Chapter 44: Resignations
1442 Words
Mario POV
“Son of a f*****g b***h!”
My voice tore through the cathedral, echoing off stone that had tasted blood and vows for centuries. Candles rattled in their holders. The altar cracked under my fist.
Gone.
She was gone.
Weeks of planning. Months of conditioning. An entire future carved into obedience—ripped out from under me by that mutt who never knew his place.
I tore through the sanctuary like a storm, shattering pews, ripping silk banners from the walls, crushing chalices beneath my heel. Marble screamed when I struck it. Nothing soothed the rage boiling in my veins.
“She was here,” I snarled. “This was my day.”
The butler approached carefully, his hands folded, his spine bent in that pathetic way humans used when they knew they were expendable.
“Your Majesty,” he said, voice trembling, “we’ve sent requests to the staff who resigned this morning. None are responding. They’ve declined all assistance to the family. I believe… they may have been moles.”
The word moles finished it.
Something inside me snapped—clean, sharp, irreversible.
I turned slowly.
Too slowly.
The butler froze, instinct screaming at him to run, but he didn’t move. None of them ever did. They never understood it wasn’t speed that saved you—it was permission.
“You speak,” I said softly, “as if betrayal is a theory.”
I closed the distance between us in a blink.
There was no scream.
No struggle.
Just the sound of breath leaving a body that no longer remembered how to hold it.
I leaned close to his ear as his knees buckled, my voice calm, intimate.
“You failed to guard what was mine.”
When I let go, he collapsed at the foot of the altar like discarded cloth.
Silence swallowed the room.
The remaining staff stared at the floor, shaking, not daring to breathe.
I straightened my jacket, wiped imaginary dust from my cuff, and smiled.
“Clean this,” I said casually. “And if any of you are thinking of following her… remember this moment.”
My gaze lifted toward the shattered stained glass, moonlight bleeding through it like a wound.
The wedding would not happen here.
But the war would.
And Dominic Valor had just signed his death warrant.
Leaving the cathedral wasn’t an option.
Not with my family watching.
They gathered slowly—uncles, aunts, elders whose names had been carved into history long before cities learned how to breathe. Their presence pressed in on me, heavy and suffocating, the way deep water crushes lungs without ever touching skin.
I was the mistake.
They didn’t say it out loud. They didn’t have to.
“You conditioned a bride,” my aunt murmured, her voice silk and venom. “A rare one. Soft. Malleable. Worth the effort.”
Another laughed quietly. “And you lost her to a wolf.”
Shame burned hotter than rage.
I straightened my spine anyway. I was still their heir. Still powerful. Still—
My father stepped forward.
The room bent around him.
He was ancient in a way time itself feared—skin flawless, eyes like old wine left to rot in sealed darkness. When he looked at me, I felt twelve again. Small. Measured. Weighed.
“I met her,” he said calmly.
That single sentence cut deeper than any blade.
“She was polite. Intelligent. Human.” His gaze sharpened. “She looked at me without fear. Do you understand how rare that is?”
I swallowed.
“You were entrusted with her,” he continued, voice still gentle. “Not because you deserved her—but because she was meant to correct you.”
Correction.
Punishment disguised as opportunity.
“She was not meant to love you,” he added. “She was meant to belong.”
My jaw clenched. “She was taken.”
A mistake.
The air shifted.
My father moved so fast I didn’t see it—only felt the impact of his hand on my chest, slamming me back against the stone pillar. Not hard enough to kill.
Hard enough to remind.
“You do not lose what is given to you,” he said softly, inches from my face. “You retrieve it. Or you die.”
Around us, my family watched without sympathy.
One uncle sighed. “We warned you not to rush the conditioning.”
Another smiled cruelly. “You let her remember too much.”
My father straightened, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve.
“You have until the wedding date,” he said, as if discussing weather. “Bring her back. Whole. Obedient.”
His eyes darkened.
“Fail—and I will end you myself. Slowly. Publicly. As an example.”
Silence followed.
I nodded.
What else could I do?
As they turned away, already discussing my replacement, one thought burned through me like poison:
Dominic Valor didn’t just steal my bride.
He stole my life.
And I would burn his world down before I let my father decide how I died.
My father finally took his seat.
That alone silenced the room.
Stone chairs scraped softly as the elders followed his lead, each one positioning themselves according to old loyalties that had begun to crack. The coven was no longer unified. Not after this failure. Not after her.
My father rested his hands on the armrests, fingers steepled, eyes never leaving mine.
“What is your first action?” he asked calmly.
“You will not act alone. You will not improvise. You have already lost our trust.”
The words stung more than any blow.
I forced myself to breathe, to straighten, to sound like an heir instead of a liability.
“I will go public,” I said. “I will announce that my fiancée has been kidnapped. I will paint the wolf as what he is—a violent creature who stole a human woman from her rightful place. The humans will see him as a monster. Pressure will mount. Eyes will turn. He will have nowhere to hide.”
The room erupted.
“That is reckless,” one elder hissed.
“You involve humans, you invite scrutiny.”
“They are cattle, not allies,” another sneered.
“And yet cattle stampede,” my aunt countered coolly. “And stampedes crush everything in their path.”
Voices overlapped—anger, mockery, fear. Old covens argued with younger bloodlines. Some wanted silence and shadows. Others wanted spectacle. The division was unmistakable now.
My father raised one hand.
Instant quiet.
“And the humans who resigned?” he asked, his tone sharper now. “The ones who severed ties with us overnight.”
I felt the trap snap shut.
“They are compromised,” I said carefully. “Influenced by the wolf. They can be replaced.”
Laughter followed. Not kind.
“Replaced?” my cousin scoffed. “Those humans handled sensitive operations.”
“They had clearance,” another added.
“They walked away too easily.”
My father’s gaze hardened.
“They did not walk away,” he said. “They were pulled.”
That word settled like poison.
He leaned forward slightly.
“This is no longer a simple retrieval,” he continued. “The wolves are mobilizing. Our informants report unusual movement—alliances being reforged, old lands reclaimed.”
War.
The word wasn’t spoken, but it breathed between us.
My father stood.
“You will do as you suggested,” he said at last. “You will go public. You will cry devotion and loss. You will weaponize your humanity.”
Relief flickered—brief, dangerous.
“But,” he added, turning back slowly, “the covens will prepare for war.”
Cold spread through my chest.
“Messages will be sent,” he went on. “To the northern families. To the eastern courts. To those who still owe us favors and fear our name.”
His eyes bored into mine.
“If the wolf wants a fight, we will give him one. Not for love. Not for you.”
He paused.
“For control.”
The elders began to rise, already murmuring plans, names, routes. The room buzzed with something old and hungry.
As they moved away, my father stopped beside me.
“You will retrieve the girl,” he said quietly. “Or you will serve as the opening sacrifice of this war.”
Then he walked on.
And for the first time in centuries, I understood the truth:
I wasn’t leading this war.
I was standing in its path.
- Writer
