Chapter 64

Esther’s POV

The gossip spread faster than wildfire.

By the next morning, every corridor of the palace buzzed with whispers: The healer rejected the Alpha King. The Alpha humiliated his mistress. The Blue Lake Alpha proposed to his lost love.

Every word was a dagger turned in my gut.

By noon, servants stopped meeting my eyes. The healers who used to greet me with nods suddenly found other hallways to take. Even the guards outside my quarters pretended not to hear when I gave them orders.

It was as if Nicholas had stripped away my name with a single cruel sentence, leaving only a hollow version of myself, the woman who used him.

He hadn’t come to see me. Not once.

Good, I told myself. I didn’t want him to.

That night, when I sat by the twins’ beds and listened to Sofia’s soft breathing and Carl’s restless turning, the ache behind my ribs told me I was lying. Again.

The next morning, Kevin arrived.

He didn’t bother with formality. He stormed straight through the infirmary doors, boots echoing off tile, cloak still damp with travel dew. His jaw was set in that stubborn angle I’d once found endearing, and his eyes—gray, steady—were softer than I deserved.

“You didn’t answer my letters,” he said.

“I was busy being slandered,” I said dryly.

“I know.” He took a step closer. “I heard what Nicholas said. The entire continent probably has.”

I flinched. “Then you also know he made sure I can’t show my face in court again.”

Kevin’s voice dropped. “You don’t belong here, Esther. You never did.”

“I know,” I said. “But I stayed because I thought…” I stopped myself, teeth sinking into the word before it could escape.

I thought I could save my son. Part of me still believed Nicholas could change.

Kevin’s gaze softened. “Come back with me. Let me fix this.”

“You can’t fix me,” I whispered.

“I can protect you,” he said. “And the twins. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

My throat closed around a bitter laugh. “Protect me? From what? The man who already owns every whisper of my reputation?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

Something inside me cracked at the simplicity of it. No demand. No accusation. Just yes.

“I asked you to marry me because I wanted to give you peace,” Kevin continued quietly. “I still want that. Even after what he did.”

“Don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

His voice dropped. “Then give me three months. Let me try again. Let me prove you’re worth more than his cruelty.”

“Kevin…”

“Say yes,” he said. “Not because you love me,” he smiled faintly, “though I’d be a fool not to hope for it. Say yes because you deserve to stop bleeding for men who only know how to wound you.”

I should have said no.

I should have told him I was too broken, too haunted, too caught between past and survival.

All I could see was Nicholas’s face in the courtyard, the ice in his voice when he’d called me a tool, the way he’d turned his back while my heart fell apart in front of everyone.

So instead, I said yes.

Not for Kevin. Not for safety.

For revenge.

By evening, the news had broken again: The Healer of Blood Moon Accepts Blue Lake Alpha’s Proposal.

The palace erupted in a new flurry of scandal. Some called me shameless. Some called me smart. The same women who had turned their faces away yesterday were suddenly smiling again, testing which way the wind would blow.

Nicholas didn’t appear. For days, he didn’t appear.

He didn’t summon me, didn’t send guards, didn’t even send an official reprimand. And that silence—more than fury ever could—drove me mad.

Because silence from Nicholas wasn’t absence. It was pressure, waiting and brewing.

By the fifth day, I could feel it in the walls, the electric hum of his anger. Even the servants spoke in half-breaths. Even the air seemed to hold its own pulse.

Then came the obstacles.

It started with permits.

The Blue Lake Pack’s trade convoys, meant to bring in supplies for the wedding, were suddenly delayed at the borders. Officials cited “customs complications.” When Kevin tried to inquire, the letters came back unsigned.

Then the tailors I’d commissioned found themselves “reassigned” to the royal wardrobe. The caterers’ shipments went missing. Even the florist sent apologies, claiming their entire greenhouse had been “accidentally quarantined.”

Nicholas was making it very clear: he would not let this wedding happen easily.

Each new setback only hardened my resolve.

“You’re making a mistake,” Dan said quietly one morning when he found me sorting through paperwork for the ceremony.

“I’ve made worse,” I said.

“He’s furious.”

“Good.”

