Page 59

Cain’s POV

L ooks like my little experiment with letting Asher roam the castle freely after gradually giving her more and more unguarded freedom finally paid off. She finally got the courage to do her father’s deeds.

I try to concentrate on the new reports Delta sent me from our activities up north, but my mind is not fully in it.

I wonder what else she’s hiding from me… I should probably just ask her directly without any of my sick games, especially if I know I would just give her whatever she wants. But that wouldn’t be fun, would it?

I’ll interrogate her in the old-fashioned way after dinner. Maybe some waterboarding? I already see her flushed face, water dripping all over her shirt, making her perky pink nipples see through the thin fabric. My Little Wolf. She’s so perfect. Even when she’s snooping around my office or is angry or swearing, she’s still so fucking cute and hot I can’t take it.

I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that she is my true mate, but at the same time, it is the most obvious thing in th e world. And the way she tries to hide it from me…

I can’t wait to make fun of this situation for the rest of our lives together. Make her sweat a little, tease her here and there.

I have a sudden nagging feeling in my mind, so I lean back in my office chair and check all my tethers. Ha, got it.

‘Delta?’ I mind-link Kylian.

Fucking traitor. I wish I had any evidence of him working with my father of his own free will, but also I don’t have any excuse to get rid of him without arousing any suspicion— so I’m stuck with this dick for years to come. Just like that Brandon jerk, I had to put in the dungeon for now.

‘ Oh, Alpha, finally, I was already going to get you… ’ he almost pants in my head.

‘ Report ,’ I give a short command, looking back at the documents on my desk.

‘ You commanded me to tell you if— ’

He has only one so strict alpha command from me. To tell me immediately if Asher is ever near my father again.

‘ Where is she? ’ I realize why he was trying to connect with me so desperately.

‘ Meeting hall. ’

I’m darting out of my office and not stopping until I run into my Delta and crying Klara.

“Tell me!” he roars at her, and she sobs even louder.

Fuck, I don’t have time for this, but I hesitate when my senses register the smell of blood. Klara has streaks of it coming from her nose.

“Alpha,” Delta turns to me, still holding the poor girl, but I look at the group of my father’s guards chatting in front of all the doors to my destination. “I found her like this after walking in on Luna and the King.”

Oh, okay, I know what’s going on here.

“Tell me exactly what your Luna alpha-commanded you,” I press on Klara with my own alpha command, praying to God it will be strong enough to override one of my wife’s, but not so strong it will kill the poor girl.

Her nose starts bleeding again, and she visibly pales, “To not tell you that she’s making me take her to the King,” she says with a squeaky voice and covers her mouth before crying even louder.

“Take her to the doctor,” I tell my Delta and stride to the Meeting Hall.

“I would take Luna there even if she didn’t command me, she could have just asked!” Klara cries between sobs .

Guards try to stop me from entering, clearly having instructions not to let anyone in, but all it takes is my hand on the sword and one long death stare for them to yield and retreat into the hallway.

One of them opens the doors for me and I march into the surprisingly dark corner of the Hall. It’s already dark outside and the maids are supposed to get all the candles lit up if anyone needs to be here… and by the light smell of smoke, they probably did but someone must have put them out.

My eyes immediately adjust, and I see Asher fighting with my father with knives at the other end of the hall. They are too entranced to notice me, so I instinctively take a step to the side, hiding more in the shadows to assess the situation.

Maybe it’s better I don’t interrupt them… yet. If I do and she stops even for a moment, she would be automatically subjected to the blood law stating that attacking the Rogue King is punishable by death. I need to come up with something useful before that.

She is panting by now, and I fucking hope she can withstand him more, giving me some more time to think.

What the hell was sh e thinking?! I wonder, looking at her eyes watering after the punch in the nose my father just managed to put with a roguish smirk. Fucking hell. She doesn’t even know he is basically immortal!

I should have told her… she doesn’t even know I have to be the one to kill him if we want the law changed, let alone that it’s impossible to do. But it’s too late now. They are already fighting, and I can’t stop them until I find a way to save her from an immediate death sentence.

Maybe she wasn’t the one that attacked him first; maybe he tried to sexually assault her, and she was just—

“I can see my son still hasn’t taught you any manners, little wolf,” I hear my father’s hoarse voice before he manages to cut her jeans with his claws.

Shit. If he didn’t notice she is wearing pants until now… she was definitely the one that started the fight! I knew it, I fucking knew it!

