CHAPTER 5: The Ghost (Kaelen Pov)

The rain in Nocturna never stops. It just changes from a drizzle to a flood.

I stood on the balcony of the Spire, looking down at the city. Three years. Three years since I took the crown, and the city felt more like a cage than a kingdom. My chest ached, a hollow, dragging sensation right over my heart. The doctors called it stress. The Council called it the "burden of the throne."

I called it a void; it was the only explanation left to understand this feeling. Nothing ever excited me anymore.

"Sire? The Council is waiting in the war room."

I didn't turn around to look at my Beta. "Let them wait, Silas. They’ve been waiting three years for me to pick a Queen. Another ten minutes won't kill them."

"They are agitated," Silas pressed, his voice smooth. "The rogue attacks are increasing. The people are scared. They say a King without a mate is a King without a future."

I turned then, my eyes flashing gold. Silas flinched, just a fraction. Good. He should be scared. Everyone in this city was scared of me. I was the Alpha King who ruled with a fist of iron and a heart of ice. I didn't remember why I had become this way. There were gaps in my memory, foggy patches where a face or a name should be, but when I tried to reach for them, the pain in my chest became intense.

"A mate is a weakness," I snapped, walking past him. "I don’t need a woman to tell me how to run a city. I need results."

The elevator ride down to the crime scene was silent. The news was already playing on the built-in screen.

“...another high-ranking official found dead this morning in the High Wards,” the reporter was saying, her voice shaky. “This marks the sixth death in two months. The Council has yet to identify the group calling themselves the ‘Rogue Cell,’ led by the mysterious ‘Monster Queen.’ Fear is gripping the Alpha Elite as the killer continues to bypass the most advanced security systems in Nocturna…”

I scoffed and muted the screen. "The Monster Queen. What a ridiculous name."

"She’s efficient, Kaelen," Silas reminded me. "No DNA. No footprints. Just bodies."

The elevator opened to the penthouse of Lord Aaron, a man who had spent his life hoarding riches and looking down on the weak. Now, he was slumped over his desk, his eyes wide with a terror that had frozen on his face.

The room was covered in blood. Whoever did this didn't just kill him— they tore him apart.

"Clear the room," I commanded. The forensics team scrambled out, bowing their heads. They didn't want to be near me when my mood was this dark.

I walked over to the desk. Aaron’s throat had been opened with a single, clean strike. No struggle. He hadn't even seen it coming. But it wasn't the body that caught my eye.

It was the desk.

Deep, rough lines had been carved into the table. It was a circle, split down the middle by a curved blade. The Shattered Crescent.

My heart gave a strange, violent thud. The void in my chest pulsed.

"The same mark," Silas whispered, standing by the door. "She’s mocking us; we need to do something about her before it gets worse. This is jeopardizing the city.”

"She isn't mocking us," I said, tracing the carving with my finger. The wood was still damp with Aaron’s blood. "This may be something else, Silas. Council members. Again. This isn't random. This sign here is something that represents their crew, maybe we don't know, that's why we need to dig deeper."

"The Council is terrified," Silas said. "They want her head on a spike. They want you to use the full force of the army. I say we follow their orders; let's use everything we can to shut down this madness. The more we let her go free, the next time it will be someone dear to us.”

"You don't hunt ghosts with soldiers/armies. You bait them…and wait," I growled. I looked around the room. It was a fortress. Laser grids, biometric locks, guards at every door. And yet, she had walked in, killed a Lord, and walked out without a single alarm going off.

I felt a bead of sweat roll down my neck. It wasn't fear—I didn't feel fear anymore. It was an itch. A memory, trying to break through a brick wall in my mind.

"Sire?"

I looked up. My lead investigator, a tech-wolf named Marcus, was standing by the window. He was holding a tablet, and his face was the color of chalk.

"What is it, Marcus? Did you find a fingerprint?"

"No, Sire," he whispered. He walked over to me, his hands shaking so hard the tablet rattled. "We were sweeping the local network to see how she bypassed the locks. We found a hidden signal. It was a broadcast, Sire. A private one. It was sent to this room exactly five minutes before you arrived."

"And?"

"It... it isn't a file, Kaelen. It’s a live feed."

He handed me the tablet.

I looked at the screen and felt the air leave my lungs. My knees almost buckled. It wasn't a picture of the crime scene. It was a video of my own private bedroom in the Spire. The camera was positioned right in front of my bed.

The room was empty, but something had changed.

The massive mirror was covered in thick, dark red smears. Someone had used a hand to paint letters across the glass. The blood was still dripping, fresh and bright against the mirror’s surface.

Two words.

MISS ME?

Under the words, the Shattered Crescent was drawn in a perfect, bloody circle.

"Get the car," I whispered, my voice thick with a rage that felt like it was going to tear me apart. "Now!"

How did this person enter my own home? Do I not pay these guards enough? For the first time in three years, I felt like I was being hunted by someone who knew exactly where to strike to make me bleed.

"Who is she?" I hissed, staring at those words on the screen. "Who are you?"

The tablet flickered, and for a split second, a shadow moved across the background of the video, a flash of violet light that disappeared before I could blink. Then, the screen went black, and then one final message flickered.

I'm closer than you think.