Useless Mate

The Ash and the Iron

Six months after walking out of the Naples bakery, Lazelle stood on a jagged ridge in the Swiss Alps, watching the sunrise bleed crimson over the snow.

The girl who had kneaded dough in Maria’s kitchen was gone. In her place stood a weapon. Her brown hair, once tied back in a messy, soft bun, was now tightly braided against her scalp. She wore heavy, dark tactical armor that bore no house crests, and her skin—once dusted with white flour—was mapping a new history of faint, silver training scars.

"Again," a deep, gravelly voice rumbled from the shadows of the pines behind her.

The shadow guard stepped onto the snow. He didn't wear his cloak anymore; he wore the heavy, reinforced sparring gear of a Lycan executioner. In his hand, he swung a massive, dull iron broadsword that whistled dangerously through the freezing air.

Lazelle didn't breathe a word. She simply slipped into a low, predatory stance, her bare boots gripping the icy rock. She had spent half a year pushing her body past its absolute limits, breaking her muscles down until her inner wolf finally stopped crying over a broken bond and started roaring for blood.

The shadow guard lunged.

The iron blade came down with enough force to split a boulder. Lazelle didn't dodge backward—she dove forward, sliding beneath the arc of the swing. Her Lycan senses, completely unlocked from their human shackles, tracked the movement in slow motion. She planted her palm on the frozen ground, flipped her legs up, and drove her heel straight into the shadow guard’s chest.

The massive man staggered back two steps, his boots carving deep grooves in the snow. A low, rumbling chuckle escaped his throat.

"Your speed is flawless, Princess," he said, lowering the blade. "But your anger makes you heavy. You are still fighting the ghost of the Don."

Lazelle stood up, her chest heaving as the freezing air burned her lungs. Her eyes flared a dangerous, molten gold. "I am not fighting for him. I am fighting for my father."

"Then why does your aura spike every time we look south toward Italy?" the shadow guard challenged, his piercing gaze locking onto hers. "You have the strength to crush Mena. You have the tactical mind to take back the Northern throne. But if you face them while carrying a bleeding heart, Dalonius Lacoste will use that bond to pull you right back under his thumb."

Lazelle walked over to a rack of forged steel daggers resting against a pine tree. She picked up a heavy, black-bladed knife, her grip white-knuckled.

"Dalonius Lacoste had his chance," Lazelle said, her voice dropping into a terrifyingly calm, icy vibration that made the surrounding forest feel even colder. "He chose a fraud because he thought a queen was too heavy for him to carry. If he comes north, he won't find a bakery girl begging for a glance. He will find an executioner."

She threw the dagger. It buried itself entirely to the hilt in the center of a target fifty yards away.

"Pack the gear," Lazelle commanded, turning her back to the southern wind. "The Northern high elders are meeting in Zurich tomorrow to officially ratify Mena’s succession. It’s time to crash the party."

Meanwhile, eight hundred miles south, the Lacoste estate in Naples was a living hell.

Dalonius sat behind his massive mahogany desk, the curtains drawn, the room bathed in a suffocating, dark gloom. The air in the study was so thick with his dominant, chaotic alpha aura that his own lieutenants could barely stand inside the room without their knees trembling.

He looked unrecognizable. His tie was completely gone, his crisp white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, and his eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by dark, hollow shadows. For six months, he hadn't slept for more than an hour at a time. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her polite, empty customer-service smile. Every time he breathed, his wolf clawed at his chest, starving for a scent that was no longer there.

On the desk in front of him sat a single item: Lazelle’s white bakery apron, neatly folded, exactly how she had left it.

"Boss," Marco muttered, stepping into the room with his head bowed, carefully keeping his eyes on the floor. "The tracking teams in France lost the trail. Whoever is covering her tracks isn't human. They’re using elite, untraceable black-market cloaking protocols."

Dalonius didn't look up. He gently traced his thumb over the fabric of the apron. "Find them," he rasped, his voice sounding like broken glass. "Execute the team leads who lost the scent. Hire the scouts from the Eastern packs. I don't care if it costs billions. Bring me my wife."

"But Don Dalonius," Marco hesitated, swallowing hard. "The gala in Zurich is tomorrow. Evelyn and Mena have already arrived with the syndicate elders. If you don't show up to sign the marriage contract, the Northern packs will view it as a declaration of war. The syndicate will fracture."

Dalonius slowly raised his head. His eyes weren't obsidian anymore—they were glowing a terrifying, volatile Lycan gold, the animal completely overriding his human restraint.

