Chapter 78: _ I Must Punish Her

Ivar Wulfram [Second Son of the Wolf King]

I was going to kill her.

No, killing her was too mercy-driven. I was going to pack that markless, ungrateful little trench rat into an iron-bound crate and ship her directly to the frozen outer wastes, where the ice-wolves would appreciate her loud, suicidal mouth.

In three days... three bloody days... Elira No-One had turned my gloriously arrogant life into a complete comedy of errors.

I hated Zev. I hated him with a passion that burned hotter than a dragon’s furnace.

Why had I listened to him? Why had I agreed to shadow her in the first place? If I had just stayed in my quarters, draining the magic of gullible noble girls and lounging on silk cushions like a sensible prince, I wouldn’t be in this waking nightmare.

First, I had discovered she was my destined mate. Can you imagine that? A dragonless nobody from the gutters, courtesy of whatever twisted joke the ancestors were playing on my bloodline. Then, I had lost control, saved her life from that Sylven hybrid, called her a petal like a poetic idiot, and pressed my lips to her forehead.

I had compelled her to forget every second of it. That should have been the end of it. The compulsion took root, sweeping her mind clean. She forgot my face, my voice, my touch.

The problem was, I couldn’t forget.

Her scent... the fragrance of crushed pine, wild lilies, and that intoxicating, sweet heat, was burned into my lungs. My wolf, Riven, was pacing back and forth behind my ribs like a bloody rogue beast, growling with every breath I took.

The desire for her was growing, knotting my stomach into tight, restless coils until I could barely think straight.

And then came last night at the Gala.

Sitting on the Wolf Throne, nursing my bruised pride and a cracked rib, I had watched her march into the ballroom.

Did she look ashamed? Like a girl who had shamelessly given herself to a mad elven Prince? Did she look like a girl who had been saved from a monster? No.

"Right there! That’s the outlaw! Move!"

She had pointed a finger straight at my face—Prince Ivar Wulfram of the Wolf Realm—and screamed for the undercover wardens to arrest me like I was a common pickpocket.

A common pickpocket.

My jaw twitched at the mere memory. The entire room had gasped. High Rector Maddox looked like she was about to stroke out. And sitting on that throne, Riven hadn’t even been angry about the public humiliation.

The stupid beast had clawed at my chest, roaring for me to leap off the dais, pin her to the floor, and sink my fangs into her neck to claim her right in front of the entire Academy.

’She called us a rascal. She called us an utter disgrace of a sentient being! Claim her! Drag her to the floor and mark her right now!’

Shut up! I had snarled back internally. Shut the hell up before I rip my own ears off!

Now, the whole student body was whispering. Zev was going to have questions... a mountain of suspicious questions. I had managed to maneuver around his inquiries this morning, tossing out vague excuses about checking out perimeter wards but Zev wasn’t stupid.

He was a tiger and tigers... they smell blood from a mile away.

If I didn’t get control of this situation fast, Zev would figure it out. And if Zev figured out that the great Wolf Prince had lost his mind over a markless commoner who publicly treated him like a footpad, I would become the laughingstock of the four realms.

It was the exact nightmare Remus had tortured me with using his mind-illusion on the training field: me, reduced to the position of a stable boy, while the rest of the princes laughed at my pathetic decline.

I ground my teeth together, pulling my cloak tighter around my shoulders as I walked invisibly down the quiet stone thoroughfares of the Fae Academy.

I hadn’t bothered asking for a warden’s hall pass to cross sovereign borders this morning. I had the influence, sure, but I didn’t feel like bribing corrupt, greedy wardens who would inevitably try to tax me for lacking official paperwork.

The invisibility magic I’d stolen from Remus’s stepsister was humming over my skin, keeping me as invisible as a draft of mountain wind even though Elira had managed to steal even the joy of using this ability away from me.

If only there was a way to return it to Veyra, I would.

My boots made zero sound against the polished quartz flagstones as I approached the eastern ridge.

Everyone in the Academy loved to talk about Raice Ignis-Dominus. They praised his discipline, blabbering about how he chose to live in the basic common-born dorms unlike the other royal heirs because he was a paragon of self-denial.

What a load of hypocritical horse manure.

The moment the faculty realized the Mad Fae Prince didn’t care about their rules, High Rector Maddox had quietly moved her unhinged offspring into a secluded, private stone castle perched on the edge of the misty cliffs.

A fortress where he could be as mad as he pleased without disturbing the precious noble students.

I hated how everyone pretended in this place. I hated the grand speeches, the noble titles, the pristine uniforms covering up rotten morals.

But most of all, right now, I hated what I had seen last night.

The memory flared in my mind like a fresh burn, searing through my pride. I had stood there, forced to watch Raice touch Elira. I had watched his hands on her skin, watched him kiss her, watched him dip his fingers into her, almost taking her right there against the stone while I stood paralyzed, unable to move without ruining everything.

And when she finally noticed me lurking in the shadows? She hadn’t been ashamed. She hadn’t whimpered or begged for forgiveness. She had thrown a barrage of curses right at my head!

How dare she? How dare she offer herself to a Mad Fae Prince while my blood burned for her?

She needed a lesson. Soon. An unforgettable lesson that would ensure she knew exactly who she belonged to, punishing her for letting Raice put his cold hands on what was mine.

At first, I had panicked, thinking my mind-compulsion had failed. But it hadn’t. When she confronted me at the Gala, she genuinely thought I was her attacker from the Sunken Arch.

A humorless laugh nearly bubbled up my throat. She thought I was the one who tried to force her? How could she even conceive that I would sink so low as to assault a female? Let alone my mate?

I was a bastard, a thief, and a ruthless strategist, but I had standards.

I didn’t care about the rumors spreading through the dorms today. I didn’t care that the first-years thought she was insane. All I cared about right now was getting to Raice and figuring out what the hell the Mad Fae was doing with her.

If he was playing the same sick, destructive game he had played with that poor, tragic girl who died two years ago... he had better think twice. Because this time, the girl belonged to a Wolf Prince.

I reached the iron-studded oak doors of Raice’s secluded estate. The cliffside wind whipped my hair as I dropped my invisibility spell.

I raised a gloved fist and knocked thrice, hard enough to echo off the walls.

Silence hung over the courtyard for five seconds. Then, the latch clicked.

The door swung open, revealing the tall, slender frame of the Fae Prince.

In the three years we had spent together in the Concorded Realm, I had barely heard Raice speak more than ten words total. He treated the rest of the student body like background scenery.

But this morning, Raice looked genuinely rattled.

His white hair was messy, his tunic was half-unbuttoned at the collar, and his eyes were burning with irritation.

Before I could even open my mouth to deliver a witty, arrogant greeting, Raice glared at me and snarled:

"What the hell are you doing here?"