Chapter 172

While the South was drowning in the stench of defeat and gravel, the Sovereign’s kitchen in the North was filled with the domestic clatter of a spoon against a ceramic pot.

Clara stood at the stove, her silhouette framed by the pale light filtering through the windows. The chaos of the previous night had been scrubbed away—literally.

She had spent the early hours of the morning scouring the burnt remains of the pan from the morning before, her hands moving with precision that kept her mind from wandering back to the boy in the guest wing.

She was currently preparing a thick, savory porridge. A recipe she usually reserved for the coldest mornings, enriched with wild herbs and cream.

It was meant to be a simple breakfast for Isabella, something to ground the Lycan girl after a day of heavy workouts.

But as Clara reached for the ladle, she paused. Her white eyes fixed on the contents of the pot. She had made a massive batch.

Too massive. Her internal calculations, usually as sharp as a ritual blade, had failed her. She stared at the bubbling surface, realizing she had prepared enough for exactly three generous portions.

One for herself. One for Isabella. And, seemingly by a force of habit she hadn’t even admitted to, one for the stray locked in the east wing.

"Ridiculous," Clara muttered to the empty kitchen, her voice dry and echoing off the subway-tile walls. "The beast can eat raw meat for all I care."

Yet, even as she said it, she found herself reaching for a third bowl. It was an instinctual reaction not a romantic one, she told herself.

A High Witch knew the laws of energy; if you had a guest, you fed them, even if that guest was a Southern wolf.

She plated the first two bowls, drizzling them with honey and toasted seeds. She moved with her usual grace, but there was a stiffness in her shoulders that wasn’t there yesterday.

Every time the wind rattled the windowpane, her mind flickered back to Alaric’s blue-gold eyes and that absurd, starving conviction in his voice.

The memory of his words made the air in the kitchen feel suddenly claustrophobic. She set Isabella’s tray aside, but her gaze kept drifting back to the third bowl.

A frustrated sound puffed out Clara’s cheeks, she reached for the third bowl with a jerk of her hand, the ceramic scraping against the marble countertop with a discordant screech.

"I am a Witch, not a nursemaid," she hissed to the empty room, though the way she carefully balanced the tray suggested she was at least a nursemaid who cared about presentation.

She didn’t bother calling for Marcus to assist her. Carrying the steaming bowl, she moved through the mansion, her silk robes whispering against the floorboards.

She didn’t have to walk far. The wing was just past the library. As she reached the iron-reinforced door, she didn’t reach for a key or knock. She didn’t have the patience for that

Clara shifted the bowl to one hand, her other hand rising, fingers splayed. A faint, emerald light flickered at her fingertips.

"Open," she commanded and the door swung inward. The room was dim, the heavy velvet curtains still drawn against the morning light, but the air was thick.

It smelled of Alaric—that overwhelming, earthy scent of pine needles and damp earth that seemed to permeate every surface he touched but something else too.

He was crouched on the floor, his back arched like a bow strung too tight. He wasn’t sitting in wait, and he wasn’t looking for a hero’s welcome.

His hands were clamped over his ears, his fingers digging so deep into his scalp that his knuckles were white.

A guttural sound was vibrating from his chest. Clara’s irritation vanished instantly, replaced by a spike of alarm. "Alaric?"

The bowl in her hand was quickly dropped to the side table as she moved toward him, her movements blurring with a speed that only a witch of her caliber could maintain.

"Kid, look at me! What is this?" She reached out, her pale fingers hovering for a split second before she pressed them against the side of his neck.

The moment her skin touched his, she recoiled with a hiss of shock. He wasn’t just warm; he was radiating a searing heat.

"Goddess," Clara whispered, her mind racing through a thousand counter-curses and stabilization spells. "You’re burning up. Your internal temperature is high enough to cook your own organs."

She tried to pull his hands away from his head, but his grip was like iron. "Hey! You have to breathe! What are you hearing?"

Before she could finish the thought, Alaric’s entire body gave a convulsive shudder. He let out a choked gasp and his hands fell away from his ears, his head snapping up to face her.

Clara froze. The blue eyes that had watched her with such stubborn adoration just hours ago were gone.

In their place were two burning pits of molten gold. The air in the room suddenly felt charged with a dark static that made the fine hairs on Clara’s arms stand on end.

Alaric’s jaw unhinged, his teeth lengthening and sharpening into ivory needles that looked far too large for a human mouth.

"Alaric?" Clara’s voice was barely a breath. She felt the shift in the room’s energy

The scent of pine had sharpened into something aggressive, something dangerously primitive. As Alaric’s fingers clamped around her wrist, the heat radiating from him grew.

Clara’s white eyes widened as the realization finally cut through her confusion. She had lived for centuries; she had studied the physiology of every shifter lineage. She knew this state.

"Alaric, let go," Clara commanded, But Alaric wasn’t listening. His pupils had dilated until they swallowed the molten gold of his irises, leaving only a thin, burning ring of black.

The "honey and lilies" he had smelled on her were no longer a comfort; they were a trigger, a signal for his wolf to claim what the bond promised.

His weight shifted, his chest heaving as he prepared to lunge. His instinct was screaming, drowning out every human thought in favor of the fire in his blood.

"I said—move!" Clara didn’t wait for him to pounce. She didn’t have the luxury of mercy. Her emerald magic flared, not as a gentle glow but as a violent, concussive wave of force.

She slammed her palm into the center of his chest, releasing a kinetic burst that sent him flying backward across the room.

Alaric hit the far wall with a thud that shook the heavy oak frame of the bed, his body slumping to the floor for a split second.

Clara didn’t stick around to see him get back up. She scrambled to her feet, her silk robes tangling around her legs as she bolted for the door.

She reached the threshold in a blur of ivory fabric, her breath coming in short, sharp hitches. She slammed the iron-reinforced door shut just as a muffled weight crashed against the other side.

The sound of Alaric’s claws—now fully extended and jagged—frantically shredding the wood echoed through the hall.

Clara leaned against the door, her hand trembling as she channeled her magic into the lock, sealing it with a series of glowing, emerald runes that hissed as they bit into the metal.

"Clara?" The voice was calm and entirely unimpressed. Clara snapped her head to the side. Marcus was standing just a few feet away, his arms folded across his chest, his pale vampire features illuminated by the cold morning light.

He looked from the vibrating door to Clara’s disheveled hair and the porridge stains on her hem.

"I assume," Marcus said, his eyebrow arching in an elegant curve, "that the guest found the breakfast... unsatisfactory?"

"He’s in a rut, Marcus," Clara snapped, her voice high and breathless as she straightened her robes, trying desperately to regain her composure.

Marcus took a step forward, his eyes flickering toward the door as another thud vibrated through the stone. "A rut? In the middle of the enemy’s estate? That is... bold of him. Or incredibly stupid."

"It’s the bond," Clara whispered, her hand still pressed against the cold wood of the door. She could feel the heat of him radiating through the oak.

"Oh, so you accept the bond?" Marcus interjected, his tone maddeningly smooth.

Clara’s eyes literally flashed, a spark of green static jumping between her fingers. "Accepting it or not doesn’t change the fact that the kid is a ticking biological bomb! We have to do something about it before those two find out." 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

She jerked her head toward the upper suites where Lucian and Isabella were. "If Lucian catches the scent of a rival Alpha in heat inside his own walls, He’ll execute him on the spot. And Isabella... I don’t even want to think about how her lycan wolf will react to this much pheromonal chaos."