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TYRION

I dreamed about her again. The past week had been a constant madness, and yet she could silence everything around me and fill my thoughts with nothing but her image. My mate. I had never wanted to have one. Having someone to care about felt bothersome, especially for an Alpha King. The very thought of love and all that crap was making me want to puke, but now I was genuinely considering claiming her—my silver-haired angel.

This was all so fucked up. Only a week ago, my father was still alive and was as fucking annoying and useless as a king as usual. Now, I was about to become the next King and the Alpha of the Moon Blade Pack. I dreamed of this day. I was ready for it. But I had fucking never wanted to take over due to my father's being assassinated.

Two weeks ago, I learned about Silver Blood Pack's drug business, but when I told my father about it, he refused to investigate it. I got seriously pissed. I took two of my men, Felix and Zane, and we went undercover to get evidence of the Silver Bloods' crime. Luckily, Felix occasionally banged a witch and surprisingly, she still liked him enough to make us potions that blocked our scents and auras. Finally, we went to Silverville pretending to be humans riding an old pickup truck.

All the traces led us to the Silver Mist Club, and we found the drugs there. It all went according to plan without a need to reveal our identities. I was about to get the fuck out of there when some drunken she-wolf pushed me onto the stage...

It was the most humiliating five minutes of my life. Pretending that I was human the entire day was bad enough, but pretending to be a stripper was a fucking nightmare. I was trying to find my way out of this mess, but then I saw her.

I had always considered the royal family's special abilities a curse. All of my senses were three times sharper than those of normal wolves. I often saw more and heard more than I wanted to, which was mostly bothersome as hell. But the reason everyone called my abilities the Moon Goddess blessing was that I was able to sense my mate any day of the year. All I needed to do was to feel her scent... And that was what had happened that night at the club.

She was fucking perfection. My wolf went crazy as soon as we felt her strawberry and jasmine scent. The need to have her had overcome everything else. That night had been the most satisfying night of my life, and it was all I could think about ever since. I knew that no other woman could ever make me feel this way. I was ready to claim her and make her mine forever, but I couldn't.

When I felt my father's link broke, I knew I had to go back immediately and secure my reign before my shithead of an uncle or anyone else decided to claim the throne. I left my silver-haired beauty alone in the hotel room like the last asshole. My decision infuriated my wolf, and I could sense him every single day urging me to go back to Silverville. That day had finally come.

"That's it, your highness." Felix followed me to my car with a dumb grin on his face. "How do you feel about going to Silver Blood Pack again… as a King this time?"

I glared at him and got into the car. Truthfully, I had no idea how to describe how I felt. This week had been fucking torture. I had caught and judged my father's killer, and then I spent endless hours arguing with the royal council until I got what I wanted—a sentence for the Silver Blood Pack's Alpha and everyone involved in the drug business.

I knew that the chauvinistic rules of the Silver Blood Pack excluded all she-wolves from being in charge of the business. That way, I could be certain that my silver-haired mate wasn't involved in all this. I wanted nothing more than to show Alpha Blaze the royal decree, judge this fucker quickly, and then leave, taking my mate with me.

Felix, Zane, and I were going in my Maserati while the thirty royal warriors I took with us were driving in the vans. I wanted to bring the warriors just in case the Silver Bloods decided to put on a fight, but seriously, I didn't think it would come to that. The guys and I met those Silver Bloods the last time, and they seemed weak as fuck.

As expected, the guards at the town gates just let us into the pack's territory. I bet they were shitting their pants as soon as they saw the royal decree. They must have mind-linked their Alpha, but it was too late for him to make any moves. We didn't need more evidence. This shithead was going down.

We went straight to the packhouse and dragged everyone out to the courtyard. To my surprise, Alpha Blaze looked like a complete wimp. He was trembling and looking defeated even before I read him the royal council's sentence. As soon as he and the few ranked wolves from his pack heard the decree, they almost collapsed to their knees. Those fuckers must have known that the life they had was now officially over and they would spend the rest of their shitty years in jail.

There was a blonde she-wolf standing by Alpha Blaze. She seemed terrified. She ran before me with tears in her eyes.

"Please! Spare me!" she begged. "I knew nothing about those drugs! Please, you have to believe me! In our pack, only the men run the business, and women remain clueless!"

