Kaelen’s POV

My fingers closed around her throat.

Not the collar this time. Not the fabric. Skin. Warm, damp, trembling skin beneath my palm. I could feel her pulse slamming against my grip like a trapped bird.

I squeezed.

Her eyes went wide. Bulging. The calculated tears dried up instantly, replaced by something raw and animal. Real fear. The kind that lives in the spine, not the mind.

"I asked you a question."

She clawed at my wrist. Her nails scraped uselessly against my skin. Her mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out except a thin, wet rasp.

I held her there. Suspended in silence.

A few long heartbeats passed.

"Where is Gareth?"

Her lips moved. No sound. Just the faint blue tinge creeping into her cheeks, spreading outward from her mouth like frost on glass.

I leaned closer. Close enough to see every burst capillary in her eyes. Close enough to smell the salt of her tears and the sour edge of genuine terror beneath her perfume.

"I don’t—" A strangled whisper. "—know—"

I tightened my grip. Her feet scrabbled against the stone floor.

"Try again."

"I swear—" Her voice was barely a thread now, thin and breaking. "He stopped—answering—I don’t—"

Her face was turning purple. A dark, mottled shade that meant the blood had nowhere to go. Her hands stopped clawing and started shaking instead, fingers trembling against my forearm in weak, fluttering spasms.

I held for another moment.

Then I released her.

She dropped like something boneless. Collapsed onto the stone bench, then slid to the floor. Coughing. Retching. Dragging air into her lungs in great heaving gasps that echoed off the granite walls.

I stepped back. Rolled my shoulders. Flexed the hand that had held her throat. Her pulse still ghosted across my palm like a stain.

I turned toward the cell door and knocked twice. Slow. Deliberate.

The iron door groaned open.

Three men entered.

They were built like siege equipment. Broad shoulders. Thick arms. Necks wider than Seraphine’s waist. Each one dressed in plain black—no insignia, no rank markings, nothing that could be traced. They carried heavy wooden clubs at their sides, the kind designed to break bone through armor.

They fanned out across the narrow cell without a word. One blocked the door. The other two flanked the bench where Seraphine had crumpled, still gasping and coughing on the damp floor.

She looked up. Saw them. And whatever color had returned to her face drained away completely.

"Kaelen—" Her voice cracked. "What is this?"

I crouched down. Slowly. Until my eyes were level with hers. I wanted her to see my face clearly. Wanted her to understand that what came next wasn’t a bluff.

"I’m going to give you two choices." My voice was calm. Conversational. The voice I used for trade negotiations and border treaties. "Listen carefully, because I won’t repeat them."

She pressed herself against the wall. Her hands wrapped around her belly in that protective gesture she’d practiced so well in court. The gesture designed to remind everyone she was carrying an innocent life.

It meant nothing to me now.

"Choice one." I held up a single finger. "You tell me everything. Every detail of your arrangement with Gareth. Every location he’s used, every contact, every safe house, every bolt-hole. You cooperate fully and completely. In return, you keep the child. You’ll be confined, yes. Stripped of title. But the child lives. You live."

Her breathing hitched. Hope flickered behind the terror.

I held up a second finger.

"Choice two. You continue lying to me." I paused. Let the silence stretch until it became a physical weight in the cell. "And these men will beat that child out of your body. Then, I will sell you to the highest bidder at the salt mines or a brothel, and finally dump your broken body at the border to feed the rogues."

The sound she made wasn’t quite human. A strangled, choking noise that started as a gasp and ended as a wail.

"You wouldn’t—" She shook her head frantically. "You’re the Emperor. You wouldn’t hurt a pregnant—"

"That child is not mine."

Four words. Each one landed like a hammer blow. I watched them hit her, watched the impact ripple through her expression—shock, then denial, then the slow, creeping realization that the pretense was over.

"It was never mine," I continued. "It’s Gareth’s. We both know it. The court will know it soon enough. So don’t sit there clutching your belly like it’s some kind of shield, because the only person who ever believed that lie was my wife."

My voice cracked on the last word. Just barely. Just enough that I felt it splinter somewhere behind my ribs.

I stood up. Turned away from her. Stared at the wall until I could speak again without breaking.

"You and my brother turned me into this." Low. Rough. Like gravel dragged across stone. "Years ago, I was a man who would never have walked into this cell. Who would never have raised his hand to a woman carrying a child. Do you understand that? Do you understand what you’ve made me?"

Silence behind me. Except for her breathing. Fast and shallow and wet with tears.

"I want my wife back." I turned around. "And I will burn through anyone who stands between me and finding her. Including you. Including that child. Including whatever scraps of mercy I have left."

I released my dominance. Not gradually. Not in measured waves. All of it. The full, crushing weight of an Alpha Emperor’s authority slammed into the confined space like a physical wall.

Seraphine screamed.

The three guards shifted their stances. Even trained men felt it—the instinctive urge to kneel, to submit, to bare their throats. They held their positions through sheer discipline.

Seraphine had no such training.

She collapsed flat against the floor. Face pressed to the cold, wet stone. Her body convulsed. Not from pain. From the biological imperative of a lower-ranked wolf being crushed beneath the dominance of a true Alpha. Every nerve in her body was screaming at her to surrender. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

I stepped forward and crouched again. Seized her throat. Lifted her head just enough to force eye contact.

Her face was ruined. Swollen. Tear-streaked. Snot running freely from her nose. The handprint from earlier still blazed red across her cheek.

I held her gaze and counted.

One second. Her eyes bulged.

Two seconds. Her lips turned blue.

Three seconds. Her hands stopped clawing.

I threw her down.

She hit the cement floor face-first. The impact was wet and ugly. She rolled onto her side and vomited. Bile splattered across the stone in a thin, acidic stream. Her body curled inward, knees drawing up around her swollen belly, and she sobbed with the abandon of someone who had finally, completely shattered.

"He left me—" The words came between heaving gasps and retching. "He stopped answering—he just stopped—I kept writing and he never—he never—"

Her fingers dug into the stone floor. Nails scraping. Breaking.

"I don’t know where he is!" she screamed. The sound bounced off the walls and came back distorted. Monstrous. "He abandoned me! He used me and he left me here to—"

Another wave of vomiting cut her off. When it passed, she lay trembling in the mess of her own making, cheek pressed to the cold floor, eyes wild and unfocused.

Then—quieter. Almost a whisper.

"But I can tell you where he might be."