Chapter 3 - The Golden Gaze
The world around Cedric dissolved into a blur of sound and motion. The chatter of the corrupt nobles, the flickering torchlight, the damp smell of the canals—everything vanished, replaced entirely by the suffocating, magnetic pull of the scent he thought he would never smell again.
Cedric turned around so violently that his heavy iron mask glinted dangerously under the firelight.
Inside the iron cage on the stage, the kneeling woman slowly lifted her masked head. Her entire body suddenly stiffened, her muscles locking up as if she had been struck by an invisible physical blow. Her wolf—suppressed, broken, and starved—erupted in frantic response, reacting to his presence long before her conscious, traumatized mind could comprehend what was happening.
Garrick stared in horror at Cedric’s hand, which was now casually crushing the splintered remnants of oak wood into fine dust. "My king? What is it?"
Cedric didn't answer. The cold, analytical hazel of his eyes was entirely gone, completely consumed by a brilliant, blinding, molten gold that burned like twin suns in the dim room.
The auctioneer, sensing the electrifying shift in the atmosphere, quickly raised his wooden hammer with a greedy grin. "We shall open the bidding for this rare eastern prize at three thousand ducats."
"Four thousand," a French noble called out eagerly from the front row.
"Five thousand," Lord Reginald countered immediately, his eyes darting toward Cedric with a malicious challenge. "An Omega like that will make a fine addition to my kennels."
Cedric stepped off the lower tier, his boots hitting the stone floor with a heavy, deliberate thud that cut through the noise.
"Ten thousand," Cedric said. His voice was no longer a normal human tone; it was the bone-deep, resonant command of an Alpha King, carrying the crushing weight of absolute dominance.
A murmur of shock swept through the crowd. Lord Reginald sneered beneath his silk mask, stepping up onto his viewing ledge. "Twelve thousand! You cannot buy everything in this room, Plantagenet!"
Cedric didn't even glance at him. His golden gaze remained entirely locked on the trembling figure inside the iron cage.
"Twenty thousand," Cedric stated calmly.
The room fell instantly, breathlessly quiet. No one dared breathe.
Cedric took another step forward, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying, subterranean growl that made the weaker wolves in the audience drop to their knees in instinctive submission. "And the head of any man in this room who dares to bid against me again."
Silence reigned. The auctioneer’s hand trembled so violently he could barely hold the hammer. He looked around the terrified, frozen crowd, then swallowed hard and dropped the gavel with a hollow thunk.
"S-sold to the Alpha King."
Before the echoes of the gavel could fade, Cedric was already moving. He crossed the stone floor in long, predatory strides, ignoring the terrified whispers of the nobles who scrambled backward to clear his path. He leaped onto the stage, making the heavy oak timbers groan beneath his weight.
The two rogue guards guarding the cage reached instinctively for their broadswords, but one single glance from Cedric’s blazing golden eyes—dripping with pure, unadulterated death aura—froze them in their tracks. They dropped their weapons and collapsed backward onto the floor, whimpering.
Cedric approached the iron bars.
Inside, the Omega retreated frantically, pressing her back against the freezing metal wall until she could go no further. She was shaking so violently that the heavy iron manacles rattled against the chains.
Cedric reached out with trembling, scarred fingers. For the first time in five years, the iron-willed conqueror felt absolute, crippling terror.
"Do not fear me," he whispered, his voice cracking slightly—a sound no living soul had ever heard escape the lips of the Alpha King.
He reached through the bars, his massive hand easily snapping the rusted iron padlock holding the cage door shut. The door swung open with a heavy screech. Cedric stepped inside, dropping to his knees so he was at eye level with her.
"Do not touch me!" she gasped, her voice raspy, raw, and terrified.
Cedric froze. His outstretched hand hovered inches from her face.
"You are safe now," he murmured, his chest heaving as the scent of lavender and rain overwhelmed his senses entirely. "It's over. I have you."
The Omega shrank away from his warmth, pressing her hands against her head as if trying to block out a phantom pain. "I do not know you. My master... my master will punish me if I speak to strangers."
