Page 101 of The Alpha's Crimson Vow

“Alex, think—if you surrender the throne, you hand the kingdom back to Valerian and the corrupt council. You know what that means. You know what they’ll do.” His voice is sharp, urgent. “I get that you need to save her, but we still have time. We can find her before—”

“What if we don’t?” My voice rises. “What if we run out of time and she dies because I was too fucking proud to make a deal?”

Jack shakes his head. “We’ll find her. We’ll—”

“If I lose her, Jack, nothing else fucking matters.” My chest heaves. “We can live to fight another day. But right now? Right now, I need to make sure she’s alive.”

Jack’s face is set in hard lines. “And if you abdicate, Valerian won’t just let you walk away. He’ll kill you.”

I hold his stare. “Then so be it.”

Silence. Thick and Heavy. Jack swallows, his fists clenching. “Don’t do this.”

Before I can respond, the doors swing open again. I whirl, my fury igniting. “I said I wanted the room cleared—”

A guard bows sharply. “Forgive me, Your Majesty,” he says quickly. “But there is an important guest. One who demands to see you immediately.”

I don’t have time for this.“Send them away.”

The guard hesitates. “It’s Queen Alice of the American Wolf Kingdom.”

My brows lift. And then, the doors burst open. Alice storms in, her presence crackling with energy, her heels clicking sharply against the marble floor. She moves with purpose, her sharp eyes locking onto mine like she’s ready to tear me apart.

“Alex,” she snaps, stopping just inches from me. “We need to talk. Now.”

I rise to my feet the second Alice storms in, my body humming with barely restrained adrenaline. I don’t have time for this. Not now. Not when Katherine’s life hangs in the balance.

“Alice, whatever this is, it has to wait,” I say, my voice tight. “I have urgent matters to attend to.”

“I know what’s happening, Alex,” she snaps. “Katherine has been taken.”

I stiffen, my fists clenching at my sides. “Then you understand why I don’t have time for whatever the hell this is.”

But Alice doesn’t move. Doesn’t back down. Instead, she steps right into my space, her face inches from mine. “I warned you,” she hisses. “I told you—no harm must come to her.”

Before I can even react, Alice’s body shifts. Not fully, but just enough to remind me exactly who she is. Her fangs elongate. Her claws sharpen. Her pupils narrow into razor-thin slits.

Normally, my wolf would react instinctively to something like this. Any shifter, when confronted with hostility, would half shift in response. My body should be tensing, my own teeth sharpening, a low growl tearing from my throat.

But… nothing. I feel nothing. No stirring from my wolf. No instinctive aggression rising to meet hers. That realization scratches at the edges of my mind, clawing at something I don’t quite understand. But I don’t have time to dwell on it. Because Alice isn’t wrong.

A sharp guilt pools in my stomach. She did warn me. She made it clear—no harm should come to Katherine. And now she’s in Valerian’s hands… Because of me.

My throat tightens, but I force my voice to stay steady. “Valerian…. My Uncle has her,” I tell Alice. “He sent me a message—24 hours. Either I abdicate the throne, or he kills her.”

Alice’s fangs retract, her claws dulling back into human form, but the fire in her gaze doesn’t fade. She crosses her arms. “I know she’s been taken.” Her voice is lower now but no less furious. “I was with her. We spoke minutes before she was taken. When I went back to her office to grab my purse, she was gone.” She exhales sharply, then pulls out her phone. “So I tracked her.”

My entire body goes still.

“You know where they are?” My voice is sharp, edged with sudden, violent anticipation.

Alice nods, tilting her phone toward me. “I followed the signal from her phone. They’re on an island not far from here. The Miagani.”

The Miagani.

An abandoned island. A place left to rot, untouched for years. It makes sense. It’s isolated enough that no one would think to check.

Jack steps closer, peering at the screen over my shoulder. “That’s where they are?” His tone is already tilting, calculating.

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