“He was seen in the South, my king.
Near the old border settlements that still answer to the pack.
Our scouts are certain.
They believe he is hiding there.
They also believe the southern pack may be sheltering him deliberately.
We may also have cause to believe that the Luna is involved because it has been discovered that he’s hiding specifically in their pack.” The words settled over Malachi like a second skin.
He stood in the corridor with the letter from Lauretta’s mother still crushed in one fist, For a moment he said nothing.
The soldier remained on one knee, eyes fixed on the floor, waiting.
Gerald in the South.
Gerald sheltered by the very pack that had produced the southern girl currently lying in the medical wing.The same girl whose possible involvement the scouts now whispered about.
Malachi felt his wolf surge so hard he had to lock his jaw to keep the shift from ripping through him in the middle of the hallway.
“Get up,” he said.
The soldier rose at once.
Malachi’s mind moved quickly, coldly, stacking the pieces.
Mira’s claim of pregnancy.
The letter that suggested Lauretta was more than a treaty bride.
Gerald’s betrayal.
And now the South openly or quietly giving that traitor shelter.
If Lauretta’s people were protecting Gerald, then the treaty itself was already compromised.
If Lauretta knew, or if her mother had arranged it, then every soft look and stubborn silence the southern girl had given him since her arrival took on a different shape.
He would not allow it.
“Listen carefully,” Malachi said, voice low and precise.
“I want Lauretta’s mother brought to this palace under arrest.
I want the man who called himself her boyfriend brought with her, I want them both in chains if necessary.
I want them here before the sun sets tomorrow.
If the southern pack resists, you are authorized to use force.
If anyone questions the order, you tell them it comes directly from the King of the North.
Am I understood?” “Yes, my king.” “Take as many men as you need.
I want this done quietly enough that the South does not have time to hide them, but thoroughly enough that there is no chance of failure.
Bring them to the lower cells first.
I will decide what happens after I have spoken with them.” The soldier bowed and left at a run.
Malachi remained where he stood for several more seconds, the letter still heavy in his hand.
He could almost still hear Mira weeping behind the closed door at the end of the corridor.
He crushed the sound out of his awareness.
Tears were weakness.
His father had drilled that into him until the lesson lived in his bones.
Mira’s pregnancy claim, true or false, would be handled.
The letter would be handled.
Gerald would be handled.
And the South would learn what happened when they sheltered a traitor and touched what belonged to the North.
He turned and walked toward his office, every step measured.
Servants pressed themselves against the walls as he passed.
None of them dared meet his eyes.
The wolf inside him continued to pace, hungry for violence, for answers, for the clean satisfaction of control reasserted.
Lauretta was awake in the medical wing.
She would remain there under guard until he decided otherwise.
The nurse could feed her and bathe her and administer the drugs.
He would not go to her yet.
Not while the possibility existed that her people were already moving against him through Gerald.
By the time he reached the office the orders had already begun to move through the keep.
He stood at the window and watched the courtyard below as men gathered, cars were brought out, and the first group of soldiers prepared for the hard ride south.
The letter from Lauretta’s mother lay on the desk where he had finally set it down.
The words about old blood and suppressed shifts and a daughter who was a key still sat in his mind like stones.
He did not trust the timing.
A mother who waited until her daughter was already claimed by the North before writing the truth.
A traitor who fled straight into that same mother’s territory.
A southern girl who had run from the medical ward, injured herself, drawn Lucian’s hands onto her skin, and then collapsed into a coma only to wake again as if the world owed her continued breath.
Every piece of it scraped against the simple revenge he had constructed around her.
The soldiers left the courtyard in a tight column.
Malachi watched until the last of them disappeared beyond the gates.
Only then did he turn back to the desk and the maps spread across it.
The Eastern Reach still simmered.
Mira still claimed to carry his child.
Lauretta still occupied space in his thoughts that no nonentity should have been able to claim.
And somewhere in the South, Gerald was being sheltered by people who would soon learn the cost of that choice.
Night fell while he worked.
Reports continued to arrive.
The men he had sent south rode hard and without rest.
By the early hours before dawn the first messenger returned, mud-splattered and exhausted, dropping to one knee inside the office.
“It is done, my king.
The mother was taken from her home without resistance.
The boyfriend attempted to fight and was subdued.
Both are in custody.
Both are being brought north under heavy guard.
They should arrive by tomorrow evening.” Malachi nodded once.
“Put them in the lower cells when they arrive.
Separate cells.
No contact with each other.
No contact with the Luna.
I will see them myself.” The messenger left.
Malachi remained standing over the maps long after the door closed.
The letter still lay where he had left it.
He picked it up again and read the final lines once more, the mother’s love and apologies and warnings sinking deeper with each pass.
You are not a nonentity.
You are not a weapon to be used and set aside.
He folded the paper slowly and locked it inside the desk drawer.
The mother would learn differently soon enough.
So would the boyfriend.
So would anyone in the South who thought sheltering Gerald would come without consequence.
Malachi poured himself a measure of dark wine and drank it without tasting.
The wolf inside him finally settled into a low, waiting crouch.
One of the foot soldiers stood in the open doorway, eyes carefully lowered, the posture of a man who knew he had interrupted something dangerous.
“My king.
Forgive the intrusion.
We have information”.
Malachi’s attention snapped fully to the soldier.
“Speak.” “Gera..
Gerald ” The guard continued shakily “your majesty Gerald escaped from the cell “.
Malachi froze momentarily on his chair, he swallowed calmy, trying to process this piece of information, he could feel l his hands clenching,his wolf pacing restlessly as if it couldn’t believe what it just heard.
He stood from the chair, his hands going to the throat of the guard as if on instinct, rage boiled in him, he could hear the guard choking, his small hands compared to Malachi trying to loosen grip on his neck, the guard thrashed helplessly like a caught bird.
“Malachi what are you doing ” Lucien interrupting him making his release the guard who ran away immediately, his face flushed purple, the mark of Malachi’s death grip on his neck.
“Do you have any idea of what you just did?
” Lucien yelled.
“Don’t you dare lecture me about my actions brother, none of this would be happening if you weren’t having a midnight rendezvous with my wife” “You’re so stubborn and unforgiving Malachi, God forbid I care about my sister in law and opt to take care of her wounds while she was running to God knows where away from her husband ” Lucien shot back.
“Don’t Lucien, don’t ” Malachi thundered his thick brows furrowed in anger “the only reason why you haven’t been tortured and killed is because I say so Lucien, I’m only having mercy on you because you’re my brother, no one touches my wife and gets away with it, so it would be better brother, if you knew what’s good for you, not to provoke me, I could rescind my consideration whenever.
Malachi sat back on his swivel chair, his chest tight for reasons unknown to him.
“Gerald has escaped, what are you going to do?
Are you going to drown yourself in vodka?
You’re a king act like it “.
Malachi sneered, he wouldn’t say anything, he wouldn’t give his rage baiting brother a chance to rile him up.