Chapter 180

Clara stood in the center of the guest room’s wreckage, her chest still heaving in a rhythm that mirrored the flickering emerald sparks dying out on her fingertips.

The air was cooling rapidly, the unnatural heat of Alaric’s rut being devoured by the frost of her magic.

She looked down at her hands—pale, trembling, and stained with the faint scent of Alaric’s sweat and the lingering rut.

From behind the closed door of the en-suite bathroom, the sound of rushing water began.

Clara’s legs felt like they were made of spun glass, ready to shatter if she shifted her weight.

She stared at the spot where Lucian had stood. The Sovereign had left them in the ruins of her composure, his silence a more brutal judgment than any shouting could have been.

He had seen the way her magic had hesitated between a strike and a caress towards the kid. "Focus," she whispered, eyes closed and arms raised.

Her robes, torn at the shoulder where Alaric’s claws had snagged the silk, fluttered as She began to hum more spells.

Th wardrobe, which had been splintered into toothpicks during Alaric’s tantrum, began to stir. The shards of wood scraped against the stone, piece by piece, the wood found its mate, knitting back together under the green glow of her will.

Next were the books. Clara’s magic smoothed the crumpled corners, ironed out the creases where Alaric’s weight had crushed them, and slid them back onto the shelves in a flurry of shifting paper.

But as the room returned to its pristine state, Clara’s mind remained a mess. She could still feel the weight of the child.

The way he had buried his face in her neck, whispering ’Mine.’ The water in the bathroom stopped. Clara froze. The emerald mist in the room vanished instantly, leaving the air smelling of lavender.

She smoothed her disheveled robes, her fingers fumbling with the torn silk as she tried to pull the fabric over the red, irritated skin of her shoulder.

The door opened. Steam rolled out first, thick and smelling of the herbal lye she kept in the cabinet. Alaric stepped through the veil of mist, wearing nothing but a pair of loose trousers Clara had provided with a shirt.

His skin was scrubbed raw, the flush of the rut replaced by a deathly, exhausted pallor. His hair was plastered to his forehead, dripping water onto his bare chest.

He looked younger like this. Smaller. The monstrous strength that had nearly leveled the wing was hidden behind a frame of lean, trembling muscle.

He didn’t look at her. He walked to the edge of the bed and sat down, his shoulders hunched so far forward he looked like a broken wing.

"I’m sorry," Clara face was emotionless as she stood where she was, her grip on her own elbows "And what exactly are you sorry for?" Clara’s voice was like the crack of a branch—thin, sharp, and entirely devoid of the warmth he was looking for.

"For entering a rut you couldn’t control?" she continued, her tone conversational but biting. "Or for the fact that you nearly tore my throat out because your biology decided I was a conquest?"

Alaric seemed to shrink into himself. The apologetic hunch of his shoulders deepened until he looked as though he wanted to disappear into the very mattress.

He was an Alpha—or he was supposed to be—but here, in the presence of this woman who felt like a blizzard wrapped in silk, he felt like a pup.

He couldn’t believe it. He had spent years dreaming of the moment he was sure of his mate, imagining the lightning strike of recognition, the mutual pull of the soul.

Instead, he had found a High Witch who looked at him as if he were a particularly difficult equation she had to solve.

She didn’t feel the bond. She doesn’t feel it screaming in his blood, begging him to crawl across the room and put his head in her lap.

"Both," Alaric rasped, his voice still thick from the roar he’d spent hours suppressing. "I’m sorry for all of it. I didn’t know it would be that... fast."

"Biology is rarely polite," Clara said, finally moving.

She walked toward a small table, her steps silent.

She picked up a glass decanter and poured a dark, viscous liquid into a cup. The scent of bitter herbs and iron filled the air. She walked toward the bed, stopping just out of his reach.

"Drink this," she commanded. "The sedative I used on you earlier was a blunt instrument. This will help regulate the hormonal spike. Your rut isn’t gone, Alaric. I’ve just put it in a cage but If you forget yourself again, I won’t be so gentle with the next spell."

Alaric took the glass, his fingers brushing hers for a fraction of a second. He felt the spark—that jolting electricity—but Clara didn’t even blink.

She pulled her hand back instantly, smoothing her robes as if she were wiping away a smudge of dirt.

"You don’t feel it at all, do you?" Alaric asked as he looked up at her through his damp curls. "The bond. The moon’s choice. It’s just... nothing to you?"

Clara let out a short, dry breath that might have been a laugh if she were a different woman. "Drink the liquid child."

She turned her back to him, walking over to the shelf she had just magically repaired. She began to obsessively realign the spines of the books, her fingers flickering with a tiny, nervous green light.

"You’re a child from the moon goddess ," she said, her voice muffled by the books. "You’re full of heat and instinct and a desperate need to belong. I am a woman of ice and logic. This ’bond’ you speak of is nothing more than a chemical trick designed to ensure your species continues. It’s an inconvenience."

Alaric winced as if she’d slapped him. The liquid in the cup tasted like ash, but he forced it down. "An inconvenience? I nearly died coming here to find you. I betrayed my pack. I betrayed the moon."

"Ha..." Clara let out a single, sharp bark of a laugh that held no mirth. She slowly turned away from the bookshelf, her movements graceful but predatory, her white eyes fixing on him with a chilling intensity.

"You betrayed the Moon?" she repeated, the word tasting like a joke on her tongue. "How dramatic."

She began to pace a slow circle around the bed where he sat.

"Don’t you wolves claim that it is your Great Mother, Moon Goddess, who hand-picks your mates?" She arched a perfectly groomed brow, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"If she is the one who tied your soul to mine—if this ’bond’ is her divine decree—then how exactly did you betray her by coming here to find me? You didn’t betray her, Alaric. You followed her trail like a dog on a scent."

She stopped directly in front of him, looming over his seated form. Her mocking laugh died. The sarcasm evaporated, replaced by a gaze so narrow and suspicious that Alaric felt the air in his lungs turn to ice.

She leaned down, her face inches from his, searching his features with the cold scrutiny of an inquisitor.

Her eyes weren’t just looking at him; they were looking into him, dissecting the layers of his upbringing and the frantic heat still pulsing in his veins.

"Or is that the lie you tell yourself to feel like a martyr?" she whispered dangerously low. "You didn’t come here for the Moon. You didn’t come here for a Goddess."

She reached out, not to touch him, but to grip the edge of the nightstand, leaning in until he could smell the bitter herbs on her breath.

"You came here because you were running from something. And you’re using me—this ’bond’—as your sanctuary."

Her eyes scanned his raw, scrubbed skin, lingering on the way his pulse thrashed in his throat. "You speak of betrayal, but you look like someone who is seeking a hiding place. Tell me, little Alpha... did your moon mother really choose me? Or did you?"

Alaric felt a cold sweat break out on his brow that had nothing to do with the rut. "I didn’t..." he started, but the words died as she reached out with one finger, tilting his chin up to force him to maintain eye contact.

"Be very careful with your next words," Clara warned, the emerald sparks at her fingertips glowing with a renewed, threatening vigor.

"I’ve lived three hundred years, child. I’ve seen kings fall and covens burn. I know the difference between a man in love and a man who lies"