Chapter 4 CHAPTER FOUR

Matt’s POV

The courtyard stank of blood. Even the torches that lined the stone walls couldn’t burn the smell away. It clung to the night like smoke, heavy and suffocating. Wolves had gathered in clusters, their eyes bright in the firelight, voices carrying like a restless wind.

“Cursed.”

“A bad omen.”

“Our Luna brings death.”

The words cut through me one by one. I’ve heard enemies spit poison at me before — rogues, rival Alphas, even traitors within my own ranks—but this was different. These were my wolves. My people. The ones sworn to kneel at my command and trust my judgment without question. Yet here they stood, whispering like carrion feeders over fresh kill.

And all of it aimed at her.

Hellen stood frozen in the middle of the courtyard, pale and trembling, her body still framed by the light spilling from the hall. Her wide eyes were fixed on the crimson pool spreading across the stones, a trail of blood leading from the broken body of the scout we’d dragged in moments ago. He hadn’t even made it past the border before his life was ripped out of him. Now his death had become a stage, and my mate, the Luna, was the unwilling star.

Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She swayed slightly, one hand clutching at her stomach as if the sight itself could hollow her out. To them, it probably looked like fear. To me, it was the worst shame.

“Enough.”

The word thundered from me before I even realized I’d spoken. Power surged through my voice, Alpha command forcing the crowd into silence. Heads dropped, spines bent, and in the heavy quiet that followed, even the fire seemed to burn more carefully.

I let the weight of it hang for a beat before I continued. “A life has been lost tonight, and you dare waste your breath on superstition? You dishonor him with your cowardice.”

A few murmurs of shame rippled through the crowd, but they didn’t look at me. Their eyes still cut sideways, to where Hellen stood like a shadow at the edge of the torchlight. They obeyed, but their obedience was hollow.

My gaze found her again. She looked so small against the backdrop of stone and fire, as though the world itself pressed down on her shoulders. For a heartbeat, I moved toward her. My hand lifted, not as Alpha, not as commander, but as a man reaching for his mate.

She flinched before I even touched her. Just the twitch of her body, so slight most wouldn’t notice. But I did. And gods, it gutted me.

I let my hand curl into a fist and fall to my side. The mask slipped back into place. “Go inside,” I told her, voice iron and unyielding.

She blinked up at me, eyes wide with something I didn’t want to name — fear, doubt, distance — and then nodded faintly. Without a word, she turned and walked back toward the hall, her steps slow, almost stumbling. I watched until she vanished beyond the doorway, until the sound of the door closing was swallowed by the murmurs rising behind me again.

I pivoted sharply. “Disperse. Now.”

They obeyed. They always did. The courtyard began to empty, the whispers dimming, though I knew they weren’t gone. They would echo in chambers, in training fields, in every corner where shadows gathered.

“Alpha.”

The voice that broke the silence was deep, grave. Elder Rowan stepped forward, his gray hair gleaming in the firelight, his staff tapping against the stone as he moved. He had been with me since my father’s reign, older than most remembered, wise enough to weigh every word before speaking, which is why his tone tonight sent a chill through me.

“This is no ordinary death,” he said.

I set my jaw. “It was a rogue attack. Nothing more.”

His eyes, sharp and cold as the mountain streams, met mine. “Rogues do not cross our borders unseen. They do not strike so cleanly and vanish without a trace. And the timing…” His gaze flicked toward the hall where Hellen had disappeared. “The pack cannot ignore the timing.”

My muscles tightened, heat rising beneath my skin. “You will not question my mate.”

“I?” Rowan raised his brows. “No. But the pack already does. They whisper, they doubt. And doubt, Alpha, is a poison that spreads quicker than blood.”

He wasn’t wrong. That’s what made it worse.

The courtyard was nearly empty now, but I could still feel the weight of a hundred unseen eyes on me. I gave Rowan a curt nod, dismissing him, though his words lingered like thorns. He bowed slightly, tapping his staff once against the ground before turning away.

And that’s when I noticed her.

Laura.

She stood near the edge of the torchlight, half-shadowed, half-illuminated. She had that look again, the one she wore like a crown, sharp and beautiful and dangerous. Her emerald eyes gleamed as if the fire itself lived inside them.

“Such a tragedy,” she said softly, just loud enough for me to hear. Her steps were slow as she approached, every movement deliberate, like a wolf circling prey. “But perhaps it was meant to happen. Perhaps the goddess wanted to reveal what we’ve ignored.”

My fists clenched. “Careful, Laura.”

Her lips curved, not into a smile exactly, but something far more cutting. “You silence them, Matt. You always do. But you can’t silence fate. Sometimes the goddess marks her mistakes in blood.” Her gaze drifted, deliberately, to the door where Hellen had vanished. “And sometimes, the mark is impossible to miss.”

Rage surged through me, hot and violent. I wanted to snarl, to bare my teeth and remind her of her place. But she bowed gracefully, mocking, and slipped back into the shadows before I could speak.

I stood alone in the courtyard, the torches flickering, the blood staining the stones at my feet. The night air was sharp, but all I felt was the storm inside me.

They were wrong.

They had to be.

Hellen was no curse. She was my mate, chosen by the goddess, bound to me by something older than all of this. She was fragile, yes. Weak, yes. But cursed? No.

And yet…

The image of her flinch seared through me again, the way she recoiled from my touch as though I were poison. The whispers of the crowd rang louder than the wind. The look in Rowan’s eyes. The venom in Laura’s voice.

Doubt clawed at me, sharp and merciless.

And in the silence of the night, when no one else could hear, a thought I despised whispered from the depths of me:

What if they’re right?