Chapter 4: The Wolf King’s Wrath and Obsession
1759 Words
South of Silver Moon City, at the Black Rock Clan’s outpost.
The heavy oak doors were slammed open with brutal force, a frigid wind carrying shards of ice surging into the spacious hall. Two rows of fully armed Black Rock guards stood rigidly at attention, but the second they saw who had entered, every single one of them instinctively held their breath. Not a soul dared make a sound, their gazes locked rigidly to the floor before their feet.
Kaelen strode across the threshold. The hem of his solid black leather trench coat swirled behind him, trailing a frigid wind thick with bloodlust. He marched straight to the wide throne carved from a single slab of volcanic rock at the far end of the hall, turned, and sat down.
Not a single unnecessary sound escaped him through the entire motion, yet the silence itself hung over the hall like a suffocating, terrifying weight.
Bruno followed close behind, closing the doors behind him with a soft click. He glanced at his Alpha’s face, dark with a rage so thick it could have dripped from his features, and silently retreated to stand three paces from the throne.
Kaelen leaned back against the throne, his long right hand resting on the armrest, his index finger rubbing slow, hard circles over the knuckle of his thumb, over and over. The knuckle was blanched white, the skin stretched taut over the bone from the force of his grip.
The scene from the ceremony played on a loop in his mind, embedded in his skull like a rusted iron nail. That meek, cowardly orphan girl who’d never dared even meet his eyes had dared to tear the fated bond scroll—symbol of the most sacred union on the continent—clean in two, in front of the entire world. Not just torn it, but tossed the scraps in his face like they were nothing but garbage.
We will never cross paths again, in life or in death.
When the woman had spoken those words, there hadn’t been a single tear in her ice-blue eyes, not a single flicker of regret or longing. Only a cold, lofty indifference, like she’d seen right through him, through every last one of his empty threats.
Kaelen’s Adam’s apple bobbed once. The great black wolf inside his chest raked its claws against its cage in a fit of restless fury. That feeling of complete, utter loss of control was pushing his prized, ironclad self-control to the brink of collapse.
“Alpha...” Bruno ventured, his voice quiet.
“Shut your mouth.” Kaelen didn’t even lift his eyelids.
At that moment, light footsteps sounded outside the outpost. The guards at the door hesitated for a heartbeat, then pushed one half of the door open. Lila stepped inside, gliding forward on quick, mincing steps, dressed in that same ornate golden gown, a delicate silver tray balanced in her hands. On it sat a white porcelain stew pot, still curling with warm steam. That cloying, sharp stench of rose perfume flooded the hall at once, shattering the cold, unyielding atmosphere that had hung over the room.
Bruno rolled his eyes so hard in his head he nearly saw stars. How was this woman like a leech? Squeezing her way into every c***k and crevice she could find.
“Lord Kaelen.” Lila stopped five paces from the throne, her voice perfectly pitched, laced with three parts feigned hurt and seven parts syrupy concern.
Kaelen finally lifted his eyelids, his cold gaze fixing on her.
“I heard what my sister did at the ceremony...” Lila bit down on her lower lip, her eyes glistening with perfectly timed tears, turning the rims pink. “She’s so ungrateful. You rejected that mismatched bond out of kindness, and instead of thanking you, she acted like a madwoman in front of the entire continent, humiliating you and the entire Black Rock Clan.”
She took a bold step forward as she spoke. “Father has already disciplined her at home. I was worried you’d work yourself into a fit over this, so I went to the kitchens and made you this calming stew. Please, have a little.” Lila pushed the tray forward slightly, her eyes blazing with unbridled adoration.
The wheels in her head were turning furiously. Kaelen was furious right now—if she played the gentle, caring card just right, and twisted the knife in Eira’s back a few more times, the empty spot at the strongest Alpha on the continent’s side would be hers, sooner or later.
Kaelen said nothing. His gaze drifted slowly down from Lila’s overly made-up, simpering face, settling on the steaming stew pot.
“You think I need your comfort?”
His voice was low, almost a murmur, echoing through the hall, completely devoid of any emotion.
Lila froze, her smile slipping, freezing on her face. “I-I just worried about you... My sister, she’s always been a little unhinged. You mustn’t take her words to heart...”
The words had barely left her mouth when a terrifying wave of primal earth magic aura exploded outwards from Kaelen, without a single warning.
