Chapter 115

Amelia

Adam looked different in uniform. The cut of it made him appear taller, sharper, as if he had finally found a role that let him stand in David’s shadow without apology. I spotted him across the corridor, surrounded by officers. He gestured to a map, his voice firm and commanding. My chest tightened. He wasn’t just Jenny’s secret shame anymore. He was fully embedded, David’s man through and through.

I slowed my steps, listening. His voice carried.

“We can use her. Jenny is leverage. She is young, angry, desperate for validation. Richard cannot control her, and Amelia is only making it worse. If we play this right, she becomes our pawn.”

My nails bit into my palms. Jenny’s laugh rang out behind him, too familiar, too smug. She appeared moments later, her hand brushing Adam’s arm with a kind of practiced intimacy that turned my stomach. When her eyes landed on me, she smiled coldly.

“Amelia,” she said smoothly. “Still following Father around like a lost puppy?”

Adam smirked, silent but watchful, enjoying the sting of her words. I forced myself not to answer, not to give them the satisfaction. I walked past, my face burning.

That evening Richard called a closed-door war briefing. His voice was tight as he spoke, the map littered with red markers. Rogue packs had become the main crisis, spreading across the borders with attacks that threatened everyone, yet beneath that danger simmered tension with David’s camp. Soldiers were shifting loyalties, whispers of unrest weaving through the ranks, and the council worried about fractures from within while the rogues pressed harder from outside.

“They call me weak,” Richard muttered once the elders had gone. His fists pressed into the table. “Because I left the Pack House. Because I listened to you.” He shook his head. “And now Adam parades in uniform while my daughter clings to his side.”

I saw the flicker of shame in his eyes. The guilt. He could face down armies without blinking, but Jenny undone him in ways nothing else could.

Later, when the halls quieted, I found him alone in his office. Papers scattered across the desk, untouched. He looked up when I entered. For a moment, neither of us spoke.

“I saw him today,” I said finally. “Adam. With David’s officers. With Jenny.”

Richard’s jaw tightened. He looked away, his voice rough. “I know.”

The words tumbled out before I could stop them. “I don’t understand her. I don’t understand how she can go back to him after what he’s done. After how he treated her.”

Richard leaned back in his chair, eyes shadowed. “Do you want to know why Elsa and I failed?”

I hesitated, then nodded.

“She wanted a crown more than a marriage. I gave her the first, but she despised the second. I told myself I was giving her freedom, but really, I was avoiding the fight. And when Jenny came along, I tried to fix it by being everything my father wasn’t. Distant, dignified, untouchable. I thought strength meant silence. But it just made me absent. And she learned to look elsewhere for affection.” His throat worked. “I failed her. And now she’s paying for it.”

I sank into the chair opposite him. “At the orphanage, I used to lie awake wondering who had left me. What I had done wrong to be abandoned. I told myself stories to fill in the blanks. But none of them made the ache smaller.” I exhaled. “That’s what absent looks like to me, not like you.”

The room was quiet but for our breathing. Something fragile stretched between us, a thread neither of us wanted to break.

“Sometimes,” I whispered, “I feel something inside me. Not a wolf. Not exactly. But it stirs when I’m angry or afraid. Like it wants out.”

Richard’s eyes sharpened, but he didn’t interrupt. He only leaned forward, his gaze on me like I was the only thing in the world.

The silence stretched until it felt like it might break me. He shifted, his eyes narrowing. “Is that what made you decide to flee? That thing inside of you?”

“No,” I snapped, my chin lifting. “I made that decision. Something I am perfectly capable of doing. I knew you were still holding onto that.”

His eyes narrowed. “I am the Alpha King. My choices carry the weight of an entire kingdom. When you talk as if we are equals—.” He caught the fury in my eyes and added quickly, “I only mean we are not in the same position, Amelia, but—”

I leaned forward, heat rising in my chest. “Equals? How many times have I saved you? How many times have I stood in front of people ready to tear me apart, only to shield your throne by taking their scorn myself?”

His jaw clenched. “And how many times have you forgotten what it means that my word can decide life or death?”

“Maybe I remind you that your word is not the only one that matters,” I shot back. “Maybe that is why you can’t stop looking at me the way you do.”

The silence grew heavier. And then it broke.

I was in his lap before I realized what I was doing, my mouth crushing against his. He groaned, his hands gripping my hips, pulling me closer until there was no space left. I straddled him and sank down onto him in one fierce motion, swallowing the sound he made as I ground hard against him. His thigh pressed up against me, forcing a gasp from my throat. I rocked harder, taking him deeper, savoring the way his breath stuttered.

“Look at you,” I gasped between kisses. “The great Alpha King, undone by me. You can’t think straight when I’m on top of you, can you?”

His teeth grazed my throat. “Careful.”

“Careful?” I smirked, rolling my hips, dragging him deeper. “You’re completely under my control. Say it.”

His grip tightened, bruising. “Not a chance.”

“Then I’ll make you beg,” I taunted, slowing my pace deliberately. I lifted myself off him just enough that he slid out, throbbing hard and slick against my thigh. I stroked him once, teasing, watching his jaw tighten. “So hard for me already. You want to be inside me again, don’t you?”

His breath came ragged. “Yes.”

“Say please.” I held him just out of reach, my smirk widening. “Let's teach the Alpha some manners.”

His hands dug into my hips. “Amelia—”

“Say it,” I cut in, dragging the tip along my slit but refusing to sink down. “Beg me.”

His pride warred with his need, but finally the word tore out of him. “Please. I need to be inside you.”

Only then did I lower myself onto him again, hard and fast, making us both cry out. “That’s right,” I gasped. “This is what I do to you. I ruin you. I make the Alpha forget he’s a king.”

His growl vibrated against my chest. In one swift motion, he flipped me onto the desk. Papers scattered to the floor. His weight bore me down, his hand pinning my wrists above my head as he slammed into me. The breath punched out of me with every thrust, my body arching helplessly.

“Eat your words,” he rasped in my ear, pounding into me so hard I could only gasp, every sound ripped raw from my throat. “Tell me again who’s in control. You love pretending you’re in charge, but right now you just want to surrender and be fucked until you can’t speak.”

I tried, I wanted to, but all that came out were broken cries. My legs wrapped tight around his waist, clinging to him as if the world might split apart beneath us. He drove into me mercilessly, fucking me until I couldn’t think, until every breath was his name.

“You’re mine,” he growled, snapping his hips harder. “Say it.”

“Yes,” I sobbed, my voice breaking. “Yours.”

And then he slowed. His forehead pressed to mine. His thrusts softened, the rough edge giving way to something else. Something unguarded.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered, his thrusts slowing but still pressing deep. The rawness in his voice cut through me deeper than any movement. “You’re perfect. You can have whatever power you want, as long as you don’t leave me. I need you.”

His eyes burned, and then he slammed into me again, harder, deeper, his words breaking on a groan. “I need you so much.” The rhythm built until it carried us both over the edge, and we came together, his need and my surrender tangling into something I could no longer separate.

When it ended, I lay against his chest, trembling. The echo of his roughness still pulsed through me, but it was the softness at the end that lingered. The vulnerability he had let slip. The man behind the Alpha.