Chapter 4 - The Ghost of Dunstanburg
The journey across Europe was not a march; it was a juggernaut of iron and fury.
Within forty-eight hours of leaving Venice, Cedric had mobilized the entire northern coalition. Tens of thousands of elite combat wolves, heavy cavalry divisions, and siege engineers converged upon the eastern borders like an unstoppable tide of retribution. The air hummed with the electric tension of impending war.
Yet, inside the royal war wagon—a heavily reinforced, fur-lined carriage specially modified to shield Evangeline from the biting autumn elements—absolute silence reigned.
Evangeline sat huddled in the corner of the plush velvet bench, wrapped tightly in Cedric’s royal cloak. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, her amethyst eyes staring blankly at the polished wooden floorboards. She hadn't spoken a single word since the underground auction in Venice. Whenever Cedric tried to approach her, to offer her food or speak her name, she would flinch away as if burned by invisible irons, muttering broken apologies about "failing the trial" and "displeasing the master."
Cedric sat across from her, his broad frame taking up half the carriage. He hadn't slept since the night he found her. His golden-flecked eyes remained constantly fixed on her, tracking every shallow breath, every tremor of her hands, every subtle wince of pain whenever the carriage rolled over a rock on the dirt road.
"You don't have to be afraid of me, Evie," Cedric said softly, his voice rough and stripped of all regal authority. He kept his hands deliberately flat on his knees, showing her he posed no threat. "No one will ever touch you again. The men who did this... they will pay in blood."
Evangeline didn't look up. Her voice, when it came, was a dry, paper-thin whisper. "The master said pain is a teacher. He said memories are a weakness. He carved them out so I could serve."
Every word felt like a physical knife twisting in Cedric’s chest. The Romanov pack hadn't just imprisoned her; they had subjected her to years of psychological conditioning and memory-wiping arts—ancient, forbidden magic designed to turn a proud, brilliant queen into a mindless sleeper agent.
“They sent me here to kill you.”
The words echoed in Cedric’s mind. He knew the truth, even if her broken mind couldn't process it. The Romanovs hadn't expected her to succeed. They knew an unbonded, traumatized Omega could never physically overpower an Alpha King at the height of his power. Sending her was a psychological weapon—a twisted joke designed to let Cedric find his lost mate, only to watch her try to put a silver dagger through his heart with her own hands.
They wanted to destroy him from the inside out.
"I don't care what they did to your mind," Cedric murmured, leaning forward despite the invisible barrier between them. "Your wolf remembers me. Your heart remembers me. And even if you never remember Dunstanburg, even if you spend the rest of your life hating me... I will spend every breath I have keeping you safe."
Before Evangeline could respond, the carriage abruptly lurched to a violent halt.
Outside, the heavy thud of frantic wolf paws against frozen mud echoed through the air, followed by the sharp, urgent shouting of military commanders.
Cedric’s eyes flashed gold. He stood up instantly, pulling a heavy silver-hilted broadsword from its scabbard by the door. He cast one last protective look at Evangeline. "Stay here. Do not open this door for anyone."
He stepped out of the carriage into the biting freezing wind of the Polish-Belarusian borderlands.
Garrick was already waiting outside, his face grim, standing atop a small snow-dusted ridge overlooking the encampment. Below them, thousands of campfires stretched across the valley like fallen stars, illuminating the massive war machine of the northern kingdom.
"What is it, Garrick?" Cedric demanded, stepping up beside his Beta.
Garrick pointed a leather-gloved hand toward the northern tree line, where the dark, towering pines groaned under a heavy blanket of fresh snow.
"An advance scout party from the Romanov perimeter," Garrick said grimly. "They didn't attack. They left a gift."
Two soldiers stepped forward, carrying a heavy, blood-soaked wooden crate between them. They dropped it into the snow at Cedric’s feet with a heavy thud.
Cedric kicked the lid open with the toe of his boot.
Inside lay the severed head of a high-ranking Russian diplomat—a man Cedric recognized immediately as Duke Nikolai’s personal advisor. Carved deep into the man’s forehead, stark and bloody against the pale skin, was the exact same symbol burned into Evangeline’s collarbone: the silver crescent pierced by a bloody sword.
Pinned to the dead man’s chest with an iron dagger was a scroll of heavy parchment bearing the personal seal of Grand Duke Nicholas Romanov himself.
Cedric pulled the dagger free, snatched the parchment, and unfolded it in the freezing wind. His golden eyes scanned the neat, mocking handwriting.
“Welcome to the east, Alpha King. You thought you were rescuing a queen. In truth, you have welcomed a Trojan horse into your bed. Check your blankets, Cedric. Check her hands. The knife is already in her palm. Let us see if your legendary love survives the blade of your own mate.”
A dark, terrifying aura erupted from Cedric, sending a visible shockwave of compressed air through the snow around him. The surrounding soldiers instinctively dropped to one knee, overwhelmed by the crushing, suffocating weight of their King’s alpha dominance.
Garrick stared at the letter in horror. "Sire... the warning from Venice. It wasn't a bluff. She really is—"
"She is a victim," Cedric interrupted, his voice dropping into a lethal, absolute decree. "Not a weapon. The monsters who did this to her are the ones who will die."
Cedric turned on his heel and strode back toward the war wagon.
He pulled open the heavy wooden door and stepped inside out of the freezing wind.
Evangeline was sitting exactly where he had left her, wrapped in his cloak. But something had shifted in the small space. The air felt colder, sharper, almost electric.
As Cedric stepped closer, Evangeline’s head slowly lifted. Her amethyst eyes—usually empty and blank—were now burning with a strange, unnatural silver luminescence. Her breathing was shallow, erratic, her pupils dilated to the edges of her irises.
Her right hand, which had been hidden deep within the folds of the heavy royal cloak, slowly slid out into the dim light.
Clutched tightly in her pale fingers was a heavy, razor-sharp silver dagger—etched with Romanov runes that pulsed with a sick, corrupted magic.
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Evangeline’s body was shaking uncontrollably, fighting a violent internal war between the deeply conditioned programming etched into her mind and the raw, undeniable bond pulling at her soul. Tears streamed silently down her hollow cheeks, cutting tracks through the dirt.
"Cedric..." she choked out, her voice splitting between her own desperate, terrified cry and a cold, alien command that wasn't her own. "Cedric... please... run."