“He still—”

“Don’t.” My voice cracked sharper than I intended. “Don’t say it. I don’t care.”

Dan studied me for a long moment, then sighed. “You used to.”

I looked away. “That’s what makes it hurt.”

Carl had begun to avoid me.

He pretended to study, to nap, to train with pack guards, but I saw through it. He blamed me for everything: the move, the whispers, the tension that followed us like smoke. And maybe he was right.

Sofia, on the other hand, was too young to understand the complexity. She still talked about Nicholas with a kind of dreamy admiration that twisted my stomach.

“Mama,” she said one night while I brushed her hair before bed, “do you think the Alpha King will come to the wedding?”

I froze. “Why would he?”

She shrugged, wide-eyed. “He looked sad that day. Maybe he misses us.”

“He doesn’t,” I said, sharper than I meant to.

Sofia frowned. “You sound sad too.”

I forced a smile, kissed her forehead, and tucked her in. When she slept, I sat there watching her tiny chest rise and fall, wondering what I was teaching my daughter that love was punishment? That safety was a lie wrapped in silk?

A week before the ceremony, I went to the market for fabric. I needed something, anything, to keep my hands busy.

The streets were crowded with murmurs. Vendors bowed stiffly as I passed, their smiles too careful. Somewhere behind me, someone hissed whore of kings.

I kept walking, chin high. But when I turned a corner, I froze.

Nicholas stood across the square.

He wasn’t in his royal coat, just black trousers, sleeves rolled up, a loose shirt clinging to muscle and tension. His eyes found mine instantly.

The crowd seemed to thin around him, sound warping until I could hear nothing but the rush of my own blood.

He started toward me. I turned away.

“Esther.”

His voice, low and raw, pulled at something deep and dangerous in me.

“Don’t,” I said without looking back.

“Why?” he asked. “Afraid I’ll ruin another perfect illusion?”

“Afraid I’ll believe you again,” I whispered.

He stopped behind me, so close I could feel the heat from his body ghosting down my spine. “You said yes to him.”

“I did.”

“Out of love?” His voice cracked like thunder and silk.

“Out of survival,” I said. “The same reason you do anything.”

He exhaled a harsh laugh. “You’re marrying a man you don’t love just to spite me.”

I turned, meeting his eyes at last. “You destroyed the part of me that could love you. The rest is yours to hate.”

For a moment, the entire square held its breath.

Then he smiled, slow, cruel, wounded. “Then I suppose we’re even.”

I walked away before he could see the tremor in my hands.

The next days blurred together in a haze of exhaustion. Every flower petal, every seating arrangement, every detail became a battlefield. Kevin tried to comfort me, but I saw the strain behind his eyes. He was fighting Nicholas’s political reach with every breath, and losing.

On the morning of the ceremony, I woke before dawn. The mirror showed a stranger with tired eyes, a bruised heart, and a gown I didn’t remember choosing.

I whispered to my reflection, “Just one more day. Then peace.”

The word no longer meant what it used to.

I never saw the messenger until he was standing at the gate, breathless and pale.

“Lady Esther,” he stammered, “there’s a situation.”

I didn’t need him to finish. Behind him, at the far edge of the field where the ceremony was to take place, stood Nicholas.

He wasn’t armed. He wasn’t even dressed like a king. The storm rolling off him made every guard’s hand twitch toward their weapon.

His eyes found mine and held, fierce and unbroken.

Kevin stepped forward, fury sparking. “You weren’t invited.”

“I don’t recall needing an invitation to claim what’s mine,” Nicholas said.

The guests gasped. The officiant stumbled back.

And me? I stood in the middle, veil fluttering, the war between us spilling into the open once more.

Nicholas’s voice softened, but the threat underneath it was clear. “You can marry him if you want, Esther. But I’ll burn every border between our packs before I let him keep you.”

The wedding never happened that day.

How could it?

By sundown, the field was empty, the vows unsaid, the flowers wilted.

In the silence that followed, something inside me shifted.

As much as I hated him, as much as I wanted to erase his shadow from my soul, part of me finally understood, Nicholas didn’t want to own me anymore.

He wanted to belong.

I wasn’t ready to admit that maybe, in some broken way, I still wanted the same.