Nicholas’s POV

*Smash.*

The heavy crystal glass shattered into a hundred jagged pieces against the stone fireplace. Amber liquid dripped slowly down the soot-stained bricks like dirty blood.

I was furious. No, furious didn’t even begin to cover it. I was a walking, breathing inferno.

It had been days since I dragged Irina back to the estate. Days since I locked her in that massive, heavily guarded bedroom. But the blind, violent rage in my chest hadn’t faded at all. If anything, it was burning hotter and brighter with every single passing hour.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her cracked phone screen. I saw those pathetic, desperate messages flashing in the dark.

*Asher. Mia.*

Who the hell were they?

A vicious, ugly growl ripped from deep within my throat. My claws involuntarily extended, digging deep into the expensive mahogany leather of my desk chair.

She had a life out there. A completely separate life that I knew absolutely nothing about. She smiled at people I didn’t know. She texted people I hadn’t vetted. She walked down cheap human streets and let strangers look at her. Look at *my* mate. Look at *my* son.

Just the thought of some human bastard named Asher asking if she was okay made my vision swim with blinding red. I wanted to hunt him down. I wanted to find that crappy little town, drag that boy out into the street, and snap his neck while his pathetic little friends watched.

How dare she?

She was mine. Every single breath she took belonged to me. Every heartbeat in her chest was mine to command. But she had hidden from me. She had run away and replaced me with a bunch of weak, worthless humans who didn’t know the first thing about protecting her.

I hated it. I completely, fiercely hated it.

I paced across the massive office like a caged, feral animal. My heavy boots thudded loudly against the hardwood floor.

I had locked her in the master suite. I told myself it was for her own good. It was a necessary punishment. She needed to learn her place. She needed to understand that she could never, ever escape me again. I was going to keep her locked in that gilded cage forever. I was never going to let the sun touch her skin again unless I personally permitted it.

But the reality? The reality was absolute torture.

*Mate.*

My inner wolf slammed violently against the iron bars of my mind. He was completely unhinged.

*Mate is close. Go to mate. Claim mate.*

"Shut up," I snarled out loud to the empty room.

I gripped the edges of the heavy oak desk until the solid wood physically splintered under my bare hands. My wolf didn’t care about my pride. He didn’t care about my anger or my jealousy. He only cared about the magnetic, irresistible pull coming from the west wing of the house.

He spent every single second of the day howling in her direction. It was a pathetic, desperate, agonizing sound that echoed constantly in my skull, driving me completely insane.

*Knock. Knock.*

I snapped my head up. My eyes instantly flashed a glowing, lethal gold. "Enter."

Dante, my head guard, stepped cautiously into the office. He kept his head bowed, fully exposing his neck in pure submission. He was smart. He knew I was standing on a razor-thin edge. One wrong word, one wrong look, and I would rip his throat out.

"Alpha," Dante rumbled respectfully. "The daily report."

"Speak," I snapped. I crossed my arms over my broad chest, trying to look completely indifferent. I failed. Every single muscle in my massive body was violently tense, pulled as tight as a bowstring.

"She took the baby supplies inside. The diapers and the milk. But..." Dante hesitated. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously.

"But what?" I practically roared. "Spit it out!"

"She isn’t eating, Alpha," Dante said quietly, his eyes fixed on my boots. "She pulled the tray inside, but when the guards retrieved it later, the food was completely untouched. It’s been days. She hasn’t eaten a single bite."

My heart violently dropped straight into my stomach.

A cold, suffocating spike of pure panic pierced right through my blinding rage.

*Not eating.*

My fragile, tiny mate was starving herself. Was she sick? Was she completely broken? Was she doing it on purpose just to defy me?

"Is she drinking water?" I demanded, my voice dropping to a dangerous, deadly low.

"We... we don’t know, Alpha. She doesn’t speak to the guards. She just grabs the baby items and locks the door."

"Get out," I growled.

Dante didn’t waste a single second. He practically fled the room, shutting the heavy double doors behind him.

I collapsed into my chair and dragged my shaking, calloused hands over my face. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Goddamn her.

She was so incredibly stubborn. She was a tiny, weak little human, but she was fighting me with everything she had. And it was working. It was completely destroying me from the inside out.

My wolf whined pitifully. *Mate is hungry. Mate is hurting. Go to mate.*

I wanted to punish her. I truly did. I wanted to leave her locked in that dark room until she learned her lesson. Until the isolation broke her and she begged on her knees for my attention.

But I couldn’t do it.

I was the one begging. I was losing my goddamn mind. The distance between us was a physical agony, a brutal, throbbing ache in my bones that I couldn’t ignore for another second. I needed to see her. I needed to smell her sweet, intoxicating scent. I needed to see with my own two eyes that she was still breathing.

I slammed my fist hard on the desk.

I pressed the silver intercom button.

"Send one of the Omega servants up to the master suite," I barked harshly into the speaker. "Tell Irina she is joining me for dinner. Tonight. No exceptions."

I clicked the intercom off.

My chest heaved. I was finally going to see her.

* * *

The grand dining room felt suffocatingly massive.

The long, polished mahogany table was formally set for two. A massive, ridiculous feast was spread out across the gleaming silver platters. Steaming roasted meats, fresh buttered bread, rich, creamy soups. I had ordered the kitchen staff to cook every single thing she used to like.

I stood stiffly by the roaring stone fireplace.

I checked my heavy gold watch for the tenth time in three minutes.

*Where is she?*

My leg bounced nervously. Me, the ruthless Mad King of the werewolf underworld, completely nervous over a girl. It was pathetic. I was pacing back and forth, tightly adjusting the cuffs of my crisp black dress shirt, running my hands violently through my messy hair.

I was furious with her. I repeatedly reminded myself of that fact. I was absolutely furious. She ran away. She talked to Asher. She hid my son. I was going to be cold. I was going to be completely ruthless. I was going to show her exactly who was in charge.

*Click.*

The heavy brass handles of the dining room doors slowly turned.

I froze completely. My breath hitched violently in my throat. I stood up perfectly straight, rolling my broad shoulders back, desperately trying to project pure, terrifying Alpha dominance.

The heavy doors creaked open.

She stepped quietly into the room.

The entire world violently tilted on its axis. All the oxygen was instantly sucked out of my lungs.

Irina.

She looked so incredibly small. She was completely drowning in one of my old, oversized shirts, her pale, slender legs totally bare underneath. Her delicate feet were bare on the cold marble floor. Her long, dark hair was messy and tangled, cascading wildly over her fragile shoulders.

But it was her face that absolutely destroyed me.

She looked completely shattered. Her beautiful, expressive eyes were dull and horrifyingly empty. The dark, bruised circles under her eyes made her look like a haunted ghost. She looked so incredibly fragile, so terrifyingly broken.

And she was beautiful. She was the most breathtakingly beautiful thing I had ever seen in my entire miserable life.

The heavy, intoxicating scent of vanilla and fresh rain hit my heightened senses like a massive freight train.

*Mate.*

All my simmering anger, all my grand, arrogant plans to be cold and ruthless, completely evaporated in a single millisecond. I didn’t care about Asher. I didn’t care about the lost year. I didn’t care about my wounded pride. I only cared about the tiny, broken woman standing ten feet away from me.

My heart instantly accelerated, slamming against my ribs in a frantic, deafening rhythm.

*Thump. Thump. Thump.*

My inner wolf relentlessly howled in my mind.