Chapter 2 CHAPTER TWO

Matt’s POV

The weight of leadership is heaviest at night. My father said that once, his voice grave as he looked out over a hall filled with wolves who would follow him into death. I used to think those words meant glory, that the crown of Alpha was an honor, that power would steady me. Now, years after his blood stained these very stones, I know better. Power is nothing but a chain. It drags at the bones, day after day, until even breathing feels like a burden.

And tonight, the chain felt heavier than ever.

The hall reeked of smoke and roasted venison, voices rising in bursts of laughter that never reached their eyes. Warriors drank like the past week of border skirmishes hadn’t drained us. Women leaned close, whispering too quietly to be harmless. To an outsider, this might have looked like the feast of a thriving pack. But I could hear the doubt beneath the laughter, the suspicion threaded in whispers, the restless air of a family beginning to fray.

I sat at the head of the table, a goblet of mead in hand, expression carved from stone. An Alpha never shows weakness, even if the whispers are about his mate. Especially then.

They thought I didn’t hear them. They thought I didn’t notice the way their eyes flicked toward the empty seat beside me. My Luna’s seat.

Hellen.

The woman fate had shackled me to. The one I couldn’t bring myself to look at without feeling my chest split wide open. She should have been a queen by my side, uniting this broken pack, giving them someone to adore. Instead, she lingered in her chambers, pale and frail, too weak to even walk these halls.

Fate had given me a jewel with cracks running through the center. And every time I tried to hold her, I was terrified she’d shatter completely.

“The men are restless.”

I didn’t look up right away. Beta Paul’s voice was low, measured, but there was steel beneath it. He stood against the stone pillar like he owned it, arms crossed, his shadow long in the firelight.

“They whisper,” he added when I didn’t answer. “And not just about the border skirmishes.”

I downed the rest of the mead and set the cup down with more force than I intended. “Restless men need discipline, not excuses.”

Paul didn’t flinch. He never did. That’s why he was my second, why I trusted him with what I couldn’t trust anyone else. “They need a Luna who can stand beside her Alpha,” he said quietly.

I felt the words in my chest like claws. My jaw tightened. “She’s not well.”

“She’s never well,” Paul replied flatly. “And you know as well as I do what they’re starting to whisper. About replacements.”

The word slashed through me.

Replacements.

I glanced across the hall. Laura sat by the fire, her red hair glowing like flame, her lips curved in that sly smile she wore like a weapon. A warrior bent close, whispering something in her ear, and she laughed, tossing her hair back. When her eyes met mine across the distance, she didn’t look away. She let me see it: the hunger, the ambition. The way she enjoyed the way others looked at her, strong and untouchable.

Everything Hellen wasn’t.

I rose so abruptly that the bench groaned against the stone floor. The hall was silenced in an instant, every gaze shifting toward me. This was how it always was: when the Alpha moved, the pack followed.

“Enough feasting,” I growled. “Train at dawn. Hunt at first light. If you have breath left to whisper, you’ll spend it on the battlefield, not in my hall.”

“Yes, Alpha,” they murmured, a ripple of submission echoing back at me. But unease lingered in their eyes. Doubt never bowed completely.

I turned and strode out, the weight of their stares like daggers in my back.

The corridors were colder, the torches sputtering with the draft. Here, alone, I could let the mask slip. My shoulders sagged, my fists clenched so tightly my knuckles burned.

How can I protect them when I can’t even protect her?

The memory came without mercy. Blood on my hands, a girl screaming as she bled out, my father’s voice roaring orders I couldn’t follow. I had sworn, sworn, that no woman under my protection would ever suffer again. And yet fate had given me Hellen fragile, cursed, breaking apart before my eyes.

“Damn you,” I whispered, though I didn’t know if I meant fate, or the Moon Goddess, or myself.

My steps carried me without thought until I stood at her chamber door. The guards stiffened, but I waved them away. This was not for their eyes.

Inside, the air smelled of herbs and smoke, faintly bitter from the healer’s constant concoctions. The fire burned low, shadows thick in the corners. Hellen lay tangled in furs, her chest rising shallowly, her dark hair spilling across the pillow like ink. Her skin glowed pale, fragile, yet still… luminous. Always luminous.

I sat in the chair beside her bed, elbows braced on my knees, hands clasped. I watched her breathe, each rise and fall a cruel reminder of how easily she could slip away. She was supposed to make me stronger. Instead, she unraveled me thread by thread.

“You don’t even know what you’ve done to me,” I whispered. “You’re tearing me apart, Hellen.”

Her hand twitched in her sleep, as if reaching for something. Against my will, I went too, my fingers brushing hers. A jolt of warmth surged through me, the bond, relentless, binding, unyielding. I hated it. I needed it.

And then I heard them.

Voices outside the door. Muffled, but clear enough.

“She’ll never survive the winter,” the healer’s rasping tone carried.

Laura’s reply was silk over steel. “Good. The Alpha deserves more than a weak Luna. When the time comes, I’ll be ready to take her place.”

The heat in my veins went molten. I stood, blood roaring in my ears.

I yanked the door open. Laura and the healer nearly stumbled inside, faces draining pale.

“Alpha,” Laura breathed, her smile false, too sweet.

The healer bowed low, muttering excuses.

But I saw it. The truth in Laura’s eyes. The hunger. The ambition. The venom behind her mask.

“You dare whisper against your Luna in my halls?” My voice dropped to a deadly growl. “Do you think I don’t hear? Do you think I don’t see?”

Laura’s lips parted. “I only meant…”

“Get out,” I snapped. The power in my voice cracked like thunder. “Both of you. Before I forget myself.”

They fled, cloaks snapping, silence chasing them down the hall.

I turned back to Hellen. She shifted restlessly in her sleep, unaware of the daggers aimed at her back. My chest tightened.

For years, I thought my enemy was outside these walls. The rogues at our borders, the rival Alphas sharpening their blades.

But as I looked down at her fragile body, the truth struck me like a blow.

The actual danger wasn’t outside.

It had already rooted itself here.

Inside my pack. Inside my halls.

And if I weren’t careful, it would destroy him, destroy us both.