“You still think you are too good for my son, huh, you pure-blooded bitch! ”

I try to come closer but not enough to distract her with my true-mate smell. Or maybe it would help her? Give her confidence? Fuck… I don’t fucking know!

Why can’t I think clearly right now? What is happening to me?

I bite my lower lip and watch her fight with grace and poise even my father doesn’t have. He’s still stronger, though, and I start to fidget with nerves I never had on this scale before… He notices me, our eyes lock over Asher’s bleeding shoulder.

She takes advantage of it immediately and blindly, sinking a blade straight into his immortal chest. I run to them with all my might, knowing that’s when her lack of knowledge makes her the most vulnerable. He will strike, he will strike!

They both fall to their knees with grunts, her hand still on the dagger she sank into his heart. I know that handle, it’s one of my favorites.

“No, no, no…” I mumble seeing her shoulder slopping with relief, and I fall to my knees beside her to help her fight him some more. Take it on me…

But my father doesn’t move. His heartbeat stops, his skin tightens and grays, and his muscles relax. It shouldn’t be happening. It should be impossible!

“How did you… what’s this?” I clench the ruby stone pendant Ash has on her neck. I saw it before, but it feels like I am looking at it for the first time.

She ignores my question glancing at me before staring back into my father’s dead-navy-blue eyes. But she doesn’t have to answer. I already know, probably better than she does.

I wrap my hand around its long golden chain.

“I fucking looked for this everywhere!” I roar, ripping it off her neck.

Rogue King stirs to life at the end of her knife.

“What the fuck?!” she screams, almost jumping up in place but thankfully not retrieving the weapon .

I grab the dagger around her small hand, and my father’s zombie-like body freezes again.

She’s panting on my right, and it’s the first time I can feel real heart-stopping fear from her through our mate bond. No matter what I did, she was never as scared of me as she is of my undead father.

“He’s partially immortal, as every Rogue King is, unless you cut his heart out while holding the magic rock you were keeping under my nose the whole fucking time,” I hiss at her and tighten both of my fists in helpless rage.

One on the stone and one on the blade still sank into his chest.

Asher slips her fingers out, and I slowly carve my father's heart out with indescribable satisfaction. I throw the bloodied dagger between us and sink my hand into his cavity. My hand squeezes around his un-beating organ, and I yank it out with a smacking sound.

This time, my father’s body no longer tries to revive itself.

I clench my fist even tighter—around the surprisingly warm little thing I always half-expected my father didn’t even have. Surprise, surprise.

“Hm,” I murmur and let go of both the heart and Asher’s pendant.

There is a wet thump and a few sharp clicks of metal on the marble floor before complete silence falls, interrupted only by our hearts and heavy breaths.

“What the fuck, Ash?” I turn my head to her with anger, but it goes away when I see her still in shock.

I roll my eyes with no patience for any weakness and reach for her. She shivers when I touch her but then she lets me envelop her in a hug.

I mind-link both Beta and Gamma, wondering why I didn’t do that in the first place. They could have helped me think of anything that would save her life. But it was like my mind was all foggy with worrying about her, and I couldn’t find a way, and I couldn’t ask for help either.

She made me weak…

I slowly let her go when she starts pushing on my chest.

I watch her shaking her head lightly and bending down to pick up the pendant.

“Did you know what it is?” I ask her with clear anger that I can’t let go because what the actual fuck?!

She looks with wide eyes between me and my father’s body before finally stammering out a response.

“I… it was a gift from my… my grandma. Why… How…” Her face suddenly hardens, and she squeezes it in her hand, “I know we are enemies and all, but why the fuck didn’t you think your father’s immortality is something you should disclose to me?!”

I’m about to yell back at her, but the doors open, and my Beta and Gamma run in, being tailed off by my father's guards.

Fuck.

“Wait outside,” I growl at the warriors, and they obey me instantly, knowing better than to cross me .

“Oh fuck!” Gamma exclaims noticing the heartless body of his former King. “That’s why we felt that weird… pull.”

Beta steps to Asher and tries to assess the situation, “What the fuck?! Alpha, did you find the stone?”

“Am I the only person that doesn’t know about some magic stone?” Asher asks and crosses her arms over her chest, pushing her breasts up distractingly.

I sigh deeply and gesture to my Gamma, before kneeling in front of my father, to figure out how to draw some of his blood… Did the scroll or the Blood Book say anything about it?

