The Alpha Return

NINE: The Night Of Unspoken Things

Valerie's POV

Sleep refused to come.

I lay in my chambers, staring at the ceiling, the weight of the day pressing down on my chest. Knox's words echoed in my mind. He'll use me to destroy everything I've ever loved. The shard. The Hollow. The Warden's plan.

I couldn't breathe in this room.

Throwing off the covers, I padded barefoot through the silent corridors. The castle was asleep, the guards stationed at their posts but distant. I needed air. I needed space. I needed to think.

My feet carried me to the Moon Pool.

The sacred spring lay beyond the eastern gardens, hidden behind a curtain of weeping willows. It was where mates once communed with the goddess, where wolves came to seek guidance in the moonlight. I hadn't visited since Knox's memorial.

Tonight, the pool glowed silver, the full moon reflected in its still waters. The air was cool and still, carrying the scent of night-blooming jasmine.

And Knox was already there.

He sat at the edge of the pool, his back to me, shirtless. The moonlight painted silver lines across his skin—but it was the scars I couldn't look away from.

My breath caught in my throat.

His back was a roadmap of suffering. Long, jagged lines crossed his shoulders, some healed to pale white, others still pink and raised. Circular wounds dotted his spine—brands, I realized, each one the size of a coin. And at the base of his spine, stark against his skin, was a mark that made my stomach lurch.

Property of The Hollow.

I must have made a sound, because Knox turned. His eyes met mine, and I saw the shame there, the desperate need to hide. He reached for his discarded shirt.

"Don't." The word came out before I could stop it. "Please."

His hand froze. He stared at me, vulnerable in a way I'd never seen him.

"I didn't want you to see me like this," he said quietly.

I stepped closer, my bare feet silent on the grass. "You didn't give me a choice. Five years ago, you disappeared. The bond went dark. I mourned a ghost." My voice cracked. "And now you're real, and I don't know how to hold both versions of you...the memory and the man."

Knox's jaw tightened. He looked away, staring at the moonlit water. "I don't know how to be him anymore. The wolf I was. The Alpha. The mate you deserved."

"You think I deserved better?"

"I think you deserved someone who didn't come back broken."

I reached the edge of the pool, standing beside him. From this angle, I could see the scars on his chest—worse than his back. Crisscrossing patterns that looked almost deliberate. Experimentation. The Warden had studied him like a specimen.

My hand reached out, stopping just shy of his skin. "May I?"

He didn't answer. But he didn't pull away.

I touched his chest, tracing the edge of a wound that had healed wrong. The skin was raised and rough, a permanent reminder of something I couldn't imagine. I felt the shard pulse beneath my palm, cold and wrong, but beneath it was him—the steady rhythm of his heart.

Knox's breath caught. His hand came up, covering mine, pressing it flat against his chest.

"I dreamed of your hand on my skin," he whispered. "Every night. It's why I didn't kill myself in that cell."

The words broke something inside me.

"I would have waited forever," I said, my voice shaking. "If I'd known...if I'd had any idea..."

"You couldn't have known." He turned his hand, intertwining his fingers with mine. "I made sure of that. I forced the bond dormant to protect you. But I never stopped loving you. I never stopped needing you."

"I thought you were dead." Tears spilled down my cheeks. "I buried you in my heart. I moved on because I had to survive. And now you're here, and I'm so angry and so relieved and so terrified..."

"I know." He pulled me closer, his forehead resting against mine. "I know. I feel it too. All of it."

"Knox..."

"Valerie."

The sound of my name on his lips undid me. I didn't think. I didn't hesitate. I closed the distance between us and kissed him.

The bond roared to life.

It was like lightning, like fire, like coming home after years in the dark. I felt him everywhere—his pain, his longing, his desperate hope. The bond that had been dormant for five years blazed between us, fierce and unbreakable.

But something else stirred. Something cold and hungry.

The shard pulsed, and Knox convulsed. He tore away from me, his body arching, a guttural cry ripped from his throat. Veins blackened beneath his skin, spreading like poison from his chest. He collapsed, shaking violently.

"No!" I dropped to my knees beside him. "Knox! Knox, stay with me!"

His eyes rolled back, showing white. The black veins crept toward his neck, his face—

Then a voice echoed from his chest. The shard. The Warden's voice, cold and triumphant.

"You cannot love what belongs to me."

The words hit like a physical blow. I scrambled back, my heart pounding. But then Knox's eyes snapped open—not the Warden's eyes, but his. Pain-filled, terrified, but his.

"Valerie," he gasped. "Run. Before I..."

"Never." I grabbed his hand, pressing it to my chest. "Fight it. Fight him. You survived five years. You survived seventeen guards. You survived a blizzard. You can survive this."

The black veins receded, slowly, painfully. Knox's body went limp, his breathing ragged. The shard pulsed once, twice, then settled.

I held him, cradling his head in my lap, tears streaming down my face. His hand found mine, squeezing weakly.

"It's getting worse," he whispered. "Every time the bond strengthens, the shard grows."

"Then we go to the Hollow." I pressed a kiss to his forehead. "We find Gretha's guide. We remove the shard. And we kill the Warden."

Knox laughed, a broken, breathless sound. "You always did know how to solve a problem."

"One of us has to." I managed a weak smile. "You're terrible at it."

He reached up, touching my face. "I love you, Valerie. I never stopped. I never will."

"I know." I covered his hand with mine. "I love you too. And I'm not letting you go. Not this time. Not ever."

The moon hung overhead, casting silver light across the pool. The Warden's voice had faded, but the threat remained.

Knox was a weapon. A bomb. A target.

But he was also mine.

And I would do whatever it took to save him.