Chapter 143

Amelia

“I’m fine,” I said for the third time that morning.

Richard didn’t look up from the file in his hand. “You’re fidgeting so hard the whole table’s vibrating.”

I stilled my leg. “It’s just nerves. This is the first time I’ve been face-to-face with Darius since the attack.”

He finally glanced at me, eyes scanning my face like he was measuring every flicker of my expression.

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“I’m not looking at you like anything.”

“You think I’m still… affected.”

“I think you haven’t given yourself a second to breathe.”

“I’m breathing fine.”

“You barely slept last night. You’ve been twitching through every briefing. And you’ve touched me more times this morning than you did all last month combined.”

I stared at him, caught somewhere between wanting to defend myself and wanting to throw something.

“I’m trying to feel normal again,” I said. “Isn’t that what you want?”

“I want you to stop pretending that you're fine.”

“I am fine.”

He raised his eyebrows at me.

I looked away first.

His silence gave him away.

“I am. It’s over. I’m level now.”

He didn’t argue, which almost made it worse. He just closed the folder and stood. “Time to go.”

I followed him through the long hallway, trying not to reach for his hand the way I’d gotten used to. Trying not to brush against him just to feel anchored. He hadn’t touched me all morning, not even in passing.

I hated how much I noticed.

The walk to the training yard was quiet. Tension buzzed between us, unspoken and brittle. News had spread fast, Darius had broken free from holding and made it as far as the south training yard before being cornered again. They said he was waiting, like he’d known I’d come. I could feel the weight of the Pack’s eyes as we passed: staff, council aides, even soldiers. Some nodded. Some looked away. Others stared openly, their faces tense with worry or something colder.

Guards lined the perimeter of the yard. Darius was already waiting, hands bound, but upright and alert. He looked older than I remembered. Leaner. Meaner. There was a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth like he knew something we didn’t.

I stepped into the circle.

“Full shift or claws only?” I asked, voice even.

“Claws,” Richard said. “No need to escalate unless you have to.”

Darius chuckled under his breath. “You sure about that?”

I didn’t respond. I dropped my coat and let my bones adjust, feeling the crackle of muscle and tendon shifting beneath my skin. The yard quieted as the last of the transformation settled.

He came at me first. His footwork was messy, but he was still strong. I dodged, landed a clean strike to his ribs, and backed off before he could counter. I kept my movements measured. Methodical. I wanted Richard to see that I wasn’t acting out of instinct. That I wasn’t the thing they feared I’d become.

We circled. Darius rolled his shoulders and spat blood to the side.

“You don’t even realize it, do you?” he said, low enough only I could hear. “How much of you is theirs now.”

I didn’t answer. I lunged forward, driving him back a few steps with a flurry of feints. My claws grazed his shoulder, drawing shallow blood.

He grinned. “Control is just another kind of leash.”

I slammed into him, and we went down hard. My weight drove him into the dirt. My claws pinned his wrists. Our faces were inches apart.

“You think you’ve won,” he rasped. “You think control means safety. It doesn’t.”

“I’m not doing this for safety.”

“No. You’re doing it to prove something. That you’re still in charge of your hunger. That even though you have a wolf now, you still contain your humanity”

He twisted beneath me, almost slipping my hold. I pressed harder, breath coming fast. He bared his throat, daring me. My jaw opened wide. My breath caught at the edge of instinct.

An inch. That was all that separated my teeth from his pulse.

“Do it,” he whispered. “Be what they made you.”

I didn’t move.

“You want to. I can smell it on you.”

I pulled back. Let go. Forced my hands off him and stepped away. My legs trembled from holding it in.

He sat up slowly, panting. He was smirking again, but it was smaller now. Tired. Like he knew what came next.

Then, before anyone could stop him, he bit down on something hidden in his mouth. There was a hollow crack. A bitter stench filled the air, sharp and unnatural.

His body seized. Froth bubbled at the corners of his lips.

I dropped to my knees and grabbed his jaw, trying to force it open. “No, no—”

But it was already too late.

His eyes locked with mine, glassy and sharp.

“The king will drink last,” he rasped.

Then he collapsed.

Richard

We burned him that evening, by Old Law tradition. There would be no grave to mark, no stone to carve, no name whispered into the Pack’s memory. Just fire consuming bone, smoke curling through the night air, and a silence that felt heavier than sound. The ritual had a finality to it, but no comfort. Nothing about it felt like justice. It only felt like an ending that had come too cleanly, too fast, leaving more questions than answers in its ash.

I watched the flames eat through his coat, the edges curling inward. The Hollow crest stitched inside the lapel blackened and disappeared.

Council members stood in a wide semicircle around the pyre. Some had their arms crossed. Others whispered behind gloved hands. A few of them looked pale. I kept my face still and my back straight. But my mind was a churn of questions.

Amelia stood beside me. She hadn’t spoken since the duel. The wind shifted, smoke sweeping past us, thick and acrid. She didn’t move.

Her eyes never left the fire.

Far off, the bell tower struck once. Then again. Then again.

Three short chimes.

Silence.

Three more.

My chest went tight. I turned toward Nathan, who was already watching me. He stood a few feet from the relay booth.

“Did you hear that?” I asked.

He nodded once. “Same pattern as the Hollow transmission from two nights ago.”

“Is the tower secured?”

“It should be. I’ll confirm.”

“Pull the logs. I want to know if that pattern was triggered manually.”

He was already pulling out his tablet, typing something in.

I turned back to the flames. Amelia hadn’t moved.

Amelia

The wind scattered ash across the courtyard like dirty snow. I waited until the fire burned low and the others had gone. Only Richard and Nathan remained by then.

I crouched beside the edge of what was left. Just soot. Heat. Warped scraps of things that used to matter.

But something glinted in the cinders.

I reached into the ash, brushing gently. A pendant. Thin and silver. Crescent-shaped, split deliberately down the center.

My fingers closed around it, and a chill seeped through my skin.

There was a sigil etched into the surface. Familiar.

It was the same symbol from the text I’d deleted. The one that had appeared in the middle of the night, no name, no reply. I hadn’t told anyone.

My throat tightened. I stood, slow and careful, slipping the pendant into my pocket before Richard could see.

He was watching me. Of course he was.

I gave him a small nod. Like nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t just found something old and strange and far too familiar buried in a dead man’s ash.

I didn’t want to talk about what Darius said, about control, about hunger.

Because part of me, the part I kept locked down, still didn’t know if I had stopped myself because I was stronger now.

Or if the real reason I didn’t kill him was because I couldn't let him know I was weak.