It was a force without form, yet more destructive than any steel blade. The marble tiles beneath their feet groaned and cracked under the pressure, fine spiderweb fractures racing outwards across the floor.
Lila felt like a sledgehammer had slammed into her chest. Her knees buckled, and she crumpled to the cracked floor.
CRASH!
The silver tray slipped from her hands, and the delicate porcelain stew pot hit the ground, only to be crushed into fine powder by the invisible pressure before it could even shatter. Scalding broth splashed all over Lila, staining her prized golden gown. Shards of porcelain sliced into her palm, blood welling up from the cuts.
But she didn’t dare make a sound, not even a gasp. The all-consuming terror of imminent death had frozen the blood in her veins. She lifted her head, staring up in horror at the man on the throne, looking every inch a god of death.
Kaelen hadn’t moved an inch, still leaning back in the throne, not even the curve of his fingers shifting.
“Leave.”
He spat the single word. No explanation, no threats. But that one word was enough to send Lila scrambling to her feet, fleeing the hall as fast as her legs could carry her, not even sparing a glance at the bleeding cut on her hand.
Only when the doors clicked shut again did the suffocating aura fade, slowly receding. Bruno stared at the mess on the floor, a cold sneer in his mind. That woman was the dumbest creature alive. Coming here to grandstand at a time like this? Did she really think the Black Rock Wolf King was some brainless fool she could manipulate with a few crocodile tears?
Kaelen stood, and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows lining one side of the hall. His cold golden eyes fixed on the grey, overcast sky over Silver Moon City, the rubbing of his index finger not slowing—if anything, it grew faster, more frantic.
What he didn’t want, even if he tossed it in the trash, was not hers to reject and tear apart.
And more than that—the look in that woman’s eyes when she’d walked away was not the look of a meek, abused orphan girl. There was something sharp, something cutting hidden in those eyes, something that could draw blood.
“Bruno.” Kaelen spoke suddenly.
“Alpha.” Bruno stood at attention at once.
“Three days.” Kaelen turned, his gaze locking onto his second-in-command like a vice. “I want every single detail of Eira Silvermoon’s life, from the day she was born to now. Who she’s met, where she’s gone, every injury she’s ever taken. I want to know how many sips of water she drank each day. Leave nothing out.”
Bruno froze for half a second, then bowed his head to hide the way his mouth twisted in disbelief.
“Yes, Alpha.”
He took his leave and backed out of the hall. Once he was outside, the cold wind hit his face, and he couldn’t help but mutter under his breath.
“Won’t even glance her way when she’s throwing herself at you, but the second she tears up the bond, you want to know how many sips of water she drinks a day. What in the seven hells is this?”
Inside the hall, Kaelen stood alone at the window. The scene played on a loop in his head, unbidden—the parchment scraps drifting down like snow, that determined face with the beauty mark at the corner of her eye.
That strange, sharp, stabbing pain in the depths of his chest flared again.
...
Late that night, in the study of the Black Rock outpost.
The torches on the walls burned with a soft crackle. Kaelen sat behind the wide oak desk, a hand-drawn map of the continent’s defense lines spread out before him. He hadn’t turned a page, hadn’t moved a muscle, for nearly an hour.
The door was slammed open from the outside. Bruno strode in, his arms loaded with a ridiculously thick stack of parchment scrolls, his face dark with a grim, heavy tension, his brows knotted into a tight frown.
“You found something?” Kaelen lifted his head.
Bruno dropped the stack of scrolls onto the desk with a heavy thud.
“Alpha.” Bruno braced his hands on the edge of the desk, his eyes heavy with an unnameable gravity. “This woman’s past? It’s nothing like the entire continent thinks it is. Nothing at all.”
Kaelen’s gaze fixed on the stack of scrolls.
“Speak.”
Bruno took a deep breath, and pulled out a yellowed, aged record scroll.
“Everyone thinks she’s a waste who couldn’t even awaken her wolf core. But I bribed an old servant who used to work for the Silvermoon household, and found this medical record from ten years ago.”
He pushed the parchment across the desk to Kaelen.
“She wasn’t unable to awaken it. Ten years ago, her bloodline power was so violent, so unhinged, it triggered visions and anomalies in the Silver Moon Temple. Her mother, Eirene, used her own life as the price, and sealed her wolf core with her own two hands.”
Kaelen’s rubbing of his index finger came to an abrupt, dead halt.
- Writer
