THE ECHO OF VENGEANCE

PATRICK POV

The heavy oak door of my private chambers clicked shut, cutting off the chill draft of the keep’s upper corridors.

I stood by the grand stone hearth, staring into the dancing golden flames as the heat washed over my face. A crystal decanter of dark, aged spiced liquor sat on the carved mahogany side table beside a stack of wedding proclamations awaiting my wax seal. Outside, the night sky was dark, overcast, and threatening storm—the mountain wind howling like a wounded beast against the high glass windows.

Everything was alignment.

The girl was locked in the high tower under the watchful eye of my new vanguard, Kael. The Beta family was cleaned, dressed in dark silks, and restricted to the eastern guest wing until the Blood Moon. Thirty years of shame, defeat, and ghost-hunting were finally culminating in absolute victory.

I unbuckled my sword belt, letting the heavy steel sheath drop onto the fur rug with a dull thud. Pouring two fingers of amber liquor into a crystal tumbler, I raised it to my lips, savoring the burn in my throat.

A faint, subtle rustle of silk behind me broke the silence.

I didn't turn around immediately. My wolf spirit flared slightly, registering a scent that was intimately familiar yet choked with the bitter, sharp underlying stench of cellars, rust, and decades of festering malice.

"You should be in your guest quarters, Seraphina," I said smoothly, taking another slow sip from my glass. "My guards were given strict instructions not to allow you out of the eastern wing without an escort."

"Your guards are fools, Patrick," Seraphina’s dry, raspy voice purred from the shadows near the velvet draperies. "They see dark silk and a Beta’s face, and they assume I am a fragile bird returning to her cage."

I turned slowly, my green eyes narrowing as I took her in.

She had been cleaned up by the palace maidservants, her matted hair washed, combed, and oiled into smooth, midnight-dark waves that tumbled over her bare shoulders. She wore a low-cut dress of heavy, obsidian-black silk—a garment that clung tightly to the curves of her waist and hips, leaving her pale neck and collarbones entirely exposed. Though the years in the subterranean dark had hollowed her cheeks and lined her skin with bitter wrinkles, her eyes burned with a dark, hungry, unholy light.

She walked toward me with slow, swaying, deliberate steps, her bare feet making no sound against the thick fur rugs.

"What do you want?" I rasped, keeping my voice cold, though my pulse quickened slightly at the predatory edge in her stride. "If you came to beg for higher honors at the wedding—"

"I don't care about your wedding, Patrick," Seraphina interrupted soft, stopping just inches from my chest. The scent of sweet lavender oil failed to completely mask the raw, feral heat radiating from her skin. She lifted her hand, her long, dark-painted nails tracing a slow, agonizing path up the lapel of my velvet tunic. "I came to see the King who finally reclaimed his pride."

I held her gaze, my jaw tightening as her fingers brushed against the base of my throat. "You laughed at me in the cellars."

"I laughed because you are mad," she whispered, her voice dropping into a deep, husky vibration that echoed directly into my chest. "I laughed because after all these years, you are still chasing Lydia’s shadow. You took her daughter because you couldn't break the mother."

"Watch your tongue, Seraphina," I growled, my hand shooting out to lock around her pale, slender neck. I didn't squeeze, but the threat in my grip was absolute. "I am no longer the boy you manipulated in your parents' manor."

Seraphina didn't flinch. Instead, a slow, wicked smile spread across her red-painted lips. Her breath hitched, her dark eyes flaring with a twisted, masochistic pleasure as my fingers dug into her flesh.

"You like power now, don't you?" she purred raspy, leaning closer until her lips almost touched mine. "You like control. You spent years in the cold, Patrick. You slept in an empty bed while Lydia was held in High Alpha Adrian's arms, giving him twins, building a kingdom, making you a mockery across the continent."

A hot, volcanic surge of rage spiked through my chest at the mention of Adrian’s name. My grip on her neck tightened instinctively, pulling her flush against my body.

"Shut up," I snarled, my green eyes flashing with lethal Alpha light.

"Make me," she breathed, her hands sliding down to grip the front of my tunic, pulling herself up against me, her chest heaving against mine. "You want to punish her blood, Patrick? You want to vent thirty years of humiliation? Don't wait for the Blood Moon. Don't wait for the girl in the tower."

