The Alpha King and His Rogue Queen

His Royalness

RAIN

We’d barely settled into the new camp, a week, maybe less, and it was already burned. Normally we’d linger a month, sometimes three if the site was well-hidden, like that rock-bound hollow we held longest. But I’d drilled the rule into every one of us: when the net closes, you don’t wait to see how tight it gets. We were gone before the first scout’s scent reached the perimeter, slipping out the eastern tunnels like shadows bleeding into night.

I didn’t know it was him leading the chase until Jasper’s breathless report reached me hours later. The alpha king himself. Winston. The name tasted like bile. I’d been careful, methodical, never striking his palace directly. I wanted to dismantle him slowly: bleed the smaller packs he’d spent decades binding to his rule until nothing remained for him to lord over. A kingdom of ghosts. Only then would I face him.

He wasn’t supposed to come for me yet. Not this soon. Couldn’t he at least let me finish the prelude?

I was livid, yes, but beneath the anger was a cold, satisfied spark. Good. Let him chase. Let him see what happens when he finally corners the ghost he created.

“Leader,” Jasper said, catching up as we emerged into the damp night air, pine and earth thick in our lungs. “Three of the king’s guards are trapped in the lower maze. They’re circling the same dead-end passages. No way out unless they know the turns.”

Concern edged his voice, but I heard the undercurrent of grim amusement. The tunnels were ours, years of digging, mapping, trapping. Outsiders who followed us in rarely came out whole. These three had been arrogant enough to try.

I exhaled slowly. “Leave them. Let them rot a while.”

Jasper nodded, though his eyes flicked toward the dark mouth of the tunnel behind us. “You sure? They’re royal. He might—”

“He might what?” I cut in, voice low. “Negotiate? Beg? Sacrifice himself for three loyal hounds?” I let the words hang, tasting the possibility. “If he values his men, he’ll come himself. And if he does… we’ll see exactly how much the ‘almighty king’ is willing to bleed for his people.”

We weren’t murderers, not by choice. But we weren’t saints either. In this life, you either killed or got killed. And if those guards meant to drag us back in chains, their fate was their own making.

I scanned the faces around me, dirt-streaked, alert, breathing hard but steady. “Everyone accounted for?”

“Everyone except Elaine and Jessica,” Jasper said. “They lagged. Still hiding in the upper passages, away from the guards. Unhurt, last we heard.”

I cursed under my breath. Those two were reckless, always had been, but they were mine. “Send two scouts to shadow them. Regroup at the fallback point at dawn. No risks.”

He dipped his head and moved off to relay orders.

Amelia fell into step beside me as the group dispersed into the trees. “I still don’t understand how they found us so fast,” she muttered. “We hadn’t even hit anything big this week.”

“Doesn’t matter now,” I said. “Camp’s burned. We scatter per protocol, different safe houses, no contact until I call it.”

She glanced sideways at me. “We could hole up in a hotel for a night. Hot food. A real bed. Spa, even.”

I snorted. “And perfume? Manicures?”

Her face lit up for half a second before she caught my tone. “You’re not coming, are you?”

“Nope.”

She groaned. “Why do you punish yourself like this? We’ve got coin. We earned it.”

“I’m responsible for more than just me now,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Every raid we pull funds food, weapons, medicine, not luxury. We stay sharp, we stay alive. We stay alive, we finish what we started.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re actually female. What kind of woman doesn’t want to smell like something other than pine sap and vengeance once in a while?”

I shot her a dry look. “Maybe the rogue kind. Pack wolves already think we stink, doesn’t matter how much soap we use. Might as well save the coin for something that keeps us breathing.”

Amelia sighed, long and theatrical. “You’re impossible.”

“I know.” I flashed Amelia my signature wink, the quick, sharp one that always ended arguments, and kept walking into the deepening shadows of the pines. Her footsteps hesitated behind me, then followed anyway. She never could stay mad long enough to leave me alone.

