Chapter 150

DEREK

For a moment, I didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

Maggie’s confession echoed in my ears—loud, ugly, final.

Cassandra.

Cassandra had hired rogues to attack Elena.

The day of our wedding.

I stood rooted to the floor, staring across the small interrogation room at Maggie’s battered figure, my heart thundering in my ears.

Every instinct in me screamed for blood.

For vengeance.

But I made myself think.

Made myself choose.

Maggie had been telling the truth. I felt it. Saw it in the way she shook with guilt, in the way she couldn’t meet Elena’s gaze without crumbling.

And if that was true—

If even half of it was true—

Then Cassandra was going to pay.

I didn’t remember moving.

One moment I was standing stiffly beside Elena; the next I was tearing from the room, my boots hammering against the tiled floor, my fists clenched so tightly my nails cut into my palms.

I barely saw the corridor ahead of me. The guards scrambling out of the way. The doors swinging open before me.

All I could feel was Erebus, snarling and clawing just beneath my skin, desperate to break free.

My breath heaved. My vision blurred at the edges.

If I looked down at my arms, I was sure I’d see fur and claws instead of skin.

Behind me, I heard Elena calling my name.

"Derek! Wait—Derek, slow down! Please!"

Her voice, so full of panic, cut through the red haze for a second—but not enough to stop me. I couldn't stop. Not yet.

Not until I did something about this.

I barreled through the final set of double doors, into the front operations office of the Sentinel stronghold.

The Captain of the Guard—a thickset wolf with dark silver hair and a craggy face—stepped in front of me, hand on the grip of his weapon.

"Alpha," he said sharply. "Stand down."

I stopped only because he gave me something tangible to focus on. Something to tear into.

"I want Logan of Blackwood arrested," I snarled, my voice low and savage. "I want him brought up on charges of sedition against the Alpha Council."

A few guards shifted nervously at the word.

"And," I said, my voice dropping lower, tossing a look back toward Elena, my voice turning deadly, "assault."

The Captain hesitated, studying my face carefully. Then he nodded once, brisk and sure.

"We’ll dispatch hunters immediately, Alpha," he said. "Consider it done."

I turned finally, breathing hard, feeling Elena’s presence like gravity itself behind me.

She was pale, trembling. Her hand hovered uncertainly in the air, like she wasn’t sure if she should reach for me or not.

She looked...

Goddess.

She looked like the whole world had been ripped out from under her. And maybe it had.

Something in me broke at the sight.

Erebus snarled, not in anger this time, but in pain.

I stepped forward and gently but firmly took her arm, leading her away from the growing knot of guards and Sentinels, out through the broad glass doors into the cool afternoon air.

Outside, the world felt muted.

It was full daylight, but the moon hung low over the parking lot, silvered and watchful. The sharp smell of pine trees drifted on the wind.

I led Elena to a battered park bench by the edge of the lot, guiding her down carefully until she was seated, her hands folded rigidly in her lap.

She stared straight ahead, unmoving.

I crouched down in front of her, lowering myself to her level.

"Logan," she said finally, her voice ragged. "He—"

I covered her shaking hands with mine.

"He’ll pay," I said fiercely. "He and Maggie will both be held criminally accountable for their actions. They’ll be formally charged and tried by the Alpha Council Tribunal. I’ll make sure of it."

Her eyes—those beautiful, haunted eyes—lifted to mine.

I swore again, silently, at the devastation I saw there.

Her whole world had shifted. And all I could do was try to steady the ground beneath her feet.

I would not fail her again.

ELENA

The world spun around me, slow and heavy. Like gravity had shifted, as though something inside me had broken loose and the axis was tilted wrong.

I felt like I was moving underwater—every breath a struggle, every blink a war against the grief trying to pull me under.

I could still see Derek in my mind, looming in the interrogation room like a storm about to break. His face had been carved in fury, hands curled into fists that looked ready to snap bone. His whole body vibrated with the kind of rage that no words could reach.

I had chased after him, or tried to. My body hadn’t responded the way I wanted it to. Every step had felt like dragging my soul uphill, barefoot and bleeding.

By the time I caught up, he was already barking orders at the Captain of the Guard. Already demanding arrests. Already setting things in motion that couldn’t be undone.

Already sealing Logan’s fate. And Maggie’s too.

The sharpness of it all—the speed at which the truth had gutted every friendship, every false sense of safety I had clung to—left me feeling hollow. Like someone had carved me out from the inside and left only the shell of a girl I didn’t recognize.

When Derek finally turned to me, his eyes still burning with anger, something shifted the second he looked at my face. I saw it—like the rage was a mask, and underneath was worry, and grief, and maybe something like heartbreak.

He didn’t speak. Just crossed the distance between us in two long strides, his hand closing around my elbow—not roughly, but firmly, like he needed to know I was real. That I was still standing.

He led me out of the building without another word. Through the wide glass doors. Into air that felt too bright, too cold. The sky had started to cloud over, and the temperature bit at my skin like teeth.

I let him guide me toward a cracked old bench at the edge of the lot, half hidden under a stand of trees. The metal was cold beneath me, the paint chipped and flaking onto my fingers when I touched it.

I didn’t feel the cold. I didn’t feel anything.

The world buzzed dimly in my ears, as if I were submerged in a moment that hadn’t finished unraveling. As if time itself was trying to give me a moment to catch up.

Derek crouched in front of me, his posture protective, tense.

"Logan will pay," he said, his voice low and steady. It felt like an anchor thrown through the fog. Something solid. Something I could hold onto.

I blinked, feeling like I was waking from a terrible dream. One where all the people I trusted wore masks, and underneath those masks were monsters with familiar hands.

"And Maggie," he added grimly. "They’ll both be tried."

I nodded faintly, not trusting my voice.

Because part of me—deep down—knew that Maggie had earned consequences. She had kept things from me. She had led a rogue faction that had hurt people.

She had lied when the truth might have saved us both.

But another part of me—the part that had laughed with her around a shared bottle of cheap wine, the part that had cried into her shoulder after nightmares, the part that had fought beside her through fear and fire and hunger—couldn’t help wondering if she had a point.

Maybe she’d been right.

Maybe society had failed her.

Failed all of us.

Maybe rogues who wanted peace never stood a chance. Maybe we’d built a world where people like her didn’t get options—they got exile. Chains. Judgment.

Maybe she hadn’t tried to break the world. Maybe she’d just tried to force it to see her.

And maybe—just maybe—things didn’t always have to end in blood and chains.

I didn’t know anymore.

What I did know was that I couldn’t carry all of it at once.

The betrayal. The heartbreak. The weight of everyone’s sins on my shoulders.

So I sat on that bench, hands curled in my lap, staring at nothing, and tried—desperately—to remember how to breathe.

I closed my eyes, drawing in a ragged breath.

When I opened them again, Derek was still crouched in front of me, his hands gentle but firm on my knees, grounding me.

Yes, Logan and Maggie would pay for what they’d done. But they weren’t the only ones who were in the wrong here.

"And Cassandra?" I asked finally, my voice shaking. “Will she pay for what’s she’s done?”

Derek’s jaw tightened.

A shadow crossed his face.

"I will take care of Cassandra," he said darkly.

There was no hesitation. No doubt.

And somehow, hearing that—knowing he would be the one to deal with her—for once let me breathe a little easier.