Chapter 5: Fury, Files and Feather

Harlow’s face contorted with a tinge of shock reading in her father’s office the new text that had just popped up on her phone screen.

“I have accepted the three conditions. Choose a date for the mating coronation and the preparation will start right away.”

The message was from Kai.

She reread it. Once. Twice. A third time. Hoping this wasn’t a stunt of any sort.

“How the hell did he agree to the terms?” she voiced, tossing the phone to Ian, who had fully recuperated and was sitting opposite her.

A slight shock tilted his down-turned lips after studying the screen like he does to history books.

“This is unbelievable. You crushed his ego. This message should’ve been a war declaration, not a wedding plan…”

This was the exact thing Harlow had thought after reading Raydes’ secret note. Raydes claimed a terrible danger was looming, and it revealed how the Elders, plus the officials, want her dead.

The mischievous beings planned on forming a pact with every GoldenBlood Pack rival, and would attack her on the Alpha coronation ceremony, which is in seven days’ time.

Harlow wished her wolf could be unlocked before then. And how else could she get the man she had almost murdered to mark her if not to accept his marriage proposal?

But... the sassy queen vowed not to make it easy.

Though she doubted Kai still wanted the union, not after the humiliation she served him, she crafted three conditions to avoid reeking of desperation.

Three conditions she didn’t think he’d accept.

First, their marriage would be a contract one. For three years at most. Secondly, they will both lead as equals. She will lead beside and not behind him.

And the last one was that no love-making would occur between them throughout the three years. Not until she says so.

However, it was to her certainty that no romantic tension would ignite between them. Even if it will, no mate bond will make her succumb.

She had it all planned out.

In fact, she had strategized soldiers on the outskirts of the pack to fight, provided Kai refuses the terms and pulls the war strings.

“He’s actually doing your bidding. Could it be the mate-bond?” Ian inquired, arching his brows as he returned the phone. “You are the first person in history to stand toe-to-toe with him like this.”

“I don’t know. All I know is, no man in this universe should think I’ll have to depend on him to survive and lead,” she replied and proceeded to text the date of the mating coronation to Kai.

It had to be two days before she was officially pronounced the Alpha Queen.

But the message didn’t deliver, and she didn’t notice.

“Gone are the days when women were treated like trash tools,” she muttered under her breath.

She had a flash of irritation, remembering how the Elders had always treated and belittled her.

And worse, the uneasy hunch that they might have played a bigger role in her dad’s death than Kai ever did struck her like a thunderbolt.

Ian could read her emotions. He brought out a thick file from his bag and placed it on the table.

“These are all the documents I have on the Elders. I have also compiled the list of our enemies so far. The Elders will lead us to the rest.”

Harlow’s eyes lit with grim satisfaction. “I appreciate this.” She brushed through the pages. “Their movements have always been shady. It baffles me how dad could still trust them after what they did a decade ago.”

Tension instantly grew in the room, and when she realized what she had done, she blurted, pulling up an apologetic face, “I’m sorry, Ian. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

“It is alright,” he expressed and wore a fake smile. “I am over it now.”

But somehow, Harlow could feel the depth of his agony. No man ever got over losing his wife and children. Especially not in the way Ian had.

What baffled her more was how her father had exonerated the dwarves, despite the damning evidence.

“You should take a rest. I’ll continue from here.”

“Thank you,” he mumbled, and out of the office, he strode without a word or a backward glance.

That was something he had never done unless annoyed or devastated, and this broke Harlow.

She shouldn’t have brought it up.

~~~

Hours later, Harlow was still in the office, stumbling upon fresh revelations from the file, when Raydes bolted in.

“What took you so long?” she inquired, flipping her eyes from the files to the slender, short-bearded man of average height.

A brief answer was all she demanded. A bomb of stretched urgency exploded from his mouth instead.

“My Queen Alpha, you need to see this!”

***

The malodorous breeze flowing out of the Royal Pack Hall was like a wave of blow. It almost struck Harlow the instance she climbed the grand staircase and gazed through the widened giant door.

“Who did this?!” she roared, shielding her nose with her palm as her pulse spiked, her blood blazing like an inferno.

The guards, the maids, including the event planners, stood transfixed in panic.

None of them had gotten over the sight of the hundreds of dead pigeons lying on the chairs. Their fresh blood carpeted the marbled ground, painting it a dark, grotesque red.

And here the Queen-to-be was, asking who the perpetrator was when no one knew.

“We have no idea,” Raydes uttered. “The event planners came to resume setup this morning and found… this.”

Harlow furrowed her eyeballs at the carnage, her fingers folding into a ball.

“You mean someone walked in here, slaughtered all these birds, painted this horror show...” she waved at the blood-slicked ground “... and walked out unnoticed? Where the hell were the guards?!”

She hadn’t witnessed something like this before, and was doing her best to remain diplomatic.

“None of the guards were here, my Queen. They had an emergency last midnight,” Raydes answered, and filled her in on what required all the guard’s attention the previous night.

“This is serious,” Harlow hissed. “It has to be the Elders. They’re trying to scare us into canceling the coronation,” she stated, gritting through her teeth after ordering the cleaners to make the hall spotless again.

As the event planners dispersed in horror, Raydes inched closer to Harlow and said, “I bet the Elders would do something as obvious as this.”

“Then who?” she inquired, staring at him like a puzzle.

He hesitated, then leaned in.

“What if it wasn’t them?” he whispered. “What if it was the Lycan King?”