The Queen’s Choice
1726 Words
The Silence, The weight, so heavy it was Suffocating me.
Queen….The word wouldn’t stop echoing in my head. I stared at Cassian like he’d just slapped me with it.
“The Northern Throne?” I whispered.
Kael didn’t move beside me, but I felt him, I felt the shift in his energy.
Possessive, calculating and dangerous.
Cassian stepped closer to me, his silver eyes never leaving mine.
“Your mother was the last crowned Alpha Queen of the North,” he said. “She hid you after the coup, she hid your bloodline.”
Coup…My lungs tightened.
“You’re lying,” I breathed.
“Am I?” His voice softened.
“Why do you think Silverclaw was wiped out so brutally? Why do you think Kael’s rogue generals disobeyed orders?”
Kael’s jaw ticked.
“Careful,”
he warned, but Cassian ignored him.
“You weren’t the target,” he said quietly. “You were the prize.”
My stomach twisted so much that Instantly felt sick, I felt so Angry. So confused.
“And this mating treaty?” I snapped. “You’re telling me I was promised off like some political f*****g pawn?”
Cassian flinched slightly.
“Yes.”
At least he didn’t sugarcoat it to spare my feelings.
I let out a bitter laugh.
“Unbelievable, so f*****g! Unbelievable “
Kael finally spoke.
“She is not a bargaining chip.”
His voice was so steel that I glanced at him. He looked… furious, not at me but at Cassian.
“She was never supposed to know,” Cassian continued.
“The treaty would have been revealed at her twenty-first birthday ceremony.”
My heart skipped. That ceremony,
the one my mother canceled. the one she cried about for days.
Ohh! Moon-goddess.
“She knew,” I whispered.
Cassian nodded slowly in agreement.
“She was buying time.”
For me…My chest ached at the thought of it. All this time…I thought my mother was weak and secretive, but she was protecting me.
Kael stepped closer to me, his hand hovering at my lower back, he wasn’t touching, it was just there.
“I don’t care about your throne,” he said coldly. “She stays here with me “
Cassian’s eyes hardened.
“She belongs with her people.”
“I belong to no one,” I snapped.
They both went quiet. It was a good thing because my head was already spinning.
Mate bond pulling me toward Kael like gravity. Duty dragging me like destiny.
What the actual f**k.
Cassian broke the silence.
“You feel it too, don’t you?” he asked me softly.
“Feel what?”
“The difference.”
My brows furrowed.
“What f*****g difference?”
He stepped even closer now, close enough that I could see the faint scar across his jaw, Close enough to smell him, he smelled like Pine, snow and Steel.
Not as dark as Kael, but powerful.
“You feel desire with him,” Cassian said calmly. “But you feel peace with me.”
Kael’s hand finally landed on my waist, Firm and Claiming.
“Don’t you dare say another word,” Kael warned.
Cassian didn’t break eye contact with me.
“Look at me,” he whispered.
And I did, damn him, I did, and my wolf stirred differently this time, not wild, not burning, but steady, and safe! Oh! s**t.
Kael felt the shift too, because
His grip tightened.
“You think you can manipulate her?”
he growled.
“I think she deserves truth.”
The tension between us snapped like a live wire. Kael pulled me back against him suddenly.
My spine hit his chest so hard that I felt the solid Heat radiating through his suit.
My breath hitched when his mouth lowered to my ear.
“You want peace?” he murmured against my skin. “Or do you want fire?”
His lips brushed just below my ear.
It was light, barely there. But my knees almost buckled. Damn this bond, Damn him.
Cassian’s eyes darkened at the sight.
“Don’t you f*****g use it against her,”
he said sharply.
“Use what?” Kael challenged.
His hand slid slowly down my waist, Stopping just above my hip. My body betrayed me instantly as always.
So much heat flooded between my thighs.
My n*****s tightened against the thin fabric of my dress.I sucked in a shaky breath. Kael felt it too, of course he always f*****g did.
“You react to me,” he whispered.
His thumb pressed lightly into my hip.
My head tilted back before I could stop myself. His lips hovered over my neck, it was so close. If he bit me now…..
My thighs pressed together instinctively.
Cassian stepped forward.
“Enough.”
Kael’s teeth grazed my pulse, not breaking my skin but Just enough pressure to make my heart slam.
“I could mark you,” he murmured. “Make every claim irrelevant.”
My wolf purred at the idea.
My human side panicked.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I breathed.
