Useless Mate

The Queen Is Here

Dalonius stood in the arched entryway of the ballroom, his silhouette cutting a lethal, imposing figure against the bright corridor lights behind him. He didn't look like a man arriving at a high-society celebration; he looked like a god of war tracking his prey.

The crowd parted instantly, aristocrats and mafia bosses alike scrambling backward to give him a wide berth. His dominant, volatile aura was entirely unhinged, rolling off him in heavy, suffocating waves that made the lesser wolves in the room drop their gazes out of pure survival instinct.

Mena’s face lit up with a sudden, desperate surge of hope. She quickly smoothed her white silk dress, forcing her sweet, helpless mask back into place as she stepped away from Lazelle.

"Dalonius, darling!" Mena cooed, her voice trembling slightly as she hurried toward him, extending her hands. "Thank goodness you're here. A security breach... a stray has wandered into the gala—"

Dalonius didn't even look at her.

He walked right past Mena as if she were made of thin air, his heavy leather shoes thudding rhythmically against the polished marble floor. Mena’s hands were left hovering in the empty air, her face freezing into a public, humiliating mask of shock.

Dalonius's obsidian eyes were pinned entirely on the woman standing by the marble pillar.

The moment his gaze landed on Lazelle, the raw, primal shock of the fated-mate bond ripped through him all over again. His chest expanded as he drew in her scent—no longer obscured by bakery flour and cheap vanilla, but rich, pure, and radiating the unyielding majesty of a Lycan Queen. He saw the black silk gown, the bare shoulders, and the faint silver training scars that told him exactly how hard she had been fighting while he was busy drowning in his own regret.

He stopped five paces away from her, his breathing ragged, his hands tightly clenched at his sides to keep from reaching out and pulling her into his arms.

"Lazelle," he breathed, his rough, baritone voice cracking with six months of agonizing hunger.

Lazelle didn't flinch. She slowly swirled the champagne in her glass, her eyes cool, dark, and completely unreadable. She looked at him with the exact same vacant, polite customer-service indifference she had used behind the counter in Naples.

"Good evening, Signor Lacoste," Lazelle said, her voice smooth as glass and entirely devoid of warmth. "I see you made it to Zurich. Congratulations again on your upcoming wedding."

The words were a calculated, brutal strike. Dalonius winced visibly, a flicker of raw pain crossing his features as his inner wolf howled in agony. She was using his own rejection as a blade, and she was driving it deep into his chest.

"Lazelle, stop," Dalonius rasped, stepping closer, completely ignoring the fact that the entire Northern Syndicate leadership was watching them in breathless silence. "I know who you are. I know everything. The fraud is over."

"Is it?" Lazelle raised an eyebrow, finally setting her champagne glass down on a nearby table. She stepped forward, matching his space, her molten gold eyes locking onto his obsidian ones. The sheer power of her aura slammed into his, refusing to be dominated by him. "Because from where I'm standing, you are still wearing the ring of a thief, and I am still the girl you chose to look right through."

"I was a fool," Dalonius growled, his voice dropping into a low, desperate plea that only her sharp ears could catch. "I thought I was protecting my family. I thought you were human. If I had known—"

"If you had known I was a Queen, you would have loved me?" Lazelle interrupted, a faint, chillingly beautiful smile touching her lips. "That isn't love, Don Dalonius. That's a business transaction. And unfortunately for you, my empire is no longer for sale."

Evelyn, sensing the complete collapse of her grand plan, rushed forward, her voice high and frantic. "Don Dalonius! What is the meaning of this? This girl is an impostor! The signing ceremony is scheduled for—"

"Shut up, Evelyn," Dalonius snapped, his head turning sharply as his eyes flashed a lethal, glowing gold. The sheer violence in his voice made the older woman instantly choke on her words and step back.

He turned back to Lazelle, his posture completely broken, his hand extending slightly toward her. "Come with me. Let me fix this. We can burn the succession papers together. I will give you the entire Italian syndicate if you just look at me."

Lazelle looked down at his outstretched hand, then back up to his desperate eyes. Her expression remained an absolute wall of ice.

"The papers will be signed tonight, Don Dalonius," Lazelle whispered softly, her voice carrying across the silent ballroom as the high elders stepped forward with the official gold-embossed leather folders. "But your name won't be on them. And neither will Mena's."

She turned her back on him, her midnight-black silk dress rippling like a flag of war as she walked toward the high elders' table. The shadow guard stepped into place right behind her, his hand resting heavily on the hilt of his concealed blade, leaving Dalonius standing alone in the center of the room, holding onto nothing but the empty air.