She tilted her head back, her dark eyes locking onto mine with pure, venomous temptation.

"Take it out on me," Seraphina whispered, her voice laced with poison and heat. "I am her sister. I am the woman who took shears to her hair while she wept on the floor. I am the woman who hated her as much as you did."

The last remnant of my restraint snapped.

With a low, feral roar, I shoved her backward against the heavy carved mahogany table. Crystal goblets and wine bottles crashed to the floor, shattering on the flagstones as I pinned her body beneath mine. Seraphina let out a harsh, gasping laugh, her fingernails digging deep into the muscle of my shoulders through my tunic, dragging blood from my skin as she wrapped her legs tight around my waist.

There was no warmth in it. There was no affection, no romance, no softness. It was pure, unadulterated violence—a dark, animalistic collision born from decades of hatred, envy, and unresolved madness.

I yanked the heavy black silk of her gown downward, tearing the fabric from her shoulder with a sharp, brutal rip. Seraphina hissed, her head slamming back against the hard wood of the table, her eyes wide, wild, and staring up at the stone ceiling with dark ecstasy as I claimed her.

I took her roughly, mercilessly, slamming her body against the mahogany surface with every strike of my hips, driving out thirty years of festering rage onto the flesh of the woman who had helped me ruin my own life. Her nails tore into my back, leaving long, red tracks across my skin, her raspy groans filling the cold air of the bedchamber alongside the rhythmic, violent clatter of wood against stone.

In her dark, hollow eyes, I didn't see Seraphina. I saw the face of Lydia Blackthorn looking down at me from the high walls of Stormfang. I saw the High Alpha who had taken her. I saw the border, the mud, the rejection, and the decades of silence that had hollowed out my soul.

Every thrust was a strike against the past. Every gasp of pain from Seraphina's lips was a validation of my absolute, cruel dominance.

"Say it," I growled in her ear, my voice deep, raspy, and monstrous as my fingers locked into her midnight hair, pulling her head back until her neck stretched taut. "Say who rules this kingdom."

Seraphina choked out a breathless, cruel laugh, her hands clawing wildly at my arms as her body trembled beneath the savage intensity of my weight.

"You... you rule... Patrick..." she gasped, her voice broken, jagged, and filled with dark triumph. "Burn them... burn them all..."

When the final, violent explosion of heat tore through my groin, I gripped the edges of the table, my chest heaving violently as I poured my rage into her depth. Seraphina arching her back, letting out a sharp, ragged scream that echoed off the stone walls before slumping back against the ruined table, completely spent.

I pulled away from her instantly, stepping back onto the fur rug with heavy, ragged breaths.

Seraphina lay among the broken glass and spilled red liquor, her black dress torn to shreds, her skin flushed, bruised, and bleeding from my claws. Yet, as she slowly pushed herself up on her elbows, a terrifying, triumphant smile remained carved into her face.

I reached for my tunic, throwing it over my shoulders, my face cold, unreadable, and devoid of a single drop of remorse.

"Get out," I rasped, my tone flat, dangerous, and frigid as the mountain ice.

Seraphina slowly swung her legs off the edge of the table, stepping over the shattered crystal with bare, bleeding feet. She didn't bother pulling her ruined gown back up to cover her chest. She simply looked at me, wiping a drop of blood from her lower lip with the back of her hand, her dark eyes glittering with satisfaction.

"You feel better now, My King?" she whispered softly, her raspy chuckle filling the quiet room. "The beast is fed."

"If you ever enter my private chambers without permission again," I said, my voice dropping into a low, lethal whisper as I picked up my sword belt from the floor, "I will have Kael throw you off the eastern balcony."

Seraphina’s smile only widened. She took a slow step backward toward the hidden servant's door near the draperies, her eyes locked onto mine.

"Until the wedding, Patrick," she cooed, sliding into the darkness of the passage like a ghost returning to her grave.

I stood alone in the wrecked room, the smell of spilled liquor, sweat, and blood hanging heavy in the cold air. I looked at my reflection in the dark glass of the window—my green eyes cold, my face hard, my soul completely consumed by the shadow.

The storm was coming. And I was ready to tear the world apart to keep my crown.