Chapter 66

Esther’s POV

The tavern was loud enough to drown out thought. Exactly what I’d wanted.

Laughter clanged like cracked glass, and somewhere behind me a piano was losing a fight with its own tuning. The air smelled of beer and wolf musk, the kind of cheap, smoky scent that clung to your hair for days. Perfect. Forgettable.

I sat in the darkest corner, nursing something I couldn’t taste, watching the amber liquid catch the lamplight. Every few seconds I swirled it, pretending it had answers. It didn’t.

Kevin’s face still haunted me, Ruth’s photograph branded in my mind. Her ghost had crawled between us, and I’d let it. Now all I could think about was how stupid I’d been to believe I was chosen when I’d only ever been a replacement.

Nicholas’s words after the broken engagement replayed, cold and cutting. Ash is where new things grow. Maybe. But I was tired of growing. I wanted to stop feeling.

So I drank again. And again. Until the edges of the room began to blur into soft, forgiving shadows.

A man slid into the booth across from me, uninvited. His smile gleamed too white, too smooth.

“Didn’t think I’d find a beauty like you drinking alone.”

I didn’t answer. Maybe if I ignored him, he’d dissolve back into the haze.

He didn’t. “You’re that healer, aren’t you? The one who used to work for the Alpha King.”

My stomach lurched. “You have me confused with someone else.”

He leaned closer, his breath sour with alcohol and something worse, recognition. “No confusion. Everyone’s heard the stories. The King’s mistress who thought she could play Luna.”

I stiffened. “Leave.”

He smirked, sliding a glass across the table. “You look like you could use another.”

I meant to push it away, I did, but my hands felt heavy, and my mind was already fogged.

One sip, I told myself. Just to shut him up.

The taste was strange, sweet, almost syrupy. My tongue tingled.

Five minutes later, the room started spinning. My pulse pounded in my ears. The lights smeared into streaks.

I tried to stand. My legs didn’t listen.

He was beside me in an instant, voice low and coaxing. “Easy there. Let’s get you some air.”

“Don’t touch me,” I slurred, but my body betrayed me, unsteady, weightless.

His arm snaked around my waist. “Come on now. I’ll take care of you.”

My vision flickered. The floor tilted.

I heard a growl before I saw him.

A sound that didn’t belong in a place like this: low, guttural, predatory. It sliced through the noise of the tavern like a blade through silk.

The man froze. I blinked through the haze.

Nicholas stood in the doorway, shadowed and terrible. Rain streaked down his black coat, his eyes molten gold in the dim light. His presence sucked all the air out of the room.

“Let her go,” he said.

The man stammered, “I—I was just helping—”

Nicholas moved before he finished. One hand fisted in the man’s collar, slamming him into the wall so hard the wooden panel cracked.

“Helping yourself, maybe.”

“Alpha—please—” the man gasped.

Nicholas’s claws extended, pressing to the man’s throat. “You think I won’t kill for her?”

A collective hush fell over the tavern. Even the piano stopped.

“Leave,” Nicholas snarled, releasing him. The man bolted, nearly tripping over a chair in his haste to escape.

Then Nicholas turned to me.

The sight of him blurred and doubled in my eyes.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I mumbled. “I didn’t ask for saving.”

He came closer, jaw tight. “You’re welcome anyway.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re drugged.” His gaze dropped to the half-empty glass, and the wolf beneath his skin rumbled audibly. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking,” I whispered, “that I’m tired of thinking.”

The room tilted again. He caught me before I hit the floor. Strong arms, familiar scent — cedar and storm and something I’d spent six years trying to forget.

“Easy,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”

My fingers curled weakly into his coat. “Why do you always show up when I don’t want you to?”

“Maybe we are both being punished.”

Then everything went black.

Nicholas’s POV

She weighed almost nothing in my arms.

I carried her out into the rain, ignoring the stares. The crowd parted without a word; no one was stupid enough to challenge an Alpha in this mood. Norman prowled under my skin, half feral.

She’s ours. They would’ve touched her.

I didn’t answer. I kept walking through the alley, across the square, up the long road to the palace. Each step pounded with the same thought: I almost lost her again.

By the time we reached her chambers, her skin was clammy, her pulse erratic. I laid her on the bed gently, brushing wet hair from her face. Her lips were pale. The empty glass smell lingered on her breath, sickly sweet. GHB, or something close.

