Chapter 48. The Alpha’s Vow

The courtyard was consumed by a silence more terrifying than the screams. Every eye—from the terrified Council delegates to the stunned Blackguards and the chained Queen—was fixed on the figure standing at the gate.

Caius.

He stood wounded, bleeding profusely from the silver greatsword strike, but radiating an impossible, cold defiance. The rhythmic, unnatural thump of his Alpha heart was the only sound, amplified by the residual, distributed power of the Hearthstone fighting the poison in his blood.

He was the living proof that Thalia’s betrayal had failed.

Thalia, her face white with shock and fury, stepped down from the scaffold. She looked at the blood moon—now a deeper, heavier red—then back at the impossible vision of the Alpha.

“The silver should have killed you,” Thalia hissed, her voice vibrating with raw disbelief. “The poison is irreversible! You are bleeding to death, Traitor! You came here for a final, pathetic death wish!”

Caius took