The car door shuts.
The sound is final. Too loud in the quiet that follows.
I buckle my seatbelt with hands that won't stop shaking, my fingers clumsy against the latch. The moment the engine turns over and we pull away from the curb, it's like something inside me finally… gives.
I stare out the window, but I'm not really seeing the street sliding past. All I can hear are the voices.
Our Queen returns.
White Wolf.
Rightful heir.
We kneel.
My chest tightens.
Rubbing the center of my chest.
I didn't mean for it to happen like that.
I didn't mean for them to see.
I swallow hard, my throat burning. My heart is still racing, pounding so hard it feels like it's trying to claw its way out of my ribs. The aura I'd wrapped so tightly around myself only minutes ago is gone now, stripped away, leaving everything raw and exposed underneath.
I feel… hollow.
Too much. It was all too much.
My hands curl into fists in my lap, nails biting into my palms as the weight of it all finally settles on me. Queen. White Wolf. Heir. Titles I never asked for. A power Emma spent my entire life pretending didn't exist, hiding, shrinking myself so no one would look too closely.
And now they've all looked.
Every single one of them.
I can still feel it—the way they bowed, the way their submission slammed into me through the bond like a tidal wave. Not fear. Not the forced kind.
Reverence.
It terrifies me more than anything else ever has.
I hear someone say my name—softly—but I don't trust my voice yet, so I stay quiet. If I open my mouth, I'm afraid everything I've been holding back will spill out all at once.
Because under the power, under the command, under the fury—
I'm shaking.
I think of Kieran.
Of him lying unconscious, broken because he went to protect wolves who didn't deserve him. Because I was the weakness his enemies saw. Because my existence painted a target on his back.
The thought punches the air from my lungs.
This is my fault.
The words loop in my head, cruel and familiar.
I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing my forehead against the cool glass of the window. The city blurs, lights smearing together like wet paint. My breathing turns shallow, uneven.
They knelt to me.
They chose me.
And I don't feel worthy of any of it.
I rub my chest again as a sensation of tugging shoots through me.
I didn't feel powerful out there. I felt desperate. Cornered. Like an animal protecting the only thing it has left.
My mate.
My home.
But threaded through the fear is something colder. Sharper.
What happens to his throne now?
The question sinks in slowly, like ice spreading through my chest. They didn't just bow to me. They recognized me. As if something older than law, older than council decree, decided the matter without asking permission.
Kieran is King. He fought for that crown. Bled for it. Carried the weight of every pack, every death, every choice that damned him either way. That throne is his—and the idea that my existence could threaten it makes my stomach twist violently.
I don't want it.
I don't want his power. His authority. His place.
The thought that wolves might look at me now and see something above him—something instead of him—feels like betrayal lodged under my ribs. I never wanted to stand in front of Kieran. I wanted to stand with him. Beside him. Equal, not eclipsing.
What if they try to take it from him?
What if the Elders twist this, use me like a blade, argue lineage and destiny until his crown becomes conditional—until loving me becomes another crime he has to pay for?
My chest aches, sharp and deep, as the echoes of Seraphina's words try to claw their way back in. I shove them down hard, bury them beneath layers of anger and resolve, because if I let myself feel that violation again, I'll unravel completely.
I hear the pack members' voices again in my head, overlapping, growing louder.
Rightful monarch.
Moon-blessed.
She is ours.
I don't want to be theirs.
I just want Kieran to wake up.
A tear slips free before I can stop it. Then another. Silent, hot, streaking down my cheek. I wipe at it quickly, embarrassed even though no one is looking at me like that. Not now.
I feel so small.
So unbearably human.
The car keeps moving, steady and quiet, carrying me back toward a crown I don't know how to wear and a future I never imagined—one where loving a king might mean becoming a threat to him.
And for the first time since this all began, the thought hits me—slow and terrifying and unavoidable.
There's no hiding anymore.
They've seen the White Wolf.
And I don't know how to be her without losing myself… or him.