"Let it fracture," Dalonius growled, the wood of his desk groaning as his claws dug into the varnish. "Mena is a walking corpse. She just doesn't know it yet. Prepare the private jet. We're going to Zurich."

The Grand Ballroom of the Dolder Grand Hotel in Zurich was a sea of crystal chandeliers, flowing champagne, and lethal high-society politics. To the human world, it was an exclusive charity gala for European billionaires. To the Lycan underworld, it was the coronation of a new empire.

Evelyn and Mena had spent millions to ensure everything was perfect.

At the center of the room, Mena stood like a flawless porcelain doll. She wore a breath-taking gown of white silk and diamonds, her hair styled into intricate, silver-threaded braids. Her signature sweet, helpless smile was plastered on her face as she nodded politely to the high elders of the Northern Syndicate. Beside her, Evelyn looked on with a smug, victorious grin. They were only hours away from signing the succession papers that would legally cement Mena as the sole heir to the Dellegdego billions.

"She looks like a queen, doesn't she?" Evelyn whispered to a high elder. "A true, pure light for our people."

"She looks like a thief in a stolen shroud."

The whisper was so soft, so entirely devoid of vibration, that it didn't even register to the human ears in the room. But to the sharp Lycan senses of Evelyn and Mena, the voice hit like a bucket of freezing water.

Evelyn froze. Mena’s perfect, submissive smile faltered for a fraction of a second before she quickly masked it, her eyes scanning the crowd with a sudden, sharp panic.

Gliding through the sea of aristocrats was a woman who completely commanded the room without trying.

Lazelle didn't look like a bakery girl anymore. And she certainly didn't look like a ghost.

She wore a backless, midnight-black silk gown that pooled elegantly around her ankles, cutting through the room like a shadow through snow. Her brown hair wasn't hidden or braided down; it fell over her shoulders in rich, glossy waves, completely defying the silver-haired stereotype of the royal family. Her posture was sheer, unyielding royalty. On her smooth skin, the faint silver lines of her training scars were proudly on display, looking less like blemishes and more like ancient battle armor.

Every high elder in the room stopped talking as she walked past. Her presence radiated a dominant, suffocating Alpha aura that made the older wolves instinctively lower their heads in respect before they even realized who she was.

"Lazelle," Evelyn breathed, her face turning a ghastly, violent shade of pale. Her hand instantly dropped toward the clutch where her silver dagger was hidden. "You're dead."

"You should have checked the body yourself, Evelyn," Lazelle said smoothly, stopping precisely three paces away from them. She didn't draw a weapon. She didn't raise her voice. She simply leaned against a marble pillar, picking up a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray with absolute, terrifying calm.

Mena’s sweet mask completely cracked. Her eyes turned predatory, her claws subtly lengthening against her silk gloves. "You think you can just walk in here? Look around you, sister. The elders are ours. The guards are ours. You are a plain, useless stray with no crown."

"Am I?" Lazelle raised an eyebrow, taking a slow, deliberate sip of her drink. She looked directly at Mena, her brown eyes flashing a bright, dominant molten gold that made Mena’s inner wolf cower behind her ribs. "Because from where I'm standing, the elders are staring at me. The guards are trembling. And you look like an actress who forgot her lines."

"Guards!" Evelyn hissed under her breath, her eyes darting frantically to the perimeter enforcers. "Take her out. Quietly."

Four elite, heavy-set Lycan guards instantly stepped out from the shadows, moving to surround Lazelle.

But before they could take a single step forward, a massive figure in a flawless black tuxedo materialized from the crowd behind Lazelle. The shadow guard didn't wear a mask tonight, but his brutal, scarred face and glowing gold eyes were warning enough. He didn't draw a blade; he simply stepped into the light, his massive frame completely shielding Lazelle’s blind spot.

The four enforcers stopped dead in their tracks, their faces going pale as they recognized the legendary personal executioner of the late Alpha.

"The security protocols of this house belong to the true bloodline," Lazelle said softly, her voice carrying a chilling, absolute authority that echoed across the immediate radius of the ballroom. She stepped closer to Mena, her silk dress rustling like a warning. "Enjoy the party while it lasts, Mena. Because when the papers are brought out tonight... I’m not just taking my father's crown back. I’m going to bury you under the weight of it."

Before Evelyn or Mena could utter a single word, the grand double doors of the ballroom were thrown open with a deafening crash.

The entire atmosphere of the room shifted instantly, plunging into a freezing, violent chaos. The scent of espresso, dark rain, and furious, volatile alpha power flooded the hall, overriding the expensive perfumes and champagne.

Dalonius Lacoste had arrived.