“All Rogue Kings and their heirs to the throne are partially immortal,” Atlas starts to explain behind my back, “They can only die from old age unless you have a special magic bloodstone, and you rip their heart out. Otherwise, they will heal. But it was lost or hidden. ”

“But… you can’t change the blood law unless someone kills the previous king,” Asher has a very confused tone of voice.

“Why did you think we have such barbarian laws,” I mutter under my breath, but she ignores it.

“And it can’t be anyone, just the next King. We didn’t even know the stone existed, just that no one managed to kill any King in at least a century and that both King and the Prince can heal anything, and I mean anything,” Gamma continues, “Until a few years ago one of Claudia’s drunken clients told her a story his grandpa use to tell him at nighttime.”

I look around to see Asher. She is all splattered by blood but has already healed all her visible bruises, and she listens to Atlas with such an intensity her brows almost meet.

“We started to dig more and found some other versions of the story, cross-referenced them… Long story short, we found an ancient scroll up North that listed some weird conditions and had an encrypted location. It was supposed to be in your previous Kingdom.”

“The tear-shaped shelf in the Moon Goddess statue,” she whispers correctly.

“Empty. As we thought. We had a feeling it was misplaced. Up North.”

“That’s why I got myself into that situation with Unwanted,” I add, standing up. “But it wasn’t there. Well, I found a silver pendant, but the rock was missing.”

Asher nods mindlessly rolling the stone between her fingers, covering it with fresh blood over the dried-up one.

Infu s ed in the blood of a pair’s first mistake

I suddenly remember the verse from the prophecy. Does that dried-up blood belong to the baby we lost? I wouldn’t call it a mistake, but that’s what people call accidental pregnancies sometimes… no, it couldn’t be, could it?

“All of this after Claudia told you a drunken story?” Ash asks skeptically.

“It was a tale for mini-wolves,” Gamma says, “About the ancient stone made to kill the ruthless King and how it will remain hidden until the heir finds a way to marry the enemy’s daughter. It got us thinking that maybe King Atlas the Third didn’t kidnap your grandma out of revenge…”

“Oh, you fucking didn’t,” Asher glares at me, and I realize I should have stopped my Gamma before he revealed the part where I purposely made her marry me because of some made-up story.

“I already figured out it was your idea, but… You plotted the whole peace agreement to marry me because you wanted to kill your immortal father—because of a children's story?” she hisses, furious for some reason.

I mean, she said she already had a clue…

“Excuse me, but what’s wrong with that? It made peace in two fucking kingdoms, better lives for all werewolves, and it ultimately did allow me to kill that shitty King!” I stomp toward her, towering over her small, lean figure.

“You’re welcome, by the way!” she yells back, gesturing to the dead body.

All the stress I felt while watching her fight with my wicked father is now trying to leave my body with double strength.

“What were you even thinking, huh?! I told you it was punishable by death!”

I was so fucking worried about her!

“Oh, yeah,” she says with sarcasm dripping off her tongue, “And how would you find the magic stone without my help then, right?”

She throws her pendant at me, and I catch it automatically.

I’m speechless for a moment.

“It was… I… No, you know what? I won’t apologize for making you marry me because I fucking love you, and it is good for everyone, so deal with it!” I hiss and put the damn pendant on her neck.

She can kill me with it, but I don’t fucking care anymore. She’s already had her hand squeezed around my heart for months anyway.

She takes a few steps back and turns to the doors. Beta immediately steps toward her like he wants to follow her. He has been hovering over her instinctively all the time since the Unwanted battle. She saved me, his Alpha, so it’s natural for him. He may not even realize it yet, but I can see this growing devotion.

Ash suddenly stops with a huff and puts her bloody hand in her back pocket. She turns around and slams some small piece of paper to my chest. “You are getting a vasectomy.”

I catch it.

“I can’t get a vasectomy. It will heal,” I look down at the ultrasonogram picture, and I can feel my heart skipping a bit.

“Do you want to get the number to my father’s doctor? He got one with a silver blade ten years ago and it is still working,” she says coldly and turns to the exit again.

“It’s… that’s… triplets? Fucking triplets?!”

“Yup.”

“I’ll call that doctor today, thank you.”

“That’s what I thought,” she states, and I lift my eyes from the picture, but she’s already gone.

I start running after her, but Gamma’s hand stops me.

“It’s your only chance to change the blood law, my King,” he reminds me, using my new title like it is stronger than him.

Probably is. The whole pack must have felt the shift of power when my father’s body fell to the floor for the last time. Maybe they don’t know how exactly the power changed, but they’ll realize soon.