The high elders of the Northern Syndicate lined the long, velvet-draped table like a row of stone judges. At the center lay the succession treaty—a document stamped with the crest of the Dellegdego dynasty, waiting to transfer the world's largest Lycan fortune into Mena’s hands.

Elder Joshua, the oldest and most traditional of the wolves, looked up as Lazelle approached. His silvered brow furrowed, his ancient, tracking senses cataloging the overwhelming, pure Alpha pressure rolling off her.

"Who dares disrupt the ratification?" Joshua demanded, though his voice lacked its usual bite. His inner wolf was already tilting its head down.

"The rightful owner of that pen," Lazelle said.

She stopped at the edge of the table. Without a single trace of hesitation, she slammed both hands onto the dark wood, leaning forward. Her molten gold eyes burned into Joshua's.

"Six months ago, my father, Alpha Dellegdego, flatlined in his chambers. Before his blood was even cold, Evelyn and Mena tried to have me executed in my own home. They told you I took my own life out of grief. They told you Mena was the last surviving bloodline." Lazelle’s voice rose, vibrating with a chilling, resonant power that echoed off the high crystal chandeliers. "Look at me, Elders. Do I look like a ghost?"

A collective murmur broke out among the council.

"This is treason!" Evelyn shrieked, rushing toward the table, her elegant composure completely shattered. "She is a rogue! A plain-haired bastard who ran away when the pack needed her! She doesn't carry the silver trait of our ancestors—"

"The silver trait is a cosmetic mark, Evelyn," Joshua cut her off, his ancient voice sharp as a razor. He slowly stood up, his eyes locked onto Lazelle's blazing gaze. He drew a deep breath, inhaling the unmistakable, pure royal scent of the Dellegdego line—the thunderous, dominant aura that no fraud could ever replicate.

Joshua looked at Mena, whose face was completely pale, then back to Lazelle. Slowly, the old elder bowed his head. "The blood does not lie. The true Alpha is standing before us."

One by one, the other six elders at the table stood and bowed.

"No!" Mena screamed, her sweet voice turning into a ragged, desperate screech. She lunged across the table, reaching for the gold-embossed treaty. "It's mine! I am the one marrying the Italian Don! The alliance is mine!"

Before her manicured fingers could touch the paper, a heavy, leather-gloved hand slammed down on top of the treaty, pinning it to the wood with bone-crushing force.

Mena gasped, looking up into the freezing, lethal eyes of Dalonius Lacoste.

Dalonius didn't even look at her as he tore the succession document in half with a single, brutal flick of his wrist. He threw the shredded pieces into Mena’s face, the white fragments fluttering down like ash over her expensive white gown.

"The Italian syndicate does not ally with thieves," Dalonius growled, his voice a low, terrifying rumble that promised death. He stepped past the trembling girl, his focus entirely consumed by the woman in the black dress.

He stopped right beside Lazelle, his massive frame radiating an intense, protective heat. His wolf was practically begging to stand as her shield, to prove his worth, to rewrite the sin of his silence in Naples.

"The treaty is void," Dalonius announced to the room, his obsidian eyes fixed onto the side of Lazelle’s face. "The Lacoste family recognizes only one ruler of the North. Queen Lazelle."

Lazelle slowly turned her head to look at him. For a brief second, Dalonius thought he saw a flicker of something soften in her eyes. His heart bounded against his ribs.

But the softness never came.

Lazelle offered him that same empty, chillingly polite bakery smile. She reached out, gently placing her hand against his chest—not in a caress, but to firmly, unyieldingly push him back a step, creating a clear, cold boundary between them.

"Thank you for your endorsement, Signor Lacoste," Lazelle said softly, her voice cutting him deeper than any blade ever could. "But I don't need the Italian Mafia to validate my crown. I take it myself."

She turned to the shadow guard, who was already stepping forward with a leather-bound case of his own.

"Evelyn. Mena," Lazelle said, her voice dropping into the absolute finality of an executioner's sentence. "For the murder of my father and the attempted assassination of the crown heir, your assets are seized, your titles are stripped, and you are cast out of the Northern territory. If you are found within our borders by sunrise... my shadow guard won't miss a second time."

Two enforcers, finally recognizing who held the true leash, marched forward and grabbed Evelyn and Mena by their arms, dragging them kicking and screaming out of the grand ballroom.

The crowd fell into a stunned, absolute silence.

Lazelle took the true succession papers from her shadow guard, signed her name in flawless, elegant ink, and turned to face her new empire. She was the Queen. Unbroken, unbothered, and entirely self-made.

And as she walked out of the ballroom without casting a single glance backward, Dalonius stood in the center of the glittering room, holding his chest where her hand had just pushed him away, realizing that winning back a Queen who didn't care was going to be the most brutal war he had ever fought.