Chapter 191
Chapter 191:
Kain POV
The world around me ceased to exist. The ambient chatter of the French café, the clinking of porcelain, the soft jazz playing overhead — it all faded into a deafening, ringing silence.
My eyes were locked on the pale inner wrist of the human woman kneeling before my nephew. The faint, star-shaped birthmark mirrored the exact one on Jaxon’s tiny arm. It was an impossible sight. A ghost made flesh.
My Inner Wolf thrashed against my ribs, snarling in a chaotic mix of profound confusion and lethal vigilance. Grant’s mate was dead. She had perished seven years ago in a twisted wreckage of silver and fire. Yet as I stood there, the air shifted. Beneath the heavy, artificial layers of Carmella Golden’s designer perfume, my Lycan senses caught a scent so faint it was almost a phantom.
Rosemary and rain.
The breath stalled in my lungs. It was her. It was the scent of my brother’s dead mate.
I forced the violent storm of my emotions down, burying them beneath centuries of ice. I could not afford to react. Not here. Not when the truth was a shattered mirror of impossibilities.
I stepped forward, my towering frame casting a dark shadow over them. “Jaxon. Come,” I commanded, my voice a low, rumbling baritone laced with the absolute, undeniable weight of an Alpha.
Jaxon flinched. His small fingers reluctantly uncurled from Carmella’s coat. He looked at her one last time before shuffling toward me, his head bowed in a rare display of submission.
I didn’t offer Carmella a hand. I gave her only a stiff, mechanical nod. “Thank you for your assistance, Ms. Golden,” I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.
𝖥iոd 𝗻о𝘷𝘦𝗅 P𝘋𝖥ѕ оո
Without waiting for her response, I turned on my heel and gestured for Adelina to follow. The walk through the Columbus Circle mall to the entrance was a blur of tense, suffocating silence. The moment the crisp autumn wind hit my face, I reached out through the private, encrypted pathways of my mind.
Fletcher, I snapped through the mind-link, my mental voice a crackling whip of authority.
My King? my Beta responded instantly.
Carmella Golden. I want every second of her last seven years. Dig, I ordered coldly. Leave no stone unturned. If she bought a cup of coffee five years ago, I want the receipt.
Consider it done, Fletcher replied, sensing the lethal edge in my tone.
We reached the curb where the black Rolls-Royce Phantom was waiting. The heavy doors clicked shut, sealing us inside a luxurious cage. The air in the cabin immediately plummeted in temperature, thick with the ozone and ancient cedar of my suppressed fury.
Adelina sat across from me, her eyes moving between Jaxon and my rigid posture. She had seen the birthmarks. I could see the questions burning in her beautiful eyes — the desperate need to understand the tectonic shift that had just occurred.
“Kain,” she started, her voice tentative but probing. “What just happened back there? That mark on her wrist p>