She was right, though. I didn’t take care of myself the way I took care of them. Never had. The alpha in my blood didn’t ask permission; it simply demanded I shield what was mine, feed the hungry, patch the wounded, plan three steps ahead so no one else had to. I hadn’t chosen leadership. Leadership had chosen me the moment my wolf woke up snarling inside a fourteen-year-old girl who’d just watched her world burn.

All I’d ever wanted was quiet. Ordinary. Invisible.

Instead I got this: a ghost army of outcasts who looked at me like I was salvation, a vendetta that had kept me breathing when grief should have drowned me, and a hatred so old and deep it felt like another heartbeat.

Winston.

He thought he was the hunter tonight. He had no idea the prey had been stalking him for seven years, watching his borders, learning his patterns, bleeding his allies dry one careful cut at a time. I’d never struck the palace because I wanted him to feel the slow unraveling first: smaller packs turning away, loyalty fraying, whispers spreading that the “just king” couldn’t protect his own. Only when he had nothing left to rule would I step out of the shadows and let him see my face.

Now he’d sent three of his precious royal guards straight into my web. Arrogant. Reckless. Almost disappointing.

I stopped at the edge of a narrow ravine, the regroup point still hours away. The night air tasted of frost and distant rain. Somewhere behind us, three men were stumbling through tunnels that twisted like veins in stone, tunnels I’d helped carve with my own hands during the first brutal winters after Silver Ridge fell.

Amelia caught up, breath fogging between us. “You’re really going to leave them down there?”

“For now.” I crouched, fingers brushing the cold earth. “They’re not dying. Just… learning.”

“Learning what? That the king’s men aren’t invincible?”

“That following a rogue into her own house is a death wish.” I straightened. “And that their king has a choice to make.”

She studied me too long. “You want him to come himself.”

I didn’t answer right away. The wind moved through the trees like a sigh.

“If he values those men,” I said finally, “he’ll come. Alone. No army. No fanfare. Just him walking into the dark to get them back.”

Amelia’s eyes narrowed. “And if he does?”

“Then I look him in the eye and ask why.” My voice came out quieter than I meant. “Why he signed the order. Why he never questioned it. Why he let Kane’s lies stand when the truth would’ve cost him nothing.”

She exhaled sharply. “You think he’ll tell you the truth?”

“I think he’ll have to try.” I met her gaze. “Because if he lies, I’ll know. And if he tells the truth… maybe there’s something left worth salvaging. Or maybe I’ll just kill him faster.”

Amelia didn’t laugh. Neither did I.

We walked on in silence for a while, boots crunching over frost-kissed needles. My mind kept circling back to the same image: Winston stepping into the central chamber alone, no cloak of guards, no flare of royal aura meant to intimidate. Just a man. Just answers.

I hated that part of me wanted to hear them.

Hated even more that part of me hoped they’d matter.

Because if they did, if there was even a sliver of doubt that he hadn’t known, hadn’t ordered it, hadn’t looked away on purpose, then seven years of rage might suddenly have nowhere to go. And what was I without that rage? Just another broken wolf trying to pretend she could still lead.

We reached the first fallback marker, an old lightning-struck oak split down the middle. I paused, scenting the air. No pursuit yet. No fresh royal stink on the wind.

Amelia leaned against the trunk. “You know the pack’s talking.”

“About?”

“About how long you’re going to keep this up. The raids. The running. The waiting for him to snap.” She crossed her arms. “Some of them think we should hit the palace now. End it. Others think we should disappear for good, take what we’ve got and vanish across the northern border.”

“And you?” I asked.

She looked at me straight. “I think you’re waiting for something he can never give you.”

I felt the words land somewhere deep and tender. “Closure?”

“Absolution.” She pushed off the tree. “You want him to say he’s sorry. You want him to mean it. And even if he does… it won’t bring anyone back.”

The truth of it stung more than I expected.

“I don’t need absolution,” I said. “I need him to understand what he took. And I need him to lose something too.”

Amelia nodded slowly. “Then let’s make sure he does.”

We kept moving.