Claimed By A Midnight King

Chapter 14

Vivian’s pov

The iron door slammed behind me, the bolts sliding in place one after the other from the outside.

Then silence followed.

I stood in the middle of the massive round room. The archives smelled of dry papers, dust, and a hundred years of forgotten Northern history.

Unlike the other parts of the Northern citadel, this room was warm, heated by a massive hearth from the wall. But even still, I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering inside the oversized linen tunic despite the warmth.

Ever since that day, my core had been a terrifying , hollow cavern in my chest. I felt impossibly frail, like a strong breeze could shatter my bones. But underneath the frailty, something else was pacing.

My wolf.

My newly awakened wolf let out a restless whine in the back of my mind. She didn’t care about the stone walls, or the locked door. She only cared about the heavy intoxicating scent of Dominic that was now fading from the room—the scent of pine and cedar. The beast wanted to claw at the iron door and drag him back.

I squeezed my eyes tightly, pressing the heels of my hand against my head to quiet the instinct.

He is a Northern savage, I reminded myself, my human logic desperately fighting the feral pull of the bond. He kidnapped me. He dragged me through the snow. He told me to my face I was a leverage. But my wolf didn't understand any of this. She only understood the way his heart hammered against my cheek when he carried me out of the ruined Great hall.

Needing a distraction before the silence drove me mad, I walked toward the oak table dominating the center of the room. It was buried under an avalanche of old scrolls, military ledgers and loose parchment .

The Northern wolves were brilliant, brutal warriors, but they were also terrible record keepers.

I pulled out a heavy wooden chair and sat down.

Sofia had forced me to memorise hundreds of chemical reagents and categorise toxic inventory to keep my mind exhausted and distracted. I knew how to organise chaos .

I pulled out the first stack of ledgers towards me and opened the stiff, cracking covers.

Hours bled away into the flickering firelight.

I sorted the grain-tax scrolls from the Eastern ridge, the tallies from the southern hunting camp, and the current quarters border garrrison logs.

The work was mindless, but it kept the aches of my withdrawal at bay.

As the Sun began to set outside the narrow, high window, casting long shadows across the circular room, I reached for a stack of recent guard rotations.

I dragged my fingers down the names, sorting them squad by squad. And then, my finger stopped.

I leaned closer, pulling a candle near the edges of the parchment. I wasn’t just reading the words; my eyes trained by a decade in a sterile laboratory, were analysing the physical state of the paper itself.

On the nights marked for the new moon, The guards rotation for the western posters gate —a small, hidden access door at the base of the mountain was always assigned to a specific squad. Elder Jarek’s squad.

That alone wasn’t a crime. But the margins of the parchment on these specific entries were stained. I rubbed my thumb over a faint, yellowish smudge near the dates. I brought my thumb to my nose and inhaled.

Pine sap grease and crushed coal. It was the heavy industrial lubricant used excessively for massive supply wagons. There was absolutely no reason for a squad of border sentries to have wagon grease on their hands while signing a routine guard log.

Unless they weren’t just standing watch. Unless they were opening the postern gate in the dead of night and manually pushing heavy, unlogged supply wagons out into the snow.

My heart pounded so hard to hurt. Elder Kael had warned Dominic that Jarek was dangerous. He had said Jarek was trying to incite a riot. But Jarek wasn't just a loud, angry politician he was, he was actively smuggling something or someone outside of the citadel.

The heavy iron look on the door suddenly clicked.

My muscles locked instantly keeping my eyes glued to the parchment as the door swung open. The scent of winter wind fresh blood instantly flooded the dusting room, sending My wolf into a frantic frenzy of submission and need.

Dominic stepped inside.

He didn’t look like a king; he looked like a wall who had spent the last ten hours fighting for his life. His dark man was dusted with fresh snow, and a fresh cut bled over his left eyebrow. He locked the door behind him and stood in the shadows, staring at me with a heavy, readable gaze.

“ You haven’t eaten”, Dominic’s rough voice broke the silence.

I looked up. He was holding a small bundle wrapped in clothes. He walked towards the table, his movement slow, deliberate, and fiercely guarded. A set of bonding near the edge of my ledger. Then in the sense of warm bread and roasted chicken filled the room.

“ I wasn’t hungry”, I said quietly, gripping the edge of my oversized tonic to hide my trembling hands. The drop in temperature from the open door was sending deep, organising aches through my hollow core.

Dominic‘s jaw tightened. He looked down at the organised tax of ledgers I had meticulously built across the table.

“You sorted the logs”, he noted, his tone laced with a thick layer of suspicion. He didn’t trust me. He’s human mind still saw the daughter of his father’s mother.

“ I needed something to do”, I replied, my voice cool, matching his hostility. “ or did you want me to sit in the corner and stay at the wall until Damian matches an army to your gates?”

A low, threatening rumble vibrated in Dominic’s chest. The alpha in hand hated the defiance, but the wolf in his eyes flared with a sudden, amber heat at the challenge.

He didn’t reprimand me. Instead, he reached up and Unclasped the heavy silver chain at his throat. He pulled the massive, thick wolf mantle of his shoulders.

I flinched, bracing myself. But he didn’t throw it.

He walked around the table, stopping just inches behind my chair. The heat radiating from his massive body was madly intoxicating. I held my breath. He draped the incredibly heavy, ridiculously warm mantle over my shivering shoulders.

“If you freeze to death in my archives, Freya will have my head”, Dominic ordered, his a harsh, defensive growl, staring at the wall above my head. “Eat the food, Valerius”.

He turned on his heel to leave.

“Elder Jarek is a traitor”, I blurted.

Dominic stopped dead in his tracks, his back to me. The shadows in the room instantly recoiled, condensing tightly around his boots.

“What did you say?” he asked softly.

I pulled his dark fur tighter around my neck, the scent of giving me the courage to stand up. I grabbed the stained guard log, and walked around the table, holding the parchment out to him.

“Elder Jarek’s personal guard squad is manning the Western postern gate tonight”, I said, pointing to the yellowish smudges. “They are smuggling heavy supply wagons out of the mountain under the cover of the new moon. They’ve been doing it for months”.

Dominic slowly turned around. He didn’t look at the paper. His wolf surfaced in his amber eyes, wild and deadly.

“The Western postern gate”, Dominic repeated, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. “ I gave Jarek the keys to the cells an hour ago to interrogate your chemist, Sofia”.