Chapter 165

Damon

The acrid stench of smoke clung to the back of my throat, every breath scraping like glass. I didn’t feel the heat anymore.

My palms were already torn open, the skin split and raw, streaked red against the soot that blackened everything.

The fire had gutted part of the eastern wing, left it in smoldering ruin, and still…I dug.

Stone by stone. Beam by beam.

My muscles screamed with the effort, but I couldn’t stop. The moment I did, I’d have to accept what they were all whispering.

That she was gone. That the fire had taken her. That the mate I’d sworn to protect had burned within my own walls.

No.

Zane howled inside me, a feral, keening sound that rattled my ribs. She’s here. She had to be here. Keep going.

I flung aside another jagged chunk of timber, coughing when sparks burst loose from the blackened edge. My hands bled, nails threatening to crack, but the pain didn’t matter.

Only the next stone. Only the next chance to find Lila mattered.

“Your Majesty!” One of the guards shouted over the roar of collapsing beams. “It’s not safe! The wall could—”

“Then let it fall,” I snapped, my voice roughened into something unrecognizable even to me. “I’m not leaving until I find her.”

The male hesitated, then fell silent. No one dared to touch me, no one dared to pull me back. They stood at the edges watching their King descend into madness.

I clawed at the rubble, grit filling the creases of my skin, smoke burning my eyes until tears carved clean tracks down my face. But still, I tore at the wreckage with my bare hands.

I had seen her alive hours ago. Had sworn to myself that tonight I would give her the truth, the antidote, my whole heart.

And now… now all I had was smoke and ash.

Zane raged, his claws raking against the inside of my chest, begging to tear free and rip the world apart.

I held him in with everything I had left. If I let him loose, I wouldn’t find her. He wanted to rend, to slaughter. I wanted – no I needed – to save her.

Another beam shifted under my grip. I heaved it aside with a roar, my shoulders trembling with the effort.

The sound of splintering wood filled the room, but beneath it was… nothing. No movement. No body. No sign of my mate.

“Lila!” My voice broke on her name. It tore from me like a raw thing.

I shouted again, the sound shattering my heart all over again, bouncing back off the wall to mock me with no answers.

My knees hit the scorched ground, the heat seeping through my trousers. My hands braced on the blackened floor, shaking, blood dripping into the ash until it soaked in.

Zane’s voice was a broken snarl in my head. We can’t lose her. We can’t. Not her. Not again.

I pressed my forehead against the stone, more soot smearing across my skin. My whole body trembled from the sheer force of holding myself together when everything inside me was coming apart.

She couldn’t be gone. Not like this. Not without knowing she was the only thing in this cursed palace that was keeping me sane.

“Lila,” I whispered, hoarse, the sound shredded down to its bones. My blood smeared over the stone as I reached again, one more handful of rubble, one more desperate act against the inevitable.

If I could find her, even broken, even burned, I could keep going.

The silence pressed in, heavy and suffocating, and for the first time ever, I felt something colder than rage.

I felt fear.

And still I dug, because stopping meant admitting she was lost.

And I would burn with the palace before I gave up on her.

---

Smoke clung to my clothes, in my hair, in the cuts on my hands. I hadn’t washed or slept. Nothing mattered more than finding my Lila.

The Elders sat waiting for me in their neat robes, their expressions carefully mournful.

Not one of them had bled in the rubble. Not one of them had clawed stone apart with their hands to help. And yet they spoke as if they knew grief. As if they had any right to address me.

“Your Majesty,” Elder Theron began smoothly, voice like oil over water. “Our deepest condolences. Lady Lila was… valued. But the Packs must be reassured. The fire has unsettled many. Rumors are spreading. The announcement of your union with Lady Elena—”

“Enough.” My voice cut through the room like a heated blade through snow. Every head turned.

Zane snarled inside me, restless, prowling, his claws raking at the bars I kept around him.

I rose from my chair slowly, letting the silence stretch. “You stand here and speak of announcements and rumors,” I said, my tone low, flat. “While her ashes are still warm in the ruins you didn’t bother to enter.”

Some flinched. Others had the audacity to look worried.

Theron cleared his throat. “With respect, Your Majesty, grief cannot delay what must be done for the throne. The Packs need stability. You must give them certainty.”

“Certainty?” My laugh was hollow, empty enough to make a few of them shift uneasily. “You think marriage to Elena will steady them? You think that spectacle matters when blood stains my hands and my mate is gone?”

The word slipped out before I could stop it. Mate. Not Lady Lila. Not the polite pretense they all preferred. My mate. The truth they had all avoided, and I let them.

Zane pressed harder, his voice a rumble in my head: Rip them apart. They would feed on her death before the ashes are cold.

Theron’s eyes narrowed, sensing weakness. “Your Majesty, perhaps your… attachment to the girl is clouding your judgment.”

The table rattled as my palms slammed down. The sound cracked through the chamber, echoing off the walls. Papers fluttered. Several Elders recoiled.

“Say her name,” I snarled, my voice roughened to near growl. “Say it.”

Silence. No one dared.

“Cowards,” I spat, the word dripping venom. “You will sit here, in your safety, and speak to me of union while she—” My throat closed.

I forced air through it, forced words past the burn before I continued. “While she burned. While I search the ruins alone. And you think you can lecture me about duty?”

Zane surged, his rage a living thing in my chest. My nails lengthened against the wood, gouging deep grooves.

For a heartbeat, I wanted to let him loose. To see them scatter, to paint this chamber with their blood so they would know what it meant to provoke an Alpha King stripped of his mate.

But I forced Zane back, barely. My voice dropped low, cold as steel. “You will not speak her name with disdain. You will not call her weakness. And you will not push me again.”

No one moved. Even Theron sat frozen, his lips pressed thin, his knuckles white where he gripped the edge of the table.

I straightened slowly, my chest heaving, and the chamber felt smaller, the air tighter. My vision burned at the edges.

“You want an announcement?” I hissed. “You’ll have it. Tomorrow. But it will be on my terms. Not yours. And not Elena’s.”

I left the word Elena hanging in the air. Something foul to be cleaned up.

Without waiting for reply, I turned on my heel and strode from the chamber. The doors boomed shut behind me, the sound ringing.

Zane’s growl followed me down the corridor, vibrating in my bones. She’s not gone. She can’t be gone. Find her.

“I will.”

I didn’t know if I was promising a false hope or clinging to madness when I knew she was gone.