Chapter 153: A Mother’s Rage.
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Chapter 153: A Mother’s Rage
Chapter 153: A Mother’s Rage.
(Celeste’s POV)
I knelt on the polished but unforgiving stone floor of Regina Blackwood’s private chambers,
the cold seeping through the thin layer of my skirt. My knees throbbed with a sharp ache, yet I
didn’t dare shift or adjust. Any movement might provoke the already volatile woman towering
over me.
“Look at you,” Regina hissed, her violet eyes glowing dangerously with her wolf’s barely
restrained fury. “Kneeling there so obediently now. Where was this submission when my son needed you?”
Her sharp words sliced through the stale air, heavy with her hatred and grief. I kept my head
bowed, swallowing the sharp retort stuck at the back of my throat. Speaking out now would
only fan the flames of her anger, and I couldn’t afford that.
“You worthless, selfish b***h!” she snarled, her voice trembling as her wolf surged close to the
surface. “My Marcus is out there, suffering because of you! Because of your arrogance and
ingratitude!”
My wolf whimpered internally, her claws scratching at the walls of my mind. But she didn’t
dare rise, not here, not against this woman.
Regina seethed, pacing back and forth like a predator ready to strike at the first sign of
resistance. Her ornate gown swished with each agitated movement, a stark reminder of the
royal authority she wielded.
“Those rogue wolves,” she spat, her tone trembling with both fear and rage. “Do you have any
idea what they’re capable of? What they will do to my son?”
A ripple of unease ran through me. I knew. Everyone in the kingdom knew what the Northern
rogues were infamous for–their cruelty, their total disregard for the pack hierarchy, their
savage treatment of captives. But as much as I despised Marcus, I couldn’t let her see that
knowledge in my eyes.
Instead, I kept my gaze trained on the floor and my expression carefully neutral. Regina didn’t
need to know that somewhere deep in my heart, I felt no sympathy for her son. Not after what
I had seen in his Dark Forest torture den.
“My poor Marcus,” she whispered now, her voice cracking, her sobs making her wolf’s aura
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Chapter 153: A Mother’s Rage
fluctuate erratically between anger and despair. “He didn’t deserve this. None of this.”
Her words tugged at a mix of complicated emotions I couldn’t fully understand. Pity, perhaps- but not for Marcus. For her. For the mother who believed in the false image of her son.
Her violet eyes turned back to me, cold and sharp once more, and her voice rose again. “Do you hear me? He didn’t deserve this! But you–YOU–drove him to it!”
I braced myself for yet another verbal onslaught, but she whirled away from me in a fit of anguish. Her hands clenched into fists as she pressed them against her temples. Her grief was overwhelming, her aura pulsing wildly enough to make even the beta guards flinch from
their posts just outside the doorway.
“My Marcus…” she murmured, her tone despairing now, almost tender. “He’s suffered enough already. That cursed battle injury… it wasn’t fair to take his strength, his pride, his future as an
Alpha.”
Her sorrow hung heavily in the air, but her words reignited my bitterness. Marcus’s diminishing
Alpha powers? His “suffering“? Did she know how many other wolves had suffered under his
perverse need to prove his dominance? Did she know about the broken bodies left behind in
his torture den?
And yet, even with those vivid memories burning in my mind, anger gave way to cold,
calculated thought. As much as I despised Marcus, as much as I wished him to suffer for his
sins, I couldn’t allow him to die.
His claim on me–though unmarked–was a weapon I couldn’t afford to lose. Without it, I’d be
vulnerable to the Winter Pack’s ever–shifting schemes. He needed to live… at least long
enough to solidify that claim.
“You can’t die, Marcus,” I thought fiercely, aware of the irony in my desperation to keep him
alive. “If you must die, you have to mark me as your mate first.”
“You ungrateful little wretch!” Regina’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. She turned back
toward me with renewed fury, her wolf flaring. “Do you even feel remorse for what you’ve done?
My son is suffering because of YOU!”
I forced my jaw to unclench. Four years in Moon Shadow Prison had taught me the art of
submission, the value of silence in the face of unbridled rage. Regina would find no
satisfaction in my words, no vindication in my reactions.
“Your life means nothing compared to his!” Regina suddenly shrieked, misinterpreting my
silence as defiance. “You’re just a disgraced wolf who should have rotted in Moon Shadow
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Chapter 153: A Mother’s Rage
Prison!”
I absorbed the verbal assault silently. After four years of torture in that prison, words couldn’t
hurt me anymore.
Regina paced the chamber like a caged animal, her royal wolf radiating waves of distress that
made the beta guards wince.
“If anything happens to him…” she threatened again, though her voice had lost some of its earlier venom, replaced by raw desperation.
Time crawled by, marked only by Regina’s intermittent howls of despair. The beta guards shifted uncomfortably, clearly unsure how to handle their mistress’s breakdown.
Finally, one guard cleared his throat nervously. “Your Highness… Alexander Steele and Lucas Winters request an audience. They say it’s about Prince Marcus.”
My wolf bristled at their names. Of course they would show up now.
Regina’s lip curled in disgust as she looked at me. “You’re quite capable, aren’t you? My son isn’t even confirmed dead, and already two wolves rush to your defense!”
“I didn’t ask them to come,” I said quietly, speaking for the first time since entering her
chambers.
“Silence!” Regina snapped. She turned to the guard. “Send them away. I won’t…”
“They say they have news about the Prince’s situation,” the guard added quickly.
Regina froze. After a moment of internal struggle, she waved her hand in reluctant permission.
Alexander and Lucas entered, their wolves radiating carefully neutral energy. I pointedly kept
my eyes fixed on the floor, refusing to acknowledge either of them.
“Your Highness,” Alexander’s deep voice broke the tense silence as he offered the formal pack
greeting. Lucas echoed him a moment later.
“Where is my son?” Regina demanded, dispensing with formalities. “When will he return?”
I risked a glance up in time to see Alexander’s white wolf radiating tension as he shook his
head.
“The rogue wolves sent a message to the Alpha King’s council,” he reported. “It arrived half an hour ago, bearing Prince Marcus’s scent.”
Regina surged forward. “His scent? Then he’s alive?”
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Chapter 153: A Mother’s Rage
“The scent was fresh,” Alexander confirmed. “He was alive very recently.”
Instead of relief, Regina’s despair seemed to deepen. “These rogues dare to reveal themselves so brazenly?” she snarled. “They’re clearly not common outlaws!”
She began pacing again, her claws extending in agitation. “Why didn’t they stay in their Dark Forest territory? Why take my son? What do they want?”
Tears streamed down her face as she turned to Alexander and Lucas. “Tell me they made demands! Moon crystals? Territory rights? I can give them anything they want!”
The hope in her voice was painful to hear. In that moment, she wasn’t the powerful sister of the Alpha King – just a mother desperate to save her son.
Alexander’s next words, however, shattered what little hope remained. I watched Regina’s face crumple as he delivered the devastating news, leaving her utterly broken.
