Chapter 118: After Retribution What Next?

SELENE’S POV

The news was all over the internet within hours.

"Cleric wolf, Dax Ashstone, shot and killed by unknown suspect" ... that was what the headlines read.

These journalists could say whatever they wanted. The truth would always remain what it was. They didn’t know I had saved them. They thought he was just a normal person. He wasn’t. He was a beast ... worse than the most dangerous breed of werewolves ever documented.

He hadn’t deserved to walk among the living.

But because I hadn’t revealed myself as the one who ended it, they had no idea I’d just saved them from having their gifts hunted down and completely destroyed.

These people knew nothing. They just kept making assumptions.

"Over a hundred people previously declared missing were found underground in the company where Dax was employed, which appears to link the late Dax to a criminal and terrorist organisation."

All of that had been happening right under their noses.

It was insane ... truly insane ... for a people who claimed to be so discreet and so careful.

And yet there I was, sitting with the breeders, blood on my hands. Not literal blood, but the weight of knowing I had taken someone’s life still haunted me, and it hadn’t even been twelve hours since it happened.

The breeders gathered around me, offering comfort. Even the ones who hadn’t come with us on the mission. It meant more than I let on.

It felt like my heart had been ripped clean out of my chest. I couldn’t hear it beat anymore. I hadn’t wanted to become this ... a person capable of ending another life ... but that was exactly what this path was turning me into.

I hated being deceived and run over for the umpteenth time. I had a life. I couldn’t keep allowing myself to be manipulated and outmanoeuvred. I had to take control, even if it cost me my own empathy.

Those were the words I used to hold myself together ... to push back against the guilt that crashed into me like an avalanche, rock after rock burying itself into my chest.

I pulled myself back to reality, cleaned up thoroughly, and returned to the king’s chambers.

I acted completely normal. Shocked, just like everyone else ... that much was expected of me. I played the role well.

Tessa was already deep in it, investigating alongside the officers, turning over every stone trying to figure out how it had happened. She would never know. The whole thing had been planned so precisely that not even a single camera had captured anything useful. I was nothing like my reckless sister. Now the people were free ... free to live, to express themselves, to move through the world without the fear of a gun being pointed at them the moment they stepped out of line.

I slipped into my room without drawing a single glance. I checked behind me before the door closed ... no one had followed. I exhaled slowly. At least here I could be alone and think.

"Selene. That was a job well done."

I startled and spun around. Lucian.

"Lucian, that is no way to enter a lady’s room. I know these are your chambers, but please..."

"I have been waiting for you for the past five hours," he said.

Which meant he knew I hadn’t been here. Fuck. I was going to deny everything. He wasn’t going to catch me ... not when I had slipped past everyone else without a single thread pulled loose.

"I have a life, you know that, right?" I said, not really expecting an answer. Just wanting him to understand that I had freedom of movement, even if I was staying in his chambers.

"You have a life, Selene." He paused. "And now you’ve taken someone else’s."

I looked at him carefully. "What do you mean by that?" I made sure the doors were shut tight behind me.

"I know you were part of the group that killed the wolf yesterday. I also know what was behind it," he said.

He couldn’t be serious. He was bluffing.

"I didn’t kill anybody," I said flatly.

"I didn’t say you killed anyone." He tilted his head slightly. "Your conscience is doing that for me."

I stared at him and found absolutely nothing to say.

"My wife ... your Luna ... has taken it upon herself to find out who was responsible for his death. I will make sure she doesn’t get to the root of it." He held my gaze. "But there’s no need to hide anymore, Selene. You could have come to me from the very beginning."

The more he spoke, the more something in me cracked open. I didn’t even notice I had started crying until I felt the tears on my face.

It was all too much at once.

He crossed the room and pulled me into a hug. I let him. I was too weak to resist, and his chest was warm and broad and solid, and in that moment I just needed something steady to hold onto.

"I have always known you were an intelligent person," he said quietly above my head. "Whatever your mission is, Selene, I am willing to support you and make sure it isn’t undermined."

I held on tighter.

"I don’t know what I’m becoming, Lucian," I sobbed against him. "Without you, I’m turning into something I don’t even recognise anymore."

"I understand that completely," he said, his arms tightening around me. "People have a way of making you become the very monster you once feared most."

Then my senses returned.

He was married. We were not supposed to be standing this close, holding each other like this ... not before his wife walked in and drew her own conclusions.

I pulled away from him with deliberate force. He knew exactly what I was doing and didn’t try to stop me.

"We can’t be this close," I said, keeping my eyes off his face.

"Anything you need ... anything at all ... come to me." He moved toward the door. "Know that I would never allow any harm to come to you."

He walked out. The lock clicked into place behind him.

And I cried harder than I had before.

Maybe what I had done was necessary. Maybe removing someone like Dax from this world had protected dozens, hundreds of people who would never even know their lives had been on the line. But that wasn’t who I was supposed to be. That had never been who I was meant to become.

I stood in front of the mirror and saw him looking back at me. Dax ... or Aiden, the name I had known him by. I remembered our kiss and felt like a complete fool.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, hard, as though the memory of his lips on mine was still fresh and I could scrub it away. I deeply regretted ever knowing a person like that.

I pulled myself together and went downstairs. I wasn’t going to hide away upstairs while things unravelled around me, not when people could potentially go down for something I had done.

Tessa was already holding court in her husband’s absence.

"Whoever is responsible for this will pay dearly," she announced. "The wolves involved have been confirmed as undercover terrorist operatives ... but they should have been left to the proper authorities."

I looked at her.

Look at Tessa, playing the boss. As though she hadn’t committed sins of her own. As though she were the cleanest person in the room.

The audacity of her was almost impressive.