His hand slid to my stomach, he spread it
open, it was Possessive.
“You’re already shaking,” he said softly.
I hated that he was right.
Cassian’s voice cut through the haze.
“If he marks you before the council recognizes your crown, it weakens your authority.”
Authority….The word snapped me back to myself, to my sense, immediately remembering…I am Queen, the throne, the Power. I twisted suddenly, shoving Kael’s chest. This time he let me go. both men stared at me like predators watching their prey, except I wasn’t prey anymore.
I stepped away from both of them.
“I’m not choosing anyone tonight,”
I said.
Kael’s eyes flashed.
Cassian’s jaw tightened.
“You don’t understand the urgency,” Cassian pressed.
“The North is unstable, other packs are already moving.”
“Moving how?” I demanded.
He hesitated, he gave that pause, that f*****g pause.
“Cassian,” I warned.
His gaze flicked briefly to Kael and then back to me.
“They believe you’re dead.”
Cold slid through my veins.
“What?”
“They announced your execution publicly after the attack.”
My stomach dropped.
What f*****g Execution? “But I was sold at auction.”
“Yes,” Cassian said quietly. “Privately.”
The room tilted to me.
“So the world thinks I’m dead?”
“Yes.”
Kael went very still, I looked at him slowly.
“You knew.” It wasn’t a question.
His silence gave me the answer I needed.
“You let them believe it,”
“It kept you safer,” he replied evenly.
“Safer?”
“You erased me!” I exploded. His eyes darkened.
“I protected you.”
“By killing my name?”
Cassian stepped in.
“Or by clearing the path to claim her without political interference?”
The accusation hung heavy on
Kael’ that his gaze snapped to him.
“You think I need strategy to claim what’s mine?”
The air shifted, it became dangerous and deadly, but Cassian didn’t back down.
“She is not your conquest.”
“She is my mate.”
“And my Queen.”
My pulse pounded so hard, because this wasn’t about desire anymore, it was about control, power, and something wasn’t adding up.
I turned slowly to Cassian.
“If the world thinks I’m dead,” I said carefully, “then who’s ruling the North?”
Cassian’s silence was worse than Kael’s.
“Cassian.”
His f*****g throat finally worked.
“There was… a temporary regent appointed.”
My eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
He hesitated, too long again,
“Cassian!!.”
His silver gaze flickered with something I couldn’t read.
“Me.”
The word exploded in my skull like bomb.
“You,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
Rage flooded through me like wildfire.
“You’re ruling in my place?”
“Until you were ready.”
“Or until I conveniently never returned?”
I shot back.
“That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” I laughed harshly.
“You let them think I was executed, You took my throne, and now you’re standing here telling me you’re my f*****g fiancé?”
His jaw tightened.
“I did what was necessary to stabilize the region.”
“By stealing my crown?”
Kael’s low chuckle echoed beside me.
“Well,” he muttered, “that’s interesting.”
Cassian gave him a mean look.
“Don’t pretend you’re innocent in this.”
“I never claimed to be.”
I stepped back from both of them because my chest was rising really fast.
So let me get this straight, one man bought me, the other ruled in my name, and now claiming protection and hiding the truth from me. My wolf rose inside me, not confused, not torn but Furious.
“You don’t get to decide when I’m ready,”
I said coldly to Cassian.
“And you don’t get to erase me,”
I said to Kael.
There was thick, heavy silence. And Then….A loud alarm blared through the mansion, and red lights flashed across the walls. Guards started shouting outside.
Kael’s head snapped toward the entrance, just a little to get a glimpse of what was happening.
“What the hell….”
An explosion rocked the east wing, the ground shook, glass shattered somewhere upstairs. Smoke began to creep into the hall.
Cassian swore.
“That’s not my men.”
Kael’s expression turned lethal.
“Who did you bring here?”
“I came with elders only!”
There was another blast, Closer this time.
A guard burst into the hall.
“Alpha! There are northern banners outside the gates!”
Northern banners….My blood ran cold.
“But I’m dead,” I whispered.
Kael looked at me slowly.
“They’re not here for you as a ghost,” he said darkly.
Cassian’s face paled slightly.
“They’re here to finish what they started.”
My heart pounded.
“So this wasn’t about saving me,” but neither of them answered, because suddenly…It was clear, I was never the only heir, I was the obstacle.
And someone out there…
Didn’t want a Queen returning from the dead.
- Writer
