(First person POV)
Two days had passed since the door to Leonardo's chambers closed with a sound that felt too final. The echo still lived in the corridors — a single, shattering note of restraint. No one was allowed near the west wing. Even the guards stationed by his study moved like ghosts, speaking only in murmurs. The palace air itself seemed to breathe quieter in his absence.
I had tried, once, to knock on his door. The silence on the other side felt like an abyss staring back. My mark pulsed then — that strange warmth at the base of my neck, deep and ancient, responding to something only our blood could sense. He was alive. But restless.
The summons from the palace arrived that morning, delivered by a hawk-wing courier bearing the crest of the royal council — the sigil of a broken crown entwined with thorns. I knew the emblem. It meant urgent assembly. The Alpha King was demanded in the capital. Again.
"Rebellion from the eastern packs," whispered one of the maids, eyes lowered. "The nobles say the traitor Alpha Voren has risen from exile."
Voren. That name I had only heard in rumors, whispered when the night guards thought I was asleep — the Alpha who once ruled beside Leonardo before the war split them apart.
I pressed my palm against the cold marble of the corridor wall, trying to still the flutter in my chest. The palace felt different now, colder. Even the torches along the hall flickered lower, as though unwilling to burn too brightly in his absence.
By evening, the news had spread through every corridor and courtyard: the King would ride at dawn. The rebellion at the borders had drawn blood.
Still, no one had seen him.
I wandered the halls long after the servants had retired, the rustle of my steps drowned beneath the wind that sighed through the glass arches. The moonlight spilled across the floor like a blade — silver, sharp, unforgiving.
When I passed his study, I stopped.
The door was ajar.
A faint light spilled out, trembling against the walls.
Inside, he stood by the window — a dark silhouette framed by the restless sky. His shoulders were bare, the heavy coat of his station draped carelessly over a chair. He didn't turn as I entered. The air was heavy with the scent of steel and storm, undercut by something more primal, something that made the mark at my neck throb in quiet, traitorous recognition.
"Leonardo…"
His name left my lips as a question, but he didn't answer immediately. His reflection wavered in the glass — sharp eyes, haunted expression, a monarch trapped inside his own war.
Finally, his voice came, low and hoarse."They called for me again."
I stepped closer, watching the faint tremor in his hand as he tightened the strap of his armor. "I heard," I whispered. "The rebellion…"
"They're not just rebelling," he said. "They're hunting the throne itself. My generals suspect the nobles are funding it. The council grows restless. They think the crown has gone soft."
His tone was clipped, but something beneath it cracked — not anger, not yet, but weariness buried too deep to heal.
"Leonardo," I said quietly, "you haven't eaten. Haven't slept. You can't ride like this."
He turned then — and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe. The hollowness beneath his eyes was edged with gold, a faint feral glow betraying the wolf within. Yet there was something else too — pain. Guilt.
"The king doesn't rest," he murmured, stepping closer. "Not when the land burns under his name."
"You're still human," I said softly. "Or close enough to one."
That earned a ghost of a smile. He stopped only a breath away, the faint heat of him bleeding through the air. "Humanity," he said, "is a luxury I can't afford, Evne Roman."
Hearing my full name from his lips sent a tremor down my spine — the same name he had never used before, not like this. It carried the weight of recognition, of ownership neither of us had asked for but couldn't deny.
For a heartbeat, the world felt suspended.
Then he looked down — at my throat.
His gaze lingered on the faint shimmer where the mark had once burned brighter, the ghost of his instinct carved into my skin. His jaw tightened.
"I didn't mean to," he said, voice breaking slightly. "That night — when I touched your nape — it wasn't a choice."
"I know," I whispered. "You were barely conscious."
His hand lifted halfway toward me before he forced it down again. The struggle in him was visible, every muscle drawn taut between wanting and restraint.
"I should have stayed away," he said. "But when I caught your scent at the gates, everything I built—everything I swore to protect—shook."
He turned away, breath unsteady. "The wolf in me doesn't understand politics or crowns. It understands only you."
I wanted to speak, to tell him I didn't blame him, that the mark had not destroyed me — that it had, in some unexplainable way, anchored me. But the words wouldn't come. Instead, I reached for his discarded cloak, draped it over his shoulders, and said, "Then let the man, not the wolf, decide what happens next."
He froze. Then slowly, his hand covered mine.
For a moment, we stood like that — his pulse steady beneath my fingers, his scent clean and sharp like rain before a storm.
Outside, thunder rolled in the distance.
Finally, he whispered, "The council won't forgive another delay. I have to go."
I swallowed hard. "And if you don't come back?"
He looked down, and in his eyes I saw both the king and the man — two halves at war."Then the kingdom will fall with me."
The words hung between us like a death sentence.
He pulled away first, reaching for his sword — the same blade he had carried since the war that made him king. Its edge caught the light, a cruel reflection of everything he'd lost.
As he moved past me toward the door, I said, "Leonardo—"
He paused.
"Promise me," I said, voice trembling, "you'll come back."
His expression softened — for just an instant. Then, in a tone quieter than breath, he answered,"I'll try. But if I don't… the mark will find its way home."
And then he was gone — into the storm, into the dawn, into the war that awaited him.
The doors closed. The silence returned.
I stood alone in the study, the faint warmth of the mark pulsing against my skin, and wondered if the crown he carried was worth the pieces of himself it demanded.
Outside, the wind howled like something grieving. The torches flickered once more, then steadied — as though even the palace itself refused to forget the weight of its king.