Chapter 554
“I want to see if she remembers the taste of home,” I said, my gaze never leaving Adella’s terrified face on the screen. “Or if she’s forgotten everything.”
Azalea POV
While Dallas was out in the storm playing his twisted, calculated games of surveillance with Adella, my battlefield was waiting behind a set of heavy double doors.
I adjusted my tailored blazer, the leather briefcase in my hand feeling as heavy as an anchor. I drew a slow breath, pushed the doors open, and stepped into the Council Chamber of the Blackwood Pack.
The circular room was dominated by a massive table carved from polished millennium-oak. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sprawling, rain-soaked territory of the Blackwood Pack stretched out like a dark ocean. Inside, the air was thick with tension — stale power, nervous energy, and the faint crackle of ancient magic.
Marcus Hyde was already on his feet, pacing near the head of the table like a starved vulture.
“Four months!” Marcus barked, slamming his fist against the polished wood. “Our Alpha King has been a ghost for four months. The Pack’s spirit is fracturing. We bleed strength every day he remains hidden.”
I took my seat quietly, keeping my face a mask of stone.
Marcus sneered, his eyes sweeping over the gathered Elders. “You’ve all seen the chatter on RogueNet. You know the rumors. The silver poisoning didn’t just stop his heart — it killed his Inner Wolf. Dallas Marshall is an empty shell. A wolfless.”
My Inner Wolf snarled at the blatant disrespect, her claws scraping against the edges of my mind, but I forced her down. I needed them to play their hands fully.
“We need a leader the people can see,” Marcus continued, his voice dripping with false piety as he dressed his treason up as salvation. “Someone to appease the Moon Goddess and restore order. I propose an immediate vote to elect me as acting Alpha.”
The tension in the room spiked. Elder Malcolm — a man who had sworn loyalty to the Marshall bloodline decades ago — didn’t miss a beat.
“I second the motion,” Malcolm declared, his voice echoing in the charged silence. “We must answer for the survival of the Pack. We cannot be ruled by a dead wolf.”
A murmur of agreement rippled through the room. Several Elders, swayed by fear and Marcus’s manipulation, began to raise their hands. The coup was seconds away from being legitimized.
“Put your hands down,” I said.
My voice wasn’t loud, but it sliced through the heavy air like a silver blade. Every eye in the room snapped to me.
I rose slowly and unlatched my briefcase. “There will be no vote today, Marcus.”
“You have no authority here, Azalea,” Marcus spat, his face flushing with anger. “You are nothing but his adopted stray. The Pack needs an Alpha, not a secretary.”
I didn’t blink. I reached into the briefcase and drew out a heavy, rolled parchment. The golden wax seal of the Marshall family gleamed beneath the chandelier, radiating a faint but undeniable pulse of Alpha energy.