A cold, agonizing spike of dread pierced Cedric’s heart. He gently reached behind her head, his fingers carefully navigating the rusted mechanisms of the heavy iron mask. With a sharp, metallic clang, the mask fell from her face, hitting the wooden floorboards.
The face beneath it was painfully thin, hollowed out by years of malnourishment. Dark purple bruises shadowed her sunken amethyst eyes, and her lips were cracked and pale. But the delicate curve of her jaw, the slope of her nose, and the faint birthmark just beneath her left ear were unmistakable.
It was her.
"Evangeline," Cedric choked out, a single tear—the first in a decade—breaking free from his golden eyes and cutting a clean path through the dirt on his cheek. "Evie... my sweet girl. It's me. It's Cedric."
Evangeline’s amethyst eyes stared blankly into his, filled with confusion, terror, and a chilling emptiness. There was no recognition in her gaze, no spark of the vibrant, sharp-witted queen who had once ruled beside him. Her mind had been walled off, locked away behind thick, cruel psychological barriers.
"Evie, please..." Cedric reached out, his thumb gently brushing against her bruised cheekbone.
She flinched violently, hissing like a cornered animal, and slapped his hand away with a pathetic burst of strength. "I told you, I don't know that name! If the master sees you talking to me—"
Her tattered tunic slipped slightly off her left shoulder as she pulled away.
Cedric’s breath caught in his throat.
There, burned directly into the pale, delicate skin just above her collarbone, was a fresh, angry red brand. It wasn't an ordinary slave mark. It was the distinct, intricate crest of the Romanov royal family: a silver crescent moon pierced straight through the center by a bloody, downward-pointing sword.
Garrick stepped up behind Cedric, peering into the cage. When his eyes landed on the brand, all the color drained instantly from the Beta’s face.
"The Romanov crest," Garrick whispered, his voice trembling with horror. "Sire... the Russian royal pack didn't just capture her five years ago. They didn't just hide her. They wiped her memories. They systematically broke her mind, turned her into a ghost, and then placed her in this auction tonight knowing full well you would find her."
Cedric stared at the brand. The grief that had hollowed him out for five years evaporated instantly, replaced by something far colder, far darker, and infinitely more dangerous. The sorrow in his soul crystallized into an absolute, unyielding pillar of pure wrath.
This was not a coincidence. It was not a criminal enterprise. It was a calculated, deliberate psychological torture device crafted by Grand Duke Nicholas Romanov to break the Alpha King.
Cedric slowly rose to his feet. The golden light in his eyes flared so brightly it cast long, dancing shadows across the stone walls of the vault.
"Garrick," Cedric said, his voice terrifyingly calm, devoid of any human warmth.
"Sire?"
Cedric unfastened his heavy, fur-lined royal cloak from his shoulders and gently, meticulously draped it around Evangeline’s shivering, broken body, pulling her close against his chest despite her weak, frantic protests. He lifted her effortlessly into his arms, cradling her as if she were the most fragile, precious glass in existence.
He turned toward the exit, looking past the terrified nobles, past the cowering guards, and straight toward the eastern horizon where the cold winter snows of Russia were already beginning to fall.
"Summon the generals," Cedric commanded, his voice echoing like rolling thunder through the subterranean hall. "Mobilize every division. Empty the armories. Recall every border guard."
Garrick bowed his head low, his wolf baring its fangs in savage agreement. "And our destination, my king?"
Cedric looked down at Evangeline, who had buried her face blindly into his chest, exhausted and trembling. But just as Cedric turned to leave the stage, her small, cold hand reached up, her fingers gripping the lapel of his doublet. She pulled herself close to his ear, her breath feathering against his skin.
She whispered a single sentence. A sentence delivered in a flat, mechanical monotone that carried no emotion—only a chilling, programmed directive.
"They sent me here to kill you."
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The words hung in the damp air like a death sentence. Cedric didn't flinch. He didn't drop her. He simply tightened his grip around his broken mate, his golden eyes hardening into unbreakable steel as he stared out into the dark Venetian night.
"Let them try," Cedric whispered into the dark. "We march on Moscow."
