the chain snapped, as the vial shattered against the stone, as the blood that had kept him tethered to sanity scattered into ash. Heat flooded his veins, thick and consuming, like lava replacing blood. His thoughts splintered, fragmenting into shards of rage and fear and desperate, clawing need.

The beast stirred.

He could feel it waking, stretching, opening eyes that had been closed for months. It had been so long since he had felt its presence so strongly, so close to the surface. The pendant had kept it dormant, sedated, contained. Without it, there was nothing between him and the monster.

Hecate looked down at him, and there was no warmth in her eyes. No love. No mercy.

"You are in my hands now, Maddox."

He fell to his knees. His body convulsed, muscles twisting, bones cracking. He could feel the transformation beginning, the shift that he had fought so hard to control. Gnarled claws pushed through his fingertips. Canines lengthened in his mouth, sharp and hungry. His vision blurred, the world swimming in shades of crimson and shadow.

"Run," he tried to shout, but the word came out garbled, animalistic, barely recognizable as speech.

The crowd screamed.

People stumbled backward, pushing and shoving, desperate to escape. He saw faces twisted in horror, mouths open in terror. Children clutched at their mothers' skirts. Guards reached for their swords, unsure whether to protect or flee.

He did not want this. This was his worst nightmare, the thing he had feared since the curse first took hold of him. To lose control in front of the Seven Packs. To let them see the monster beneath the crown. To prove, once and for all, that he was not fit to rule.

He looked at Hecate, his body shaking, his vision flickering. "Please," he begged.

The beast surged.

It tore through him like a storm, shredding his fine coat, his embroidered shirt, the last remnants of his humanity. His body expanded, fur erupting across his skin, muscles bulging, bones reshaping. The wolf was enormous, black as pitch, its eyes burning crimson with bloodlust and rage.

The crowd screamed again, louder now, and the beast smelled their fear. It tasted their terror. It wanted nothing more than to tear, to rend, to destroy.

It lunged.

A woman stood in its path, frozen with horror, her mouth open in a silent scream. She was young, pretty, wearing a gown of pale blue. She had been laughing with friends moments ago, before the ritual, before the chaos. Now she was about to die.

The beast's claws extended. Its jaws opened.

And then it stopped.

Maddox, trapped inside the monster's mind, felt the shift. Something held the beast in place, an invisible force stronger than rage, stronger than hunger, stronger than the curse itself. The wolf struggled, snarling, snapping, but it could not move.

Hecate stood with her hand extended, her dark eyes blazing, her palm facing the beast. Power radiated from her, silver and gold, wrapping around the wolf like chains. She closed her hand into a fist and pulled.

The beast flew backward, dragged across the stone floor by forces it could not resist. It snarled, clawed at the ground, left gouges in the stone, but Hecate did not relent. She pulled until the monster lay at her feet, cowed, panting, its crimson eyes fixed on her face.

She placed her hand on its head.

"Feel my touch," she said, her voice soft but commanding. "And be calm."

The beast shuddered. The rage in its eyes flickered, dimmed, softened. Its growls faded to whimpers. Its claws retracted. Its fur began to recede.

Maddox felt himself returning, consciousness seeping back into his shattered mind. The wolf retreated, curling into a dark corner of his psyche, and he was left on the cold stone floor, naked and trembling and utterly defeated.

Hecate draped a cloak over him.

He looked up at her, his vision still blurred, his body still shaking. "How did you..."

"There are many things about me that you do not know, my king," she said, and her voice was strange, gentle and cold at the same time. She reached down and stroked his hair, and despite everything, despite the terror and the confusion and the betrayal, he leaned into her touch.

She was his mate. His fated mate. And her touch quieted the beast in a way that nothing else ever had.

She stood and turned to face the crowd.

"You have just seen that your king is not cured," she said, her voice carrying across the silent courtyard. "He is not even close to healed. This kingdom and its alliances are doomed to fail under his leadership if things continue as they are."

Maddox lowered his eyes. He could not deny it. She was right. Everything she said was right.

She looked down at him, and there was something in her expression that he could not name. Pity, perhaps. Or contempt. He was not sure which was worse.

"There are very few people in the Seven Packs who can control his curse," Hecate continued. "As you have witnessed, I am one of them. I can keep your king sane. I can even heal him. But I do not work for free."

The crowd held its breath.

"I want the throne as payment."

The courtyard erupted.

"This is outrageous!"

"You are a witch. You cannot rule over us!"

"You are seizing power through magic. You deserve to be executed!"

The voices rose, sharp and angry, a tide of outrage that threatened to overwhelm her. But Hecate did not flinch. She stood still as stone, her dark eyes sweeping across the crowd, waiting.

"SILENCE."

Maddox's voice cut through the chaos like a blade. It was not the voice of a man. It was the voice of an Alpha, the Alpha of Alphas, the king. His command carried the weight of his rank, the power of his bloodline, the authority of the crown.

Every person in the courtyard fell to their knees.

Alphas. Lunas. Warriors. Servants. All of them, pressed to the ground by the force of his will. Even the guards, even the visiting nobles, even the proudest lords. All of them bowed.

All except Hecate.

She stood alone in the sea of kneeling bodies, untouched by his command, her dark eyes steady on his. Her wolf was powerful. More powerful than he had imagined. More powerful than anyone in the Seven Packs had ever seen.

Maddox looked at her, and he felt something he had never felt before. Fear, yes. But also admiration. Awe. And beneath it all, a quiet, desperate comfort.

She was his mate. She could control the beast. She could keep him sane.

"She is my fated mate," Maddox said, his voice still carrying the weight of command. "Chosen by the Goddess to be mine. She will be my Luna. Her place on the throne is already hers."

Behind him, Odette let out a choked sob. He did not turn to look at her.

Hecate smiled. It was not a warm smile. It was the smile of a woman who had just won a battle she had been planning for a long time.

And in that moment, Maddox knew that he had been played. That the woman he loved, the woman he had given his heart to, was not the gentle healer he had believed her to be.

But he could not bring himself to care.

Because her touch still lingered on his skin. Because her voice still echoed in his ears. Because she was his mate, and nothing else mattered.

She had won.

And he had let her.