The Alpha Queen Masquerade - The Rewrite

A Name On His Lips

The cool night air slapped against Kai’s skin as he stepped out of the club. It hit sharp but felt like a welcome relief compared to the cloying smell of the club.

He could feel his wolf rippling beneath his skin. Could almost see his dark fur brushing against the underside of his skin. He could feel his wolf's impatience, itching to run, itching to hunt. The encounter with Lana had rattled him more than he wanted to admit. He’d kept control, but that slip of dominance that had spilled out uninvited? That wasn’t like him.

His wolf didn’t care. It wanted freedom. It wanted the forest. It wanted her and f**k anyone that got in the way of that. even if that person was Kai himself.

Kai clenched a fist, grounding himself in the press of bone against skin.

Not now.

Then his phone buzzed in his hand. Arrow.

Kai answered silently.

“We have a bit of a situation,” Arrow said, tone tight.

Kai froze. “What kind of situation?”

“I tracked Adalyn using the bug on her phone. Found it smashed in an alley,” Arrow said, voice steady but tighter than usual. “Her scent was still fresh — mixed with two others. Male. Unknown.”

He paused.

“I followed it south, toward the old industrial stretch by the rail yard. There’s… an abandoned complex there. Looks like that’s where she ended up.”

Another pause.

“I think she’s okay,” he added quickly, almost too quickly. “No blood. No sign of a struggle outside. Just… movement inside the building.”

Kai didn’t answer.

Arrow’s tone shifted, the calm thinning around the edges. “She’s… she’s not moving now. Looks like she’s—” He stopped himself, exhaled hard through his nose. “She’s tied up. And I’m pretty sure she’s unconscious.”

The silence on the other end was immediate. Heavy.

Arrow pinched the bridge of his nose, pressing through the static like he could feel Kai’s fury building across the line.

“Before you lose it—listen. I could go in right now, take them out in under a minute, but this isn’t a clean job. The trail was too easy to follow. The phone wasn’t hidden. Whoever did this is a complete amateur or wanted us to find her.”

He hesitated one last time, lower now. “I called because I knew you’d want to be there. But… maybe take a breath before you do what you’re already planning to.”

Arrow’s warning barely registered. The pulse in Kai’s ears had already drowned it out.

“Where are you?” he asked, voice low but ice-hard. He was already moving, body on autopilot, steps lengthening, stride shifting. His muscles coiled tighter with each one.

His wolf had gone quiet. No longer restless.

“I’ll send you my location,” Arrow replied.

—-

Arrow crouched low on the rooftop, one knee braced against rusted metal as he scanned the alley below. The scent trail had led him here, but he didn’t need it now. He could see her. Tied up. Still.

He’d been watching for ten minutes. No sign of movement from the thugs inside.

Then there was a thud behind him. The rooftop vibrated as Kai landed without ceremony.

Kai didn’t slow. “Where is she?”

Arrow clocked Kai’s appearance in a single glance. The sharp set of his jaw. The amber burning in his eyes. And his hair, lighter at the tips, but darkening at the roots now. As if the wild glamour from the club was fading away, leaving only what was real underneath. Arrow didn’t comment. Not the time.

Arrow jerked his chin toward a blown out window. “Back room. On the floor. Unconscious but breathing.”

Kai snatched the binoculars and raised them in one fluid motion. Arrow didn’t speak. He just watched the way Kai’s shoulders tensed, the way his stance shifted.

“She’s tied to a support beam”

Kai’s jaw flexed once. Hard.

He shoved the binoculars back into Arrow’s chest and moved toward the roof’s edge.

Arrow grabbed his arm. “Wait!”

Kai’s eyes snapped to his. His amber eyes glinting like a flame.

Arrow didn’t flinch, but he didn’t let go either.

“This feels wrong,” Arrow said, voice low but steady. “There are three of them. One outside, two inside. No effort to mask their scents. Didn’t even bother taking her phone. It’s sloppy. Too sloppy. Which means either they’re idiots… or it’s a trap. And if it’s the latter…” He met Kai’s glowing eyes. “They wanted me to find her. Wanted you to come.”

