Chapter 735 – Hidden Desires of the Werewolf King Novel

Filed To Story: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel

James didn’t expect that. “Do whatever you normally do.”

“We normally bury them in our cemetery unless they previously expressed a desire for a different location or to be cremated, in which case we will try to fulfill their final wishes. I thought, considering her identity…”

James raised his hand, interrupting whatever Maddox was about to say next. “The Red Moon pack was never her home. If you want to ask about any special requests, I suggest you ask that female child who was crying over her