Chapter 186

Asher

Scouts knelt in the dirt before me, heads bowed, blood still drying on their skin. I could taste their failure, the weakness and incompetence, and it curdled the taste in my throat.

“You had her.” My voice cracked like a whip, dangerously quiet but sharp enough to make the males flinch. “You had her in your grasp. And yet,” I paced slowly before them, boots grinding into the earth. “you return to me empty-handed. Again.”

No one dared answer. They stared at the ground, shoulders tight, waiting for my claws.

My rage only burned hotter. “Do you know what it cost me to put you here? To give you weapons, shelter, purpose? And in return you can’t even leash one broken she-wolf? One.”

A murmur rose at the back, some fool trying to explain. I silenced him with a growl, claws flashing in his direction. “Don’t waste breath on excuses.”

The silence deepened, brittle as ice.

I moved faster than thought, seizing one of the scouts by the throat. His eyes went wide, hands fumbling at my grip. With a snarl, I lifted him high enough that his feet scraped the dirt, then slammed him down so hard the ground shook. His breath rattled once before stilling.

Gasps broke from the line. The others shrank back, trembling, the scent of fear sweet and sharp.

“Let that be the cost of failure,” I spat, stepping over the body as though it were nothing more than discarded prey. “I will not tolerate weakness in my ranks. If you cannot bring me what I want, you are worthless.”

I stopped before the remaining scouts, meeting their wide eyes one by one. The weight of my gaze held them pinned, but I let a different tone thread my words, coaxing... more motivating.

“You are not scraps on the fringe of this kingdom anymore. You are soldiers, and we are a pack forged from exile, sharpened by hunger. Damon sits on my throne, pretending he’s a King, while he bleeds his warriors dry chasing a ghost. And do you know why?”

A ripple of unease spread through them. I leaned in, voice dropping to a growl.

“Because he’s already lost his mate. She’s out here, with us by choice. And when she is mine, his Kingdom will crumble. And you,” I lifted my arms to the circle of Rogues, letting their fear shift into hunger.

“You will rise with me. No more scraps. No more hiding. The forests, the villages, the packs themselves will bow to us.”

Murmurs of agreement rumbled, small at first, then louder. Rage alone couldn’t bind them, but vision could. I fed them the future, fed them what they longed to believe.

I bared my teeth in a smile that was more threat than comfort. “So, hear me now: bring her to me. Alive. No matter the cost. If she dies, you die. If she escapes again, I will do worse than remove one single failure.”

I looked pointedly at the scout’s body laying behind me. Heads snapped lower, voices rising in a broken chorus: “Asher. Asher. Asher”

The sound pleased me. Fear and devotion braided together, exactly as I intended.

I straightened, cloak snapping in the wind, and gestured toward the forest. “Go. Find her. Hunt until she gives up her scent. And do not return without her.”

The scouts scattered, melting into the night, their footsteps muffled by the thick earth.

I stood alone in the firelight, heart pounding with a rhythm I hadn’t felt in years. Rage still burned, sharp and hot, but beneath it coiled something darker, hungrier.

She would be mine. Alive. No matter the cost.

The camp quieted after my Rogues vanished into the trees, their chants still echoing faintly in the night air. Only the fire pits crackled, spitting sparks into the dark.

I turned from the flames and ducked into my tent, the heavy flap falling shut behind me.

Inside, shadows stretched long across the walls, the air thick with smoke and leather. A single lantern burned on the table, throwing a small circle of light over the mess of maps and crude battle plans I had scrawled.

But my eyes weren’t on the maps.

They went to the object waiting in the center of the table: the scent vial from the bride trials. Hers.

My claws grazed it lightly, reverent, as though it might vanish if I pressed too hard. The mating bond had never been mine, but the memory of her fire, her defiance, her very essence had carved itself into me all the same.

“Lila,” I breathed, tasting the name like the sweetest of wine.

I lifted the vial and breathed her in as her image seemed to fill the tent. The set of her jaw when she resisted me, the steel in her eyes when she refused to yield even to Damon.

She had a spine stronger than any queen I had ever seen, a beauty laced with rage that no throne could cage.

She belonged by my side. Not Damon’s. Not caged in his palace, paraded as his trophy Luna.

Lila was wasted there, wasted on him. Damon, the golden King who had everything handed to him, who wasted not one mate but two.

I paced, the vial still clenched in my fist, my voice low and rough. “You’ll see it, won’t you? That I can give you more than he could. That I can give you power.”

The words steadied me, but the ache in my chest grew darker. The thought of her belly round with Damon’s child should have soured the dream. Instead, it stoked it.

It didn’t matter whose blood the child carried. Once she was mine, once she bore my mark, the child would be mine too. And Damon would choke on the sight of it.

I leaned over the table, muscles in my arms straining “You’ll never have her,” I hissed to the empty tent, imagining Damon’s face twisted in rage. “Not again. Not ever again.”

My reflection wavered faintly in the lantern glass: eyes burning, mouth twisted, a Rogue King without a crown but with something greater… hunger.

I forced my hand open and set the vial back down gently. She deserved reverence, not the literal claws of my temper.

“Alive,” I murmured, the command I had given my scouts. “You’ll come to me alive. And when you do…” I smiled, slow and sure, though no one was there to see it. “You’ll understand. You’ll see what Damon could never give you.”

Outside, a wolf howled with the guttural sound of pursuit. The others joined in, the forest answering my command with a chorus of its own.

I straightened, the sound vibrating in my bones, and let the image fill me: Lila at my side, the crown on my head, Damon broken beneath my boot.

The child would bind her to me. The throne would follow. And her fire…her fire would burn for me, no matter how long it took. I was a patient male; I had waited this long for my crown and my Queen.

I blew out the lantern, plunging the tent into darkness.

She was already mine, it was just a matter of time.