Page 54 of The Alpha King’s Hidden Mute Mate

I leaned back in my chair, eyes closed. My head was a mess—like yarn a cat had gotten to. Mia's face, Leah's smile, the elders' stern expressions, the prophet's sharp eyes—all these images flashing through my mind, making my head pound.

I stood up and decided to walk.

The hallway stretched long, sunlight streaming through stained glass windows, casting colored patterns on the floor. I walked aimlessly, not knowing where I was going, just wanting my legs to move, wanting the wind to clear my cluttered mind.

When I came to, I was standing at the end of the west corridor.

At that door.

Her door.

I stared at the closed wooden door. The wind chimes she'd hung were still there—strung with shells and colored glass beads. Wind slipped through the window crack, making them tinkle softly.

I didn't know why I'd come here. Maybe to confirm she was really gone. Maybe... something else.

I pushed the door open.

The room was empty, like no one had ever lived there. The sheets were stripped, leaving a bare mattress. The wardrobe door hung open, vacant inside. The flower pots on the windowsill were gone—had she taken them? Or were they thrown out?

I walked in and looked around. The air still held a faint trace of her scent—that mix of jasmine and rain-soaked earth. It was already fading, ready to dissolve into nothing.

My wolf whimpered softly inside me.

Enough, I told it. She's gone. Accept it.

I turned to leave, but my peripheral vision caught something—the desk drawer wasn't fully closed, revealing a corner of yellowed paper.

I walked over and pulled it open.

Inside lay several crumpled sheets covered in dense handwriting. The script was messy, some parts crossed out, ink bleeding through—like they'd been revised over and over.

I picked them up. The first page seemed to be a poem.

"They call the chains protection,

So I danced in shackles."

My fingers froze, breath catching. I felt like someone had tapped my soul with a tiny hammer.

I kept reading. Second page, third, fourth—each one different fragments, some complete paragraphs, some just a few lines. The handwriting was sloppy, heavily edited, but every word carried undeniable power.

"I have a garden full of words I cannot speak.

They bloom in moonlight, wither before dawn.

No one knows their names,

Just as no one knows mine."

I set the papers down, leaned against the desk, complex emotions rising in my chest.

She... wrote these?

That mute orphan girl? The one I'd thought had nothing but silence and obedience? She had this kind of talent?

I picked up the papers again and read them through once more. This time, slower, more carefully, trying to see through those words a version of her I'd never known.

"If I ever speak,