Chapter 4: Family

"I don't care if you hate me, Adele. But I will not watch my fated mate die of exposure when I have the power to prevent it."

The word mate slipped beneath my defenses again, sending an uncomfortable squeeze through my heart. I pulled the heavy cloak tighter around myself, refusing to back down. "I am not yours."

His expression hardened into a mask of pure royal authority. "I know. You are not mine because I say so. You are riding in the carriage because your father is running out of time."

He stepped aside, gesturing to the open door.

I choked back my reply, my jaw clenching. He was right about one thing—Sarlen didn't have minutes to waste on my pride.

That was the only reason!

I climbed into the carriage, immediately moving to the absolute furthest corner, pressing myself against the frosted window.

Rowan climbed in after me, his massive frame taking up nearly the entire opposite side of the carriage. He didn't say anything at the distance I put between us. He didn't even look at me.

The carriage rocked forward, the iron-rimmed wheels cutting aggressively through the ice. Darius sat beside Sarlen, his hands glowing with a faint, blue healing light as he desperately stabilized the bleeding.

I grabbed Sarlen's limp hand. His fingers felt like blocks of ice. "Please wake up," I whispered into his ear.

"You promised me, Sarlen. You promised you would be there to celebrate when I turned eighteen, when I stopped taking the doses."

The carriage bounced violently over a massive patch of frozen rock, and Sarlen’s head began to roll sideways off the thin cushion.

Instinctively, I reached out to catch him, but another large, scarred hand moved toward his temples at the same time.

I slapped Rowan’s hand away with a loud crack. "Don't touch him!"

Rowan immediately withdrew his hand, his expression unreadable. "I was only going to stabilize his head against the momentum, wild cat."

"I can do it myself and don’t call me that," I snapped, cradling Sarlen's head against my lap.

"Fine."

A suffocating silence returned to the carriage. For several minutes, the only sound was the howling wind outside and the rhythmic crunch of snow, but then I noticed a subtle shift in the air.

Rowan was breathing strangely. He breathed fast and then drastically shallow.

I glanced up. His large hands were gripping the edge of the wooden seat so tightly that the timber was groaning under the pressure. His knuckles were stark white. His eyes... they weren't midnight black anymore.

They had become a violent, blood-red void that was bleeding into his irises.

I froze, my breath catching. What madness is this?

"Don't look at me," Rowan growled, his voice a strained, guttural rasp that sounded barely human. He slammed his eyes shut, his entire body trembling as if he were trying to contain an explosion.

"What is happening to you?" I demanded, pressing myself further into the corner.

"Nothing."

"That isn't nothing!"

Darius looked up from Sarlen, his blind face etched with sudden, deep panic.

"Your Majesty... anchor your mind; we are close to the stronghold."

Rowan’s head snapped toward the physician, a terrifying alpha growl escaping his throat. "I said I'm fine!"

The air inside the carriage instantly turned heavy, thick with a volatile, destructive aura that made my inner wolf whimper in sudden fear.

But beneath his terrifying rage, I felt something else through our incomplete bond.

Pain.

A blinding, searing fire that felt like it was melting his thoughts from the inside out.

With a roar that could only be frustration, Rowan punched the thick wooden wall of the carriage. The entire vehicle shook on its axle, the wood splintering beneath his knuckles.

I flinched, pulling the cloak over my face.

Instantly, the oppressive pressure vanished; everywhere was silent. I slowly lowered the cloak to see Rowan staring down at his fist.

His eyes had snapped back to black, but I was filled with a sudden, devastating wave of horror as I saw fresh crimson blood drip from his torn knuckles onto the floorboards.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. The words were so quiet, so fragile, that it didn't feel like they came from a king.

I stared at him, my heart hammering. The ruthless Alpha King had just apologized to me for scaring me. He looked away, staring out the frosted window, his chest still heaving from what looked like enormous effort.

Darius quietly reached for his bleeding arm. "Your Majesty, let me—"

"I said I'm fine, Darius," Rowan muttered, pulling his hand away.

But he wasn't. I could feel it. The bond was feeding me fragments of his internal reality, as an apothecary who had spent ten years of my life aiding a healer.

I knew he was burning up; this king was dying.

Our eyes met again through the dim torchlight of the carriage when he looked back for one brief, unguarded moment. In my eyes, the terrifying ruler vanished, and I saw the man beneath the crown. He looked entirely exhausted.

His gaze slowly dropped to my hands, which were still tightly clutching Sarlen’s cold fingers.

"You love him," Rowan said. It wasn't a question because I could hear the strange envy in his voice.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, tightening my grip on my father. "He's the only family I have. He is my father."

Rowan’s expression softened, the hard lines of his face relaxed as he spoke again. "He raised you?"

"Since I was eight," I whispered, the memory of the blood-soaked village flashing through my mind.

Rowan looked down at his own bleeding knuckles. "My father died when I was twelve."

I blinked, caught off guard by the sudden confession. "What happened?"

"He was murdered during a border rebellion. Cut down right in front of the throne room." The flat, hollow tone of his voice made my own chest ache. I knew that exact tone. It was the sound of a child who had been forced to grow up in a single heartbeat.

"What about your mother?" I asked quietly, the hostility momentarily draining from my voice.

"Dead too. Grief took her a year later."

"And you?"

Rowan’s black eyes locked onto mine, holding my gaze with an intensity that made the air between us feel thick again. "I survived."

Two words. But I heard every single thing he didn't say. I heard the lonely years, the brutal training, the heavy weight of a crown forced onto a boy's head.

Suddenly, I didn't see an alpha tyrant coming to harvest my blood. I saw another survivor.

I hated that I understood him, and that, despite my fear and rage, I felt a profound wave of sympathy.

“Adele, you are too weak,” I murmured to myself.