Chapter 6: Roar

Ronan

I made it halfway down the western corridor before my claws broke through my fingertips.

Pain split through my hands.

I curled them into fists and kept walking.

No one tried to stop me.

Servants flattened themselves against the walls as I passed. Warriors bowed their heads without meeting my eyes. Even the visiting Alphas lingering near the ballroom doors moved aside when they saw me coming.

They could smell it.

The loss of control.

It poured from me with every breath, thickening the air until the weaker wolves struggled to remain standing beneath the pressure of my power.

I should have stayed away from her.

I had known that before entering the entrance hall.

For three years, Elowen had warned me that Maeve’s blood had become tangled in the broken binding. Her scent might calm the Sovereign Hunger. Her presence might strengthen it. Touching her before we understood the connection could trigger anything from temporary relief to a complete loss of control.

I had listened.

For three fucking years, I had watched Maeve Cross from a distance.

Reports arrived every week.

Maeve questioning travelers near the northern borders. Maeve bribing messengers. Maeve following one of my men for two days before he crossed into protected territory. Maeve refusing to stop searching for the sister who had never deserved her loyalty.

I knew the village where she lived. The paths she used when she needed to think. The weapons she carried. The way she tied her dark hair away from her face before training.

I knew she preferred knives over swords because she believed speed mattered more than size. I knew she checked every lock twice before sleeping. I knew she kept Mara’s letters beneath the loose floorboard beside her bed.

But reports had never carried her scent. They had never prepared me for the sound of her voice or the fury in her eyes when she looked at me. They had never prepared me for her skin beneath my hand.

The moment I reached my chambers, I slammed the door hard enough to crack the frame.

The room smelled wrong. Clean linen. Burning cedar. Cold stone.

None of it was her.

My wolf threw himself against the inside of my body.

Go back.

The command tore through my skull.

I gripped the edge of the long table near the door.

“No.” The word emerged as a growl.

My wolf struck again.

The wooden table splintered beneath my hands.

I released it before I tore it apart and staggered farther into the room.

Every inch of my skin burned.

The place where I had held Maeve’s wrist burned hottest.

I could still feel her pulse beating beneath my fingers. Fast. Angry. Alive. Her scent clung faintly to my palm.

Rain against warm soil.Crushed berries. A trace of steel from the blade hidden beneath her dress.

I lifted my hand before I realized what I was doing.

The instant her scent reached me, the hunger surged.

My claws lengthened.

Bones cracked through my shoulders. My teeth sharpened until they cut the inside of my mouth, filling it with blood.

I drove my fist into the stone wall. The impact split my knuckles. It did nothing to stop the need crawling through me.

For years, the Sovereign Hunger had felt like emptiness.

A bottomless wound left behind by the unfinished binding. My wolf paced through that hollow space, searching for something that no longer existed.

Maeve’s blood had quieted him when it remained inside the ceremonial bowl.

Her physical presence had done something far worse.

It had given the hunger a shape. A face. A name.

Maeve.

I struck the wall again. Stone fractured around my hand. Dust fell across the floor. The scent on my palm faded beneath my own blood, and my wolf erupted.

A roar tore from my chest.

I grabbed the nearest chair and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the fireplace. One broken leg spun across the floor and disappeared beneath the bed.

Still not enough.

I seized the wardrobe doors and ripped them from their hinges. Wood cracked. Metal screamed. Clothes spilled across the floor as I threw one door aside and drove my fist through the other.

My body was too tight. Too hot.

Every instinct screamed that I had left something behind in the entrance hall. Something that belonged with me.

She had stood beneath my power when others fell. Her knees had trembled, but she had refused to bow.

Then she had threatened to cut out my tongue.

A broken laugh left me.