Kai yanked his arm free. “And?”

“And I could handle this myself,” Arrow replied, voice low. “But if this is a setup, you might want answers before you turn them into pulp.”

Kai’s lips peeled back in a snarl. “They touched what’s mine. I’ll get answers after.”

A wave of alpha dominance slammed into Arrow’s chest. Not a shove, a command. Every instinct screamed at him to drop, to submit.

Arrow gritted his teeth through it, exhaling slowly. He lifted his hands in surrender. “Copy that.”

Kai turned.

“Want backup?”

He didn’t answer. Just vaulted over the edge of the building and vanished into the dark.

Arrow strode to the lip of the roof and looked down, lifting his binoculars again.

“Nope. Didn’t think so.”

He smirked, settling into position.

—-

Outside the building, a slim male shifter paced the cracked pavement, tension bleeding off him in waves. He glanced at his watch. Then again. “Where the f**k are they?” he muttered, loud enough to startle a stray cat slinking by.

He looked down one more time and his watch slammed into his face.

The crunch of bone split the silence. He staggered, blood already pouring from his nose before he could register what the hell had hit him.

An arm wrapped tight around his neck. Another clamped over his mouth.

No time to scream.

The shifter bucked violently, clawing at the forearm cutting off his air. But Kai was a shadow behind him. Silent, efficient and brutal. There was no sound but the scrape of boots on gravel and the rasping panic of a man running out of time.

Kai’s jaw tightened. It was taking too long.

Crack. The body went limp.

The thud of the corpse hitting concrete was the only funeral it would get.

He stepped over it and slid inside.

The building reeked of damp brick, rotting wood, and blood. But beneath it all, there was her. Lavender. Fresh grass. Rain washed earth. His wolf surged forward, claws itching beneath his skin. That scent had haunted him for months. Carried him through battles. Anchored him in nightmares.

His eyes glinted gold, heat flickering in his chest.

She was close.

He inhaled once more, sharper this time. Still faint, but recent. His wolf wanted to run toward it

Two more scents inside. Exactly as Arrow had said.

Kai scanned the layout. The shifters were moving like amateurs. Heavy footed. Poor line of sight. No scent suppression. No lookout coverage.

Idiots.

Amateur thugs for hire, not trained enforcers. Not the kind you’d use if you were trying to take down royalty, or leverage a mate bond against a prince.

Which meant Arrow was right. The sloppiness almost felt deliberate.

Kai’s jaw flexed. His instincts screamed trap.

But his wolf didn’t care. She’s here.

—-

Inside the building, the air was thick with the stench of diesel, rust, and old oil. Adalyn stirred as her vision slowly returned.

Her lashes fluttered. Her stomach turned. The sour fumes clung to her throat like smoke. Instinctively, she tried to rub her nose only to realise her arms were pinned and bound tight behind her. She twisted her arms and felt some against her. Something cold and solid. A support beam?

Her eyes flew open.

Her memories came rushing back in jagged flashes. The alley, the attack, the sting of something sharp. Her breath hitched as she tugged at the restraints. No give. Worse, there was magic threaded through the bindings. She could feel it, humming faintly through the fibres, cutting off her wolf like a dam choking a river.

“Perfect,” she muttered. “Guess it’s still just me”

No claws. No backup. Her wolf, as usual, was nowhere to be found buried too deep to call on, or even to feel as a result of the magic. Not that she'd ever been able to rely on her anyway.

The clang of metal rang behind her, followed by heavy boots and a disgusting whiff of cigarette breath.

The greasy shifter who’d tried to drag her off earlier stepped into view. Close cropped hair. Pockmarked skin. Disheveled. Smiling like this was the start of some game she didn’t agree to.

“Well, look who’s finally awake,” he drawled.

“Why have you brought me here?” Her voice was sharp. Controlled. “Let me go.”

He walked in slow, grabbed her chin and tilted her face to his like he was owed something. “You’re in no position to make demands, sweetheart.”