I had no intention of putting her in jail, but I thought that I could at least make use of her. "All right." I gave her a cold smirk. "I will spare you on one condition… There is a young silver-haired she-wolf living in your pack. I need to find her. Tell me, where is she?"

The blond-haired woman turned pale. Then she glanced back at her Alpha, and I could see him turning even paler. Felix, who stood beside me, growled and grabbed the woman's arm. "Don't look at this Alpha-piece-of-shit! Answer the King!"

The blonde swallowed hard. "I… I need more details to find her, your highness."

I huffed impatiently. "Do you insinuate that there is more than one young woman with true silver hair in your pack?"

"N-no... your highness," she mumbled.

"Then?"

The woman started to shiver, and more tears fell down her cheeks. "She is dead!" she cried out.

My eyes turned red in an instant. My wolf howled within me. My blood boiled, and I could hardly resist killing everyone around me. "What the fuck do you mean she's dead?!" I thundered.

She cringed underneath my aura. "H-her name was Aria Seymour. She was punished... for defying her Alpha's orders…"

Felix narrowed his eyes at her. "Seymour? Was she Alpha Blaze's relative?"

The woman nodded. "She was his sister."

"Damara!" the Alpha shithead growled at the blonde. Zane stepped toward the fucker and punched his face, silencing him.

I could hardly control the beast within me. My claws grew and my voice changed into an animalistic growl. "Lock them up before I rip them to pieces! And you"—I pointed at the blonde—"are going to tell me exactly how she died and show me where it was!"

***

Fifteen minutes later, I was standing in front of the Silverville factory, or rather, what was left of it. As I got closer to the ruins, my wolf started to wail. My inner rage was joined by the most bitter grief I had ever felt.

"So you are telling me that the girl I am looking for was tortured for a week and then died in an explosion?!" I roared, using the final ounce of strength to stop my wolf from taking over.

The blonde fell to her knees. "H-have mercy! Our Alpha h-has always hated h-his sister! No one could have stopped h-him…" she cried while shivering in fear.

Felix took a cautious step toward me. "Orders, your highness?" His voice was filled with concern.

I squeezed through my teeth, "Take her away and leave me here alone for a while."

He looked at me for a moment as if he hesitated about what to do. He had never seen me so close to losing all control, but I was about to officially become his Alpha and his King. He didn't dare defy me.

"Yes, your highness," he said before grabbing the woman's arm and walking away with her.

I stepped onto the ruins and took a deep breath through my nose. Fucking wolfsbane's smell was omnipresent. I closed my eyes and focused, sharpening my senses until I found something familiar...

"Strawberries and jasmine..." The delicious scent was mixed with the smell of copper. It was her blood.

The pain I felt nearly crushed my chest. My wolf cried, driving me toward insanity. I followed the scent, which was present in the vast area under the collapsed blocks of the factory. Was she trying to run away? Did she make it alive? I still held onto the faint hope within me.

I followed the strawberry-copper scent until I found a dried red-brown stain on the ground, a few feet from the entrance. The wailing of my wolf almost made my skull explode. I knew what he meant. Every trace of her scent ended in that place. This was where my mate had died.

I had never shed a single tear in my life. I didn't cry at my mother's funeral when I was six, and I certainly didn't shed a tear burying my father. But acknowledging that my mate was no longer alive brought me pain that reached beyond my darkest imagination. I howled and growled in unison with the spirit wolf within me. My human restraints ceased to exist. My inner beast and I wanted the same, and that was to make every single fucker from that pack pay for the death of my mate.

I went back to the packhouse, which became those fuckers' temporary prison. Zane and Felix tried to stop me, but their strength couldn't match mine, not when my wolf nearly took over. I grabbed the Silver Blood Pack's Alpha by the collar and brought him to his knees. My aura started to choke him, but that was far from the pain I wished to grant him. I looked at the rest of the ranked bastards. They all begged me for mercy, joining their Alpha on their knees.

"Where is her body?!" I thundered.

One of the eldest dared to answer. "I-it was cremated! All the bodies from the factory were burnt beyond recognition, so we cremated them!"

His words threw me off the edge. I couldn't even bury my mate properly. I stopped fighting my fury and let it devour my senses. A second later, my hand smashed the Alpha dipshit's ribcage. I ripped out his heart and watched his lifeless body fall to the ground while I slowly squeezed his heart until it stopped beating. The rest of the ranked shitheads observed the execution with horror in their eyes. I smirked coldly. They were next.