Shackled to the Shadow King

09

The heavy silence in the study felt suffocating, weighted down by Julian’s harsh revelation.

Night-Shade 9. The name alone sounded clinical, engineered, and distinctly unnatural.

I stood rooted to the carpet, my breath shallow as my brain struggled to map out the implications. For years, I had believed my weakness was an act of nature—a cosmic punishment for being born to a nameless mother in a ruthless pack. I had swallowed the stale bread and muddy water offered to me in the Silverfang kitchens, never once suspecting that every drop of nourishment was calculated to keep my spirit crippled.

"A synthetic refinement..." I whispered, the words tasting like copper on my tongue. I looked up at Gaze, whose posture had gone lethal and completely motionless behind his desk. "How long, Gaze? How long have they been feeding me this?"

Gaze didn't answer immediately. He slowly leaned forward, his massive hands resting flat against the dark wood of the desk. The faint golden tint in his obsidian eyes flared with a suppressed, terrifying violence.

"Vance estimated the accumulation in your bloodstream spans at least seven years," Gaze said, his voice dropping into a rasping, icy growl. "Which means Marcus wasn't acting on pack spite. He was operating as an executioner on a leash, paid by someone sitting on the High Council."

"Seven years..." A bitter, hollow laugh escaped my lips before I could stop it. I wrapped my arms tightly around my chest, suddenly feeling cold despite the warmth of the fire crackling in the hearth. "I was twelve years old when they put me in the basement. They didn't just want me weak, Gaze. They wanted to make sure my wolf never had the chance to wake up."

"Because a dormant wolf can't reveal its bloodline," Julian’s voice echoed gently through the desk receiver. "Alpha, if the Council knows what lineage she carries, that means the ancient Royal Bloodlines aren't as extinct as the records claim. Salem isn't just a stray. She's a threat to their entire political monopoly."

Gaze hit a button on the terminal, cutting the audio feed with a harsh click.

He stood up from his chair, rounding the desk with long, silent strides. The dark, suffocating weight of his presence closed the physical distance between us in seconds. He didn't say a word as he reached out, his long, calloused fingers wrapping firmly yet delicately around my waist, pulling me against his hard frame.

I gasped softly as my chest slammed against his, the sudden heat radiating through his black shirt cutting through the icy shock settling in my bones.

"Gaze—"

"Shh," he growled softly, his hand traveling up my back to press flat between my shoulder blades, holding me flush against his heart. "Let me feel you breathe, Salem."

I rested my forehead against the dip of his collarbone, letting the heavy, rhythmic thud of his heart anchor my frantic pulse. The scent of pine, rain, and raw Alpha male enveloped me entirely, creating a safe, impenetrable bubble around us that the rest of the world couldn't touch.

His other hand cupped the back of my head, his fingers tangling into my soft brown hair, holding me with a terrifyingly possessive tightness.

"They used poison to keep you small," Gaze murmured against the crown of my head, his warm breath fanning across my scalp. "They used fear to keep you quiet. But they made one fatal mistake."

I pulled back slightly, raising my head to meet his dark, burning eyes. "What mistake?"

A slow, dangerous curve touched the corner of Gaze’s sharp lips—a ruthless smile that belonged to a predator ready to tear down an entire kingdom.

"They let you survive until I found you," he whispered, his thumb slowly tracing the curve of my jawline, leaving a trail of fire across my skin. "They thought keeping you crippled in a basement would hide you forever. Now, every single elder who signed off on those shipment logs is going to pay for every drop of poison that entered your blood."

My heart hammered wildly against my ribs, not from fear of him, but from the overwhelming, terrifying intensity of his devotion. In Silverfang, I was an eye-sore, a burden, a waste of space. To Gaze, I was something sacred—a trigger that could set his entire dark empire on a warpath.

"What do we do now?" I asked softly, my hands involuntarily gripping the front of his shirt. "If the Council realizes I’m at the Onyx Citadel, they won't just send Victoria or her father. They'll use the pack laws to demand an audit. They'll try to take me away from you."

Gaze’s grip on my waist tightened instantly, his dark eyes darkening into pure, unyielding pitch. The temperature in the room dropped several degrees, the air growing dense with his oppressive power.

"Let them try to take you," Gaze growled, leaning down until his lips brushed against mine, close enough for me to taste the heat of his breath. "They will have to step over my dead body, and the bodies of ten thousand men before they lay a single finger on my Luna."

The word Luna didn't sound ridiculous anymore. It sounded like an armor he was forcing onto my weak shoulders—an armor forged in blood and iron.

"Tomorrow morning, Vance starts the flush protocol," Gaze continued, his voice dropping into a low, sensual murmur that made my core ache with an unfamiliar, heavy heat. "It’s going to be painful, Salem. Neutralizing seven years of synthetic wolfsbane will force your body to reject the toxin. Your wolf will fight to wake up."

"I’m not afraid of the pain," I whispered, holding his fierce gaze. "I’ve survived pain my entire life."

Gaze stared down at me, a flash of raw, unfiltered admiration breaking through his stern features. He leaned down and pressed a deep, lingering kiss against the hollow of my throat, right above the obsidian pendant. The sensation sent an intense, electric shock straight down to my thighs, making my breath hitch sharp and loud in the quiet room.

"I know you have, my little flame," Gaze murmured against my skin, his lips lingering against my pulse point as my hands instinctively tightened on his shoulders. "But from this moment on... you will never have to bleed alone again."