Chapter 101: Who are you?

"What the hell is going on here?!" Magnus snarled, thrashing against four guards who had rushed to hold him down, fighting to break free and move toward me. "Explain yourself, old man, or have you completely lost your mind?!"

"Lord Magnus," a frail, elderly man in round glasses stepped into view, clutching a thick leather file to his chest. "Jane Lang is an unregistered bio-hazard and a high-priority fugitive. An emergency warrant has been issued for her immediate containment."

"Don’t play games with me, you bastard," Magnus growled, veins pulsing at his temples as his Alpha strength strained the guards’ grip. "Release my mate. Now. Before I tear every last one of you apart."

Then, as if time itself had slowed down into a living nightmare, the rhythmic click of high heels echoed against the polished marble like gunfire.

Out from the side parlor stepped a woman...

It was Karina Nyland.

The girl from the photograph. Tall, ethereal, wrapped in an ivory silk gown, her hair falling in flawless waves over her shoulders.

"Magnus...?" she breathed, her voice trembling with raw emotion.

With tears brimming in her wide eyes, she rushed across the hall and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face into his chest and clinging to him with every ounce of her strength.

"I missed you so much... I’ve waited for you for so long..."

The world ceased to exist for one long, agonizing second.

Time froze.

I lay trapped on the cold marble floor, my arms painfully twisted behind my back by a towering guard whose knee pressed heavily into my spine. Deep in my chest, everything constricted violently under an iron grip, squeezing every last drop of air from my lungs.

Magnus went deathly still. His eyes widened, snapping toward me for a fleeting second, and in them, I caught a glimpse of something beyond rational comprehension.

With a sudden, violent surge, he slammed both hands into Karina’s shoulders, shoving her away so hard she stumbled backward with a sharp cry. She nearly hit the floor before one of the guards caught her.

"Get your hands off me," he growled in an icy, lethal tone stripped of all humanity. "Who the hell are you? Why the fuck do you look like her?"

The girl ignored his words, sobbing loudly and theatrically as she pressed her manicured hands to her chest. Tears spilling over her lashes and smudging her mascara, she whispered, "Magnus, it’s me... I missed you so much... I thought I’d never get back to you..."

"Shut the fuck up," Magnus snapped before turning his gaze to his father. "Release. My. Mate."

He enunciated every word with such concentrated venom that a chill ran down my spine. "Right now. Or I will tear this house down with every single one of you inside it. Starting with you, Hugo."

The masked man slowly raised a single hand in a commanding gesture.

"Release the girl," Hugo ordered, his voice flat and authoritative. "Let her stand. But do not take your eyes off her."

The guards yanked me to my feet by my shoulders. My knees buckled, and the world swayed dangerously. Pain throbbed through my entire body, but the guard maintained an iron grip on my arms, keeping me upright.

Magnus lunged forward to reach me, but his father deliberately stepped into his path, blocking him.

What happened next unfolded in terrifying slow motion. As Magnus turned back toward me, a syringe was slammed into the side of his neck. He growled, tearing the needle out, but the sedative was already in his system. His footing faltered.

Desperate, he stumbled those final few steps toward me, throwing his arms around me to shield me with his body. But before he could, a sudden, burning sting pierced my own neck.

The room spun wildly as my legs gave out. The last thing I saw was Magnus’s face inches from mine—his hands reaching out for me, his mouth moving in a silent roar—before the darkness swallowed me whole.

***

"The first pre-trial hearing regarding the case of forged fated mate marks is hereby called to order!"

A woman in a crisp burgundy suit with impeccably styled gray hair struck her wooden gavel against the sound block. The sharp crack echoed through the courtroom, making me flinch as an involuntary tremor ran through my body.

The handcuffs pinched painfully against my skin, the heavy steel digging into my wrists. I winced in silence, trying to rub my hands together as much as the restraints allowed. They had locked them too tight again, leaving raw, bruised indents where the metal pressed into my skin. The pressure cut off my circulation, leaving my fingers numb and tingling with cold needles.

"Your Honor, the prosecution is prepared to present its evidence," a tall man in an expensive black suit announced crisply, standing up from the defense table with absolute composure.

"The defense is also ready," spoke Nico Simons, my court-appointed attorney. A short man with soft, unassertive features, he nervously slicked back his thinning, oily hair with a handkerchief, dabbing the beads of sweat from his forehead.

I sat on the hard wooden bench, staring out at the courtroom with a hollow, detached gaze. My brain still refused—physically balked—at processing everything that had shattered just days ago.

How it had all collapsed in a single instant.

I had regained consciousness in a holding cell. Alone. Handcuffed and stripped to my underwear.

The entire sequence felt utterly surreal—a grotesque theatrical farce where I wasn’t an actor, but a helpless spectator trapped in the front row, forced to watch performative nonsense and increasingly absurd allegations unfold before me.

It felt fake, like watching a bad movie through thick, smudged glass.

Slowly shifting my gaze, I scanned the crowded gallery.

Sitting in the front row was Magnus, flanked by his father and other high-ranking members of werewolf packs whom I had only glimpsed before.

The Nyland family was also present—all except Dean. They sat together: polished, wealthy, draped in tailored designer suits, surrounded by dozens of strangers. Reporters scribbling frantically in leather notebooks, high council figures, political players.

"The prosecution may begin presenting evidence," ordered the judge, a harsh-faced woman in her fifties with paper-thin lips pressed into a severe line.