Page 38 of The Alpha King's Mate

Something cool touched my forehead, and my eyes fluttered open.

Sorin.

His gaze had gone soft, his hand gentle against my skin.

“Nice try,” he whispered.“But I’m not done with you.”

I smiled weakly, tears sliding into my hairline.

He had no idea what the universe held in store for him.

Chapter 18

Sorin

There was no need to look at the crowd, my men, or the doctor. I could hear and feel their fear. Aliana’s eyes were not just red—they fucking glowed. Malakh was mute with shock.

Me?

I was so gone for my mate that they could proclaim her a dark witch and I would still kill every last one of them without hesitation, for the insult alone.

She was not just my mate. She was my destiny.

This was a boon from the Moon Goddess, and one I would honour for the rest of my life. My soul had left my body when I thought her dead—crippled in a way I would never fully comprehend.

I dipped the cloth in iced water and pressed it against her burning forehead.

Malakh rose silently, and I knew what he wanted. I bowed my head until Aliana’s eyes locked with ours. The tension left her—a ragged breath shuddering beneath her sternum. She saw us, and her eyes softened.

Two wolves.

Bound. Reflections of one another.

Our bond would not be weak. Our love would remain true. My allegiance would never falter.

“Alpha?”

I growled, turning to snap my teeth and snarl at the interruption.

Rev took a step back but held up his hand.

A small glass vial sat in his palm, fitted with silver at the base and cap.

“The stepmother had it in her purse.”

Every part of me wanted to rise, to hunt down the entire Silvermere delegation and paint the ceremony grounds red with a violence they wouldn’t survive long enough to regret. I wanted to peel skin from bone slowly enough to hear them beg, roast the flesh over the pit behind the kennels, and feed the ashes to the livestock—let something innocent benefit from what those people had tried to take from me.

But my arms were full of her. And nothing—not vengeance, not fury, not the Terrible clawing beneath my skin—was worth loosening my grip on my mate for even a second.

So I held still. I held her. And I let the rage build inside me like a furnace with no outlet, banking itself for later.

My left eye and cheek began to twitch.

“Place her family in the cells. All of them. Make sure they have nothing they could use to take their own lives.”

Because I intended to be the one who ended them. Slowly. Personally. When my hands were finally free to do it.

He nodded, waving Jax over as they took off.