Adalyn yanked her face away, skin crawling.

He didn’t seem to care. “Got paid good money to keep you here. I don’t ask questions when coin’s involved.”

He hauled her upright with a single jerk. Her wrists ached. The restraints bit into her skin.

And then he looked at her. Really looked.

His eyes roamed, low and lazy, over the curve of her hips and chest, lips parting in a smug, disgusting grin. “Huh. Under all that baggy fabric… not bad.”

Adalyn shifted subtly, stepping back into the post like she could vanish into it. He didn’t let her.

He leaned in, breath sour. “We’ve got time to kill before the hand-off. And after the s**t you pulled earlier?” His hand slid down toward her waist. “I’d say you owe me some entertainment.”

She wanted to throw up. But she didn’t flinch.

Instead, she stilled.

Wide eyes. Slower breaths. She let her body go slack in his arms, lips parting just enough to mimic fear dressed up as surrender. His expression shifted. Pleased, like she had already resigned herself to her fate. His grip tightened.

And that was his mistake. She moved.

In one sudden, fluid motion, Adalyn kicked off the ground, drove both feet into his shoulder, and used the force to launch herself upward. Her arms burned as the restraints caught. She twisted her body, clamping her legs around his neck like a vice.

His hands shot up, grasping wildly at her thighs, her pants, anything. She squeezed harder.

The move was instinctual. Desperate. Effective.

Every breath he exhaled, she tightened. His face flushed red. His balance slipped. His fingers scrabbled uselessly at her sides. He wasn’t laughing now.

"Please! Please just go to sleep" she silently willed.

Her muscles trembled from the strain. Her lungs burned. But she didn’t let go. Couldn’t. Her wolf may’ve been silent, but she was still in this fight.

Finally, his limbs went slack and a moment later she let him drop to the floor like dead weight, unconscious.

Adalyn slid down the pole, breath ragged. The muscles in her arms and legs screaming from the tension.

She sagged against the beam in relief.

Before she could work out her next plan of attack another shifter stumbled through the doorway. His hands clutched tight to his throat as blood gushed through his fingers. The gaping s***h across his neck pulsed with every panicked heartbeat. He staggered, trying to shift, realizing too late that his wolf form couldn’t save him.

Adalyn caught the scent before she saw him. Oak and spiced leather.

It froze her.

The same scent that stopped her cold in the square. The same scent her wolf had responded to even now, beneath the silence, beneath the magic.

Then he appeared.

Kai stepped into the room like the violence had summoned him.

His black shirt clung to every inch of his sculpted frame, blood speckled across his sleeves. His jeans hung low on his hips, darkened by shadows and streaked with dirt and blood. He looked like sin made flesh.

But it wasn’t just the way he moved. It was the way the room bent around him. Like everything else held its breath.

His eyes weren’t fully gold anymore—more like burning metal, rimmed in amber fire. His hair, wild and tousled, was darker now at the roots, the glamour bleeding away with every step he took.

This was no prince. This was a wolf unchained.

Adalyn’s breath caught in her throat. Could this really be the same man from the square? The third prince?

He looked at her and she knew. It was him. It had always been him.

His gaze swept her body once. Her torn clothes. The bruises forming at her wrists. The unconscious shifter at her feet. A muscle ticked in his jaw.

Kai’s expression sharpened into something feral. Something final.

He turned to the half-shifted rogue, who still writhed near the wall, struggling to heal.

Kai began to move. Not rushed. Not reckless. Just inevitable.

“Turn away, Adalyn,” he said low and even, without breaking his stride.

He didn’t look at her when he said it. His eyes never left the man bleeding out in front of him.

But the sound of her name on his lips? It cracked through her like lightning.

He knows my name?

He came for me?

Her throat tightened. She didn’t want to see what came next. She turned her head, heart pounding. And behind her, the rogue gave one last, ragged cry before it was cut off with wet finality.

Silence fell.

Kai stood over the body, exhaling once. Cold but still burning on the inside

Then he looked at her. Really looked at her, and this time he didn’t look away.