Rage coiled inside me. Whoever had spiked her drink was lucky to be alive.

Dan entered quietly behind me, taking in the scene with one glance. “She all right?”

“She will be,” I said tightly. “Get the physician. And find out who that bastard was.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

He left without another word.

I sat beside her, watching her chest rise and fall. She muttered once, something about failing, about Carl. I reached for her hand before I realized what I was doing.

Norman purred. She still calls to us, even half-unconscious.

I wanted to argue, but couldn’t. The sight of her—fragile and defiant even in sleep— undid every wall I’d built.

The healer arrived, checked her vitals, confirmed my suspicion: drugged, dehydrated, emotionally exhausted.

“She’ll sleep it off,” he said. “I’ll leave a sedative to help with the headache.”

When he left, I stayed.

Hours passed. Rain softened to mist outside. My whiskey went untouched on the nightstand.

Then she stirred.

Her eyes fluttered open, confused, unfocused. She looked at me, then around the room, frowning. “What—where—”

“You’re safe,” I said quietly. “He’s gone.”

Her throat worked. “Did you kill him?”

“Not yet.”

That earned me a faint, ghostly smile. “Always the king of restraint.”

I wanted to smile back, but the fury hadn’t burned out yet. “You could’ve died, Esther.”

“I could’ve,” she murmured. “Would’ve made a few people happy.”

My jaw tightened. “Don’t say that.”

She turned her head away. “Why are you here?”

“Because you didn’t call for help.”

“Would you have come?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes glistened. “Even after everything?”

“Especially after everything.”

For a long moment, we said nothing. The storm outside faded into silence.

I reached out, almost without thinking, brushing my thumb over the bruise blooming on her arm. She shivered, but didn’t pull away.

“Why do you always come when I’m falling apart?” she whispered.

“Maybe that’s the only time you’ll let me near.”

Her breath caught. “You shouldn’t.”

“Probably not.” I leaned closer, my voice low. “But I don’t seem to care anymore.”

The space between us disappeared.

Her hand came up, trembling, touching my jaw like she couldn’t believe I was real. “You’ll regret this,” she breathed.

“Already do,” I murmured and kissed her.

It wasn’t soft. It was desperate, angry, inevitable. Six years of resentment and longing colliding like fire meeting tinder. She tasted of rain and sorrow, of something sacred breaking.

She kissed me back.

When we finally broke apart, she was shaking. So was I.

“This doesn’t fix anything,” she said, voice unsteady.

“I know.”

But neither of us stopped. Words blurred. Time fractured. The rest of the night dissolved into fragments of her name on my lips, her heartbeat under my hands, the sense that we were both drowning and choosing not to swim.

Morning light came cruelly.

She was still asleep beside me, hair tangled on the pillow, lashes wet from what might’ve been tears. I watched her breathe, every rise and fall a quiet confession neither of us could speak aloud.

Norman was quiet for once, a rare peace in his growl. She belongs here.

“Don’t,” I muttered.

You felt it too.

I had. The bond thrummed faintly now, raw, newly awakened. It was too fragile, too easy to break again.

I sat up, pulling on my shirt, staring out at the gray horizon. The palace was already stirring, the world ready to swallow last night like it hadn’t happened.

Behind me, her voice came softly. “Nicholas?”

I turned. She was awake, eyes wary, pain written in every line of her face. “You stayed.”

“I wasn’t leaving you alone.”

Her gaze flicked to the rumpled sheets, then back to me. “We made a mistake.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But it’s one I’d make again.”

She closed her eyes, exhaling shakily. “You can’t say things like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

I crossed the room, kneeling beside her. “This is. Whatever else isn’t, this,” I touched her hand. “was.”

Her fingers tightened around mine for a heartbeat. Then she let go.

“I don’t want to need you,” she said quietly.

“Then don’t,” I answered. “Let me need you instead.”

That startled a laugh out of her, a real one, small and broken but alive.

I stood. “Rest. I’ll check on the twins.”

She didn’t stop me. Just watched, eyes following me to the door.

As I left, Norman whispered the truth I didn’t want to admit.

We’d die for her.

“I know,” I said softly. “That’s the problem.”

Outside, dawn split the clouds in thin streaks of light. For the first time in years, it didn’t look like judgment. It looked like a beginning neither of us were ready for, but one we couldn’t stop anymore.