Does he feel nothing?
Did he ever?
"And these other alphas," she says after a moment, her tone carefully neutral. "Does Azarel know about them?"
Heat floods my cheeks. "No. They're... recent additions."
Her smile is knowing and maybe a little mischievous. "They seem quite the ragtag group. And all completely smitten with you. Especially the big… masked one."
The heat in my cheeks intensifies until I'm sure my face matches the red flowers we're passing. "I guess they are," I mumble, suddenly fascinated by the gravel path beneath our feet.
"Oh my dear, there's no shame in it," she says warmly. "Love comes in many forms, and the heart wants what it wants. Or in your case,whoit wants."
Before I can die of embarrassment, a young servant comes rushing toward us, his face flushed and slightly panicked.
"Your Majesty," he pants, dropping into a hasty bow. "I'm so sorry to interrupt, but we're out of bread. I've never seen alphas eat so much. Especially the white-haired one. He's gone through three loaves already, and so much wine!"
"Which white-haired one?" I ask. "The menacing one or the masked one?" I'd be shocked if Knight took his mask off. He won't even do that around me.
"The menacing one," the servant says, blanching. "The masked one just looks like he wants to eatus."
The Queen chuckles, the sound rich and genuinely amused. "Nothing wrong with a healthy appetite," she says, which makes the servant look like he's about to pass out with fear. She turns to me with an apologetic smile. "Would you excuse me for a moment, my dear? I need to ensure we don't have a famine on our hands."
"Of course," I say, secretly grateful for the reprieve. My head's spinning from everything. The Queen's warmth, the mention of Azarel, the unexpected acceptance of my pack.
As they head back toward the palace, I wander deeper into the gardens, needing a moment alone to process everything. The paths wind between hedges tall enough to block out the world, creating little pockets of solitude. I find myself in a secluded grove where a glorious marble fountain shaped like an ibis pours water into a pool covered in lily pads.
The craftsmanship of the statue takes my breath away. There's something in the way the sculptor brought such life out of white marble, like the vision within was already there, waiting to be freed from its stone encasement.
It reminds me of the small statue my mother kept to our goddess, Ylvan, hidden away in a tiny shrine masquerading as a jewelry box. She taught me how to pray, and that whenever the burdens of life grew too heavy to bear on my own, if I went to Ylvan and asked with pure intentions and an earnest heart, she'd answer me.
One day, I forgot to lock the box back up.
A servant found the statue while dusting and my father shattered it with a hammer. My mother never scolded me, but her sobs were punishment enough.
Sometimes I still hear the echoes of them in my dreams and quiet moments.
And it's quiet here. Painfully so. Quiet in a way that makes the voices of the past rise up louder to compensate, and every minor sound feel sharper. Louder. The splash of water, the rustle of leaves, the soft crunch of gravel behind?—
A hand clamps over my mouth before I can scream.
Strong arms wrap around me from behind, lifting me slightly off my feet. I claw at the forearms holding me, my nails drawing blood, ready to fight with everything I have when a familiar scent hits me like a knife in the back.
Sunlight.
Warm, golden sunlight on a summer day.
The scent I fell asleep dreaming about for months.
The scent that haunted my cell, my nightmares, my desperate hopes.
Azarel.
Chapter 34
AZAREL
The palace.