“Fuck.” I try to wrap my head around everything that just happened. “Make sure one of you is always with her. I don’t care what she wants to do, let her. Just make sure all four of them are safe.”

Gamma bows lightly and runs after Asher and Beta.

I swear again, and stride to the blood book that stands on the wooden podium in one of the corners with a whole bookcase of other leather-bound old books about werewolves' laws and customs.

I imagined this moment so many times. My father's blood on my hands, writing the amendment—changing the law that made me kill my siblings… my baby sister… Or changing that other law we decided to update just a few hours ago, the one that could change so many lives for the better.

I find the page with the outdated law swiftly and read it for the thousandth time. It doesn’t sound any less ridiculous than the other nine-hundred-ninety-nine times, and we were so right about deciding to change it. It is ridiculous and hurtful and blocks so many other useful reforms.

I take the quill pen from the small glass box behind the book and go to sink the tip in the dead Rogue King's body.

I walk back to the book. It’s all so surreal. I’m finally holding the blood-driven pen over this enchanted book, which has haunted my dreams for as long as I can remember, but it’s not revenge anymore.

I don’t even care that I wasn’t the one that made him kneel before me, all lifeless. It was my Asher. Of course, she’s the one that made him kneel. She makes me kneel all the time.

I waited so long to be able to do it, and now I can’t even focus long enough to not think about her so I could do what I should.

Change lives.

And I’m standing over this book, all weirded out, all anxious to go to her as soon as I can.

Embrace her.

Hold her.

Kiss her.

Lick her.

Bite her…

“She has thrown us out, my King,” Beta says with a bow when I finally come to my bedroom door.

My King … I used to hate that word before Asher came into my life with her unapologetic dream to become one.

I nod and put my hands on both Beta and Gamma's shoulders. “We have a lot to do, I have to address everyone officially, but I need some time with her first. Just… go and prepare a ceremony or whatever you think is needed. Check what we can do about the previous King’s Beta. He’s up north right now and probably can already tell. Dismissed.”

I let them go, ignoring the flinch on Atlas’ face when I mention his father and I push the door open.

She is lying down on the bed reading the book I stole for her on her birthday. She’s not mad at me anymore, or she hides it well. She looks calm but I can feel through the bond she is all but. We are both a mess.

I can’t believe it finally happened. We killed him and it was all a fucking anticlimactic coincidence.

“If you want to tell me to stop going to fights while pregnant, don’t bother. I know it wasn’t the smartest thing I did, was it?” She turns a page aggressively.

“You can go and do whatever you want as long as you come back to me afterward.” I throw my sword on the desk and start undressing.

I will always come back to you ; she said one day.

I catch her glancing at my abs, so I smirk.

“Did you change the law?” She asks looking at her book again, one hand mindlessly touching the pendant that makes her able to kill me. She’s fidgeting. She’s nervous. I notice she’s no longer covered in my father’s blood and has my oversized black shirt on.

“I did.”

“Good.”

“You won’t ask me which one?” I smirk to myself while going to the bucket of water to wash my hands with a cloth.

Her heart stops for a second. It’s hope .

“What do you mean?” I hear her putting the book away. “I thought we decided that other law would be better for everyone.”

We also decided not to have more than one kid, but I don’t say that. I don’t want her to have even a hint of doubt in my wanting those three little wolves she is blessing me with.

I put the washcloth away and slowly go to her, losing my shoes on the way.

I take the sonogram picture she gave me out of the pocket of my pants —the last thing I have on me—and hold it up between two fingers.

She looks at it briefly and then locks her eyes with mine. She doesn’t even realize how erotic she looks right now, kneeling on the bed in front of me with her lips slightly parted and nipples showing through the shirt…

“I left that law to change for one of these little wolves you carry right now. So, you better hold on to that pendant until I’m finally ready to be killed after a lifetime with you. All four of you.”

Her eyes water like my words somehow moved her, and I can see it’s one of these rare moments when she lets herself be vulnerable.

Only with me.

I let her pull me by the loops in my pants onto the bed with her, ready to worship every part of my Queen’s body.

I capture her full lips in desperate passion, pushing my tongue between her parted lips, and positioning myself on top of her. She parts her legs, wrapping them around my hips and her hands roam over my half-naked body while my hands are holding her face to mine. She tastes like heaven even in the hell we are rulers of.

I feel completely lost in her and never want to be found again.

“Can I mark you, my King?” she asks breathlessly in a haze, when I finally join our bare bodies in a soul-crushing need.