Elara’s POV

Kaelen carried me into our bedchamber, my body still soaked in champagne. He set me down gently, his hands reaching for the ruined laces of my dress to help me untie them.

I caught his wrists, pressing his hands away.

"I’m fine," I insisted, even though I could feel the tiny pricks of crystal shards still buried in my hair.

His jaw tightened, his dark gold eyes filled with worry, but he didn’t push. When he left to go check on the children, I stepped into the bathroom.

The bathwater ran cold before I stepped in.

I did it on purpose. Turned the handle all the way left and stood beneath the stream until my teeth chattered and my skin went numb and the champagne slid off me in pale rivulets that circled the drain like liquid gold.

Cold was good. Cold was clarity. But it couldn’t wash away Sylvia’s pitying gaze, or the echo of the nobles’ whispers in the ballroom.

Filthy half-breeds.

A taint on the royal bloodline.

I scrubbed my arms until they were pink. One by one, I pulled the remaining crystal shards from my wet hair. They clinked against the tile floor like fallen teeth.

The cuts on my palms stung under the water. Shallow. Insignificant. I pressed them together and watched the thin lines of red bloom and fade, bloom and fade.

A mortal.

That’s what I was now. No wolf. No heightened senses. No supernatural strength or speed or the ability to feel my mate through the bond the way he could feel me. Just flesh and bone and blood that spilled too easily.

I turned off the water. Stood dripping in the silence.

When I finally opened the door, Kaelen stood near the fireplace. He’d stripped off his ruined jacket and shirt. His chest was bare—broad, scarred in places, the kind of body that had been built for war and refined by it. He’d changed into loose sleeping trousers that hung low on his hips. The firelight carved shadows along the hard lines of his torso.

He turned when he heard me.

Those dark gold eyes swept over me. Reading. Searching.

"The children are fine," he said. His voice was careful. Controlled. "Nanny says they were perfect little angels. Valerius wanted to stay up until we came home, but he fell asleep on the rug with his wolf." A pause. "Lyra didn’t even stir."

I nodded. "Good." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

I moved to the vanity. Sat down. Began unwinding the towel from my hair. My fingers trembled. I willed them to stop, but they wouldn’t listen.

Behind me, his reflection appeared in the mirror. He stood close. Not touching.

"Ela."

"Hmm."

"Let me see your hands."

"They’re fine. Just scratches."

He sat on the edge of the bed. Leaned forward. Elbows on his knees. The posture of a man carrying something heavier than his body.

"The things they said tonight." His jaw tightened. I could see the muscle flex in the mirror. "Henry. Sylvia. The whispers. All of it." He paused. A rough, resentful exhale. "The Empire expects me to find a mate with stronger blood. A wolf who can stand beside me and give them the image they want."

My hand stilled on the comb.

There it was. The truth, stripped bare. I could see the rage simmering beneath the careful surface of his restraint. He was furious at them, but the words still landed like stones dropped into deep water.

The Empire expects.

My hands trembled as I gripped the vanity. "They’re right," I said.

His head snapped up. "What?"

"They’re right, Kaelen." I set the comb down. Met his eyes in the mirror. My voice came out flat. Steady. "I’m a mortal. I have no wolf. I can’t shift. I’m a weak, ordinary mortal who can’t even protect our children from threats."

"Stop."

The word carried weight. Not the Alpha command, but a stern, unyielding demand.

He was on his feet. Crossing the room. His hands found my shoulders and turned me on the vanity stool until I faced him. He crouched in front of me so our eyes were level.

"Don’t," he commanded, his voice rough. "Don’t you dare doubt yourself." His thumb traced the line of my cheekbone. "You are the woman I love more than my own life. You are my mate. And no title, no bloodline, no crowd of perfumed cowards whispering behind their goblets will ever change that."

My eyes burned.

I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to. But I could still hear it—Sylvia’s pitying gaze, the murmured word half-breeds drifting across the ballroom like poison.

A weak, ordinary woman pretending to belong.

I pushed him away, my hands flat against his chest to break the contact. "I’m tired," I said, stepping back from his warmth. "I need to sleep."

His hands fell away. His eyes searched mine—desperate, almost. Hunting for something I couldn’t give him.

Then he nodded. Slow. Reluctant. He pressed his lips to my forehead.

"We’ll talk in the morning," he said.

I let him lead me to the bed. Let him pull the covers over me. Let him curl his body around mine from behind.

I lay still. Perfectly still.

A short while later, his breathing became even. The slow deepening. The subtle release of tension in his arm.

I slid out from beneath his arm. Inch by careful inch. The sheets whispered. The mattress shifted. I froze—but he only murmured something indistinct and turned onto his back.

The moonlight streaming through the curtains fell across his face and his powerful, perfect monarch’s body. The strong column of his throat. The hard line of his jaw. The broad chest rising and falling with the steady rhythm of a man who believed his world was still intact.

I stood there watching him.

You deserve a queen, I thought. A real one. Someone who can match you. Someone whose blood doesn’t make your children a target.

My bare feet made no sound on the stone floor as I slipped out of the room and headed down the corridor.

I eased the door to Valerius’s room open. The night-lamp cast a soft amber glow across his bed. He lay on his side, his black hair spilling across the pillow, one arm draped over his stuffed wolf toy. Even with his dark gold eyes—so like his father’s—closed in sleep, the resemblance was startling.

I knelt beside his bed. Pressed my lips to his temple.

The nursery was at the end of the corridor. Lyra slept in her crib, swaddled in pale linen. When I touched her cheek, her tiny fist shot out and hooked tightly around my finger. Her grip was startlingly strong.

I let her hold me. Something cracked open in my chest, wide and raw and bottomless.

They need a strong wolf mother. Not this. Not me.

I gently freed my finger.

I returned to the bed with a calm despair, slipping beneath the covers. Kaelen’s arm found me instinctively, drawing me close.

I stared at the ceiling. The moonlight made patterns on the stone. Silver-white. Cold and clean.

"Tomorrow," I decided.