All Chapters of The Rogue Queen’s Vengeance : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Aria's PovGetting closer, Laura looked up at me.“You saved me,” she said, voice thin with wonder. “After everything… you chose to heal.”The warmth in my chest widened. For months I had been a blade. I had used my power to answer anger and to punish. This felt different, right in a way I had not known I needed. The Moon Goddess’s words from old stories flexed at the edge of my memory: a queen must serve her people.Then the world shifted. The warm glow around us faded and a vision crashed through me so hard I doubled over.I saw the Moon Goddess as if she stood in the clearing. Silver light poured from her, and she looked older than the trees and kinder than the night. She reached out, touched my cheek, and the touch filled me with power that made everything I’d known seem small.“My daughter,” she said, voice like wind in bare branches. “You must be both healer and destroyer. Mercy and justice. Love and wrath. They are the same river, with different currents.”“How do I know when t

Dorian's PovTwo weeks…It had been exactly two weeks since I drove the rune blade across my brother’s throat, and his body was still nowhere to be found.I sat in the Alpha’s chambers, what should have been mine but the chair felt wrong beneath me.The oak seat was made for a wolf with true authority, yet when I leaned back, it pressed hard against me, like a throne of thorns.Some of the pack called me Alpha, but the truth was I wasn’t one. Not yet.The trial that was supposed to make me one was ruined by those rogues that started a fight.The council had not given their decision, and until they did, I was only a wolf carrying the weight of command while the true Alpha’s body remained missing.Ronan should have been buried by now.The funeral fires should have burned, and the pack should have grieved.Instead, whispers spread through the halls and around the night campfires. Where was the Alpha’s corpse? Who had stolen him from the grove?The questions left cracks in my claim to lea

Dorian’s PovThe knock on my study door was different this time. Not the polite tap of a pack member waiting for permission, but a hard, demanding sound, the kind of knock from someone who no longer cared about manners.I didn’t have to look up from my papers to know who it was. It would be Garvin.“Come in,” I said, although my voice sounded more like a growl.The Beta walked in, he carried a blood-soaked burlap sack in his hands, dripping red onto my expensive carpet.“What is that?” I demanded, pushing up from behind my desk.“A message,” Garvin said, his voice cold as a winter stone. “From you to me, and now from me back to you.”He didn’t hesitate. He tipped the sack onto my desk. Three severed heads tumbled out, rolling across the polished wood and smearing blood over the documents I’d been working on moments before.I knew their faces instantly, and my stomach twisted with shock and dread. They were the assassins I’d sent after Garvin two nights ago — my best killers, supposed

Dorian's PovThe sunrise was brighter the next morning. I sat at the Alpha’s seat in the council chamber, where I should have felt relaxed, my turn, but the chair felt like a stone.It had been my father's seat then Ronan’s seat, a symbol of the Draven's line. Now it seemed to push back at me, reminding me that a name alone didn't make me a leader.Elder Marcus stood and spoke with an intensity that made the room hush. “We cannot crown a new Alpha when the previous one’s body is still missing. That would break our oldest laws and sacred customs.”“Ronan is dead,” I said, trying to keep my voice low and steady, but it was out sharper than I wanted “The rogue attack...”“No corpse,” Elder Eloy cut in, voice low and firm. “There’s no body to bury, no closure. How can we call him dead without proof?”"Dorian has our strength," Elder Thomas said, "The pack needs him now.""Patient," Eloy said,"Let him prove himself first."Heat pooled in my stomach. For two weeks, this same argument had be

Laura’s PovLiving as a rogue was nothing like I had imagined after Aria called me “useful to the pack” and freed me from my chains just weeks ago. True freedom came with its own rules—the constant awareness that I was being watched, tested, and judged for my value.Tonight, that judgment felt personal."Laura," Raven’s voice echoed through the camp as darkness settled over the woods. "Join me."It wasn’t a question. It never was with him, even when I had been chained.I stood from my seat near one of the smaller campfires. I had eaten a meager meal with the other lower-ranking rogues, who looked away as I left. I didn’t know if they avoided me out of pity or fear—friendship was dangerous in a camp like ours.Raven had his own reasons, but I had no choice but to follow his orders.Inside his tent, I was surprised. He had set up a proper dinner, fresh meat instead of the stale bread I had outside, and even some fruit, which must have been difficult to find in the wild. The difference f