The Broken Wolf Queen

CHAPTER 37 — Regrets

CHAPTER 37 — Regrets

The silence that settled over the spacious bedroom was heavier than the iron that had just torn her apart. Kael stood entirely frozen, his massive chest heaving in ragged, uneven rhythms as he watched the lifeless body of Aurora hanging limp by her hands from the high ceiling chains. She didn't move. She didn't breathe. Her head dangled forward, completely unresisting, as a heavy curtain of silver-blonde hair shielded her face from his sight.

The frantic adrenaline that had driven him into a feral frenzy moments ago evaporated into the cold air, leaving behind a hollow, suffocating dread. The thick bull-skin whip slipped from his numbed, trembling fingers, hitting the dark granite floorboards with a dull, wet thud.

Her back looked absolutely terrible.

Staring at the fresh, jagged tears, the deep punctures, and the missing flesh that oozed dark crimson lines down her pale skin, Kael felt no rush of satisfaction. The explosive release of frustration he had been chasing—the transactional pleasure of forcing her down—did not come. He could no longer look at her the same way he had before. He had always enjoyed breaking her through a different kind of torment, a psychological chess match where he pitted his absolute dominance against her unyielding wall of pride. But this visceral devastation was a line he hadn't crossed in years. Looking at the c*****e painted across her pale skin and the sickening stains on the stone walls, the Alpha of the northern territories felt utterly disgusted by his own brutality.

He walked toward her with heavy, uneven steps, the sudden quiet of the room ringing in his ears. His hands shook with a rare, terrifying tremor as he reached up and released the iron overhead chains. Without the mechanical support holding her wrists, her unanchored body dropped helplessly onto the cold ground, collapsing in a crumpled, silent heap. He stood over her for a fraction of a second, his amber eyes wide with a sudden, clawing panic, before he violently turned on his heel.

"Martha! Lily!" he roared into the corridor, his voice cracking with a raw, desperate fury that brought several guards to attention outside. "Get in here! Bring the linens, bring the water! Clean this room!"

He didn't wait to see them enter. Leaving Aurora in the frantic, trembling care of her maids, Kael fled the eastern wing. He moved through the grand corridors of his manor like a ghost pursued by a nightmare, his long strides carrying him straight to the heavy, reinforced doors of his private study. He slammed the oak door shut and turned the brass lock, sealing himself inside the dim, firelit sanctuary.

Yet, even within the quiet isolation of his office, the anger did not fade. It merely mutated, growing inside his chest like a chaotic, suffocating knot that threatened to choke him. He slammed his fist down on the heavy mahogany desk, shattering a crystal inkwell and sending dark fluid bleeding across his tactical maps, but the physical destruction brought no relief.

He didn't understand anything anymore.

Before Aurora had been dragged into his life three years ago, his world had been simple, governed by the absolute laws of raw dominance. He hadn't cared about anything or anyone. If he was stressed, if his political maneuvers failed, or if his temper flared, he simply released his explosive anger on whoever happened to be closest. He had treated his servants, his omegas, and his lower-ranking pack members like disposable tools, and their whimpering fear had always been enough to soothe his ego.

But with Aurora's arrival, everything had completely changed. His other servants no longer soothe his anger, nor did their trembling obedience offer him a sense of control. He didn't care if they lived or died; they were insignificant shadows passing through his halls.

For some inexplicable reason, Kael feared his own power when it came to Aurora.

He had become completely, irreversibly addicted to her taste, the unyielding fire that burned in her silver eyes, and the fierce defiance that constantly drove him crazy. Her intoxicating scent—that unique mix of winter frost and raw, untamable spirit—followed him everywhere, embedding itself so deeply into the fabric of his study that he couldn't escape it. He couldn't get enough of her. She was strong—terrifyingly so. Despite the continuous, draining doses of wolfsbane that should have reduced her to a weeping shell, despite the horrific wounds, and despite the years of captivity, she remained more resilient and fundamentally stronger than any other wolf he had ever met in his life. No one had ever caught his attention this much. No one had ever consumed his thoughts to the point of madness.

And now, a cold, primitive dread began to claw at his chest, freezing the marrow in his bones. He feared her disappearance. He feared her death.

The last time she had lost consciousness from his hands was years ago, during the fragile, bloody beginning of her captivity. Since that night, she had withstood whatever nightmare he threw at her, enduring his whips and his claws with a stoic, maddening silence, never hesitating to bite back when given the slightest slack. But her eyes today had been entirely different. The bitter, mocking laugh that had spilled from her bleeding lips right before the chains dropped had sliced through his authority like a silver blade. It had broken something deep and foundational inside of him, exposing the terrifying truth that despite all his physical iron, he was the one who was truly captive.

He had lashed out with the spiked bull-skin whip because he hadn't been able to resist the urge to destroy that untouchable internal peace. He had wanted to force a scream, a plea, anything to prove that he still held the strings to her fate. Instead, he had almost extinguished the very fire he was addicted to hunting.

Sitting alone in the deepening shadows of his study, the ruthless Alpha felt his own feelings completely torn apart, shattered into a volatile storm of conflicting emotions. Love, malice, obsession, and fear mixed together until he could no longer tell where his hatred ended and his dependency began. He stared down at his own hands, his knuckles still stained with the dark crimson of her blood, realizing with a hollow horror that he didn't know what to think of her—or himself—anymore. She was his own creation of survival, yet he was entirely powerless against the nightmare he had built.