Kaelen POV

"Also, I don’t think she was a rogue," Darius continued.

His brow furrowed as though he were replaying the memory in his head. "She was dressed in much fancier clothes. The kind that only wealthy families could afford. And she got them filthy trying to reach locks that were twice her size after I tricked her into believing I was going to help her get back to her family."

A soft chuckle escaped him.

It was such a rare sound that it almost caught me off guard.

"Maybe it’s the green eyes," he said. "Back then, I was completely captivated by them. I can still remember those green eyes looking at me while she cried. Maybe seeing them again brought all those memories back."

His smile faded slightly.

"Every face I see, I wonder if it’s her. Every pair of green eyes makes me stop and look twice." Then he lifted his gaze to mine. "It’s exhausting."

I did not say anything.

There was nothing to say.

After a moment, Darius slowly rose to his feet.

"At the end of the day, this really might be no different, so you have nothing to worry about," he said softly.

Then he glanced at me, and a faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"What are you going to do now?"

That made me blink as I snapped back to my senses.

"What do you mean?" I asked, confused.

"Oh, for fuck’s sake. How are you the Alpha King and still this stupid?" he asked, shaking his head with a heavy sigh.

My expression immediately darkened.

"Your test just proved what we already suspected," Darius continued. "She is the one who can tame you."

"Watch your fucking mouth," I snapped, pointing a finger at him. "She can’t tame me."

No one could.

At least, that was what I wanted to believe.

Yet during my most feral state, when I had completely lost control of the beast inside me, a woman with a strange scent had accomplished what witches and sorcerers had spent years trying and failing to do.

She had calmed me.

She had touched me.

And she had survived.

Until now, that should have been impossible.

Darius immediately raised both hands in surrender.

"Fine. She didn’t tame you," he said. "She just made your wolf roll over and show its belly like a spoiled house pet."

"I will kill you," I snarled, but his smirk only widened.

****

After dealing with countless pack matters throughout the day, it was already late into the night by the time I finally returned to my chambers.

I was slightly tipsy from all the alcohol I had consumed during dinner with the council members that despised me so much.

I would never understand their one-sided hatred toward me.

Yes, I was cruel.

Cruel enough that many people considered me a tyrant.

But I still had morals.

The biggest of those morals was simple.

I never harmed the innocent.

In fact, I spent far more time helping the less privileged than most of the nobles who constantly judged me.

My father had been the complete opposite.

He murdered innocent people without hesitation and only cared about making the rich even richer.

Yet somehow, I was the monster.

At this point, though, I did not care nearly as much as I used to.

They could conspire against me all they wanted.

They could gather in dark corners and whisper behind closed doors.

But while they were doing that, they should also be praying that I never found out.

I stood in front of the mirror and began unbuttoning my shirt when my conversation with Darius from this morning echoed through my mind, causing a dull ache to settle in my chest.

He was truly in love with whoever that woman was.

The realization hit harder than I expected.

It reminded me too much of how I had once felt.

Before I could stop myself, I found my hand reaching for a locked drawer.

A drawer that had remained untouched for almost a year.

For a moment, I simply stared at it.

Then I unlocked it.

Inside was a photograph of me and my mate, Seraphina.

We had taken it during a festival.

I was smiling. Actually smiling, with my arm wrapped around her waist while she leaned into me, laughing at something I had said.

We looked happy.

We looked in love.

We looked like the kind of couple who believed nothing could ever tear them apart.

Even though I had always been damaged, Seraphina had somehow made life feel lighter when she entered it.

For the first time in years, I had started learning how to be happy again.

I thought she was my world.

My wolf had accepted her scent without hesitation because of the mate bond, and that alone had made her feel like a light shining into the darkest parts of my life.

When I took over the empire, I had already decided I would make her my queen.

She had stood beside me when I was nothing, before the power, before the title, and before the crown.

I thought she deserved to stand beside me when I finally had everything.

Only to discover she had been sleeping with my stepbrother behind my back.

Even now, the memory left a bitter taste in my mouth, and her excuse had somehow made it worse.

She said she never believed I had what it took to become Alpha King, and the other reason was that I was not good in bed.

The thought made a hollow laugh escape me.

It was almost funny.

I had been such a fool to genuinely believe she was my safe place.

I had told her about my past and trusted her with the parts of myself I never showed anyone else.

I thought she understood why physical intimacy had always been difficult for me, and I thought she had helped me overcome it.

But none of it had been real.

She had only been using me, just like everyone else.

Slowly, I set the photograph down on the desk and stared at her smiling face.

I should have burned this picture years ago, just like I had burned everything else.

Yet somehow, I could never bring myself to destroy this one photograph because some part of me was still so broken that I refused to let go.

My gaze drifted toward the corner of the drawer, where there was a half-hearted pendant.

It was meant to be a token of our love, a promise made in secret that we would stand by each other forever.

I couldn’t bring myself to reach for it.

The night she ran away with my stepbrother, Jacob, after rejecting me, I had been consumed by so much rage that I actually tracked them down. I wanted to watch her suffer as I took away the man she had chosen over me.

I had raised my gun, fully prepared to pull the trigger on that godforsaken spoiled bastard who had made my childhood a living hell.

But to my horror, she threw herself in front of him.

She protected him.

She stood there shielding him with her own body while looking at me as though I was the monster.

That sight broke something inside me completely.

In the end, I let them go.

I let them both live.

And I had regretted it every single day since.

Not because I wanted revenge.

But because I realized she was right.

I was the monster.

I had always been the monster.

Slowly, I closed the drawer and locked it.

Then I walked over to the window and stared out at the dark estate grounds.

It had been ten years.

Ten fucking years.

And I still hadn’t been with another woman since she left me.

Part of that was because of this stupid curse, but the bigger reason was that I still hadn’t moved on.

But why?

Why was I still letting her win after all these years?

The nights when I went into heat were always the worst. I endured them alone every single time while other males were out there rutting like animals, claiming any willing female they could find to ease the burn.

Me?

I locked myself in this damn room and tried to relieve myself, but it never helped.

Even Darius, who had remained single for all the years I had known him, still had a woman in his bed during those heated nights.

So now that I had found another woman my wolf accepted, wasn’t it finally time to move on?

Even if it meant using her to satisfy the years of desire and frustration that had been building inside me?

If Seraphina could climb into my brother’s bed, then it was only fair that I brought another woman into mine.

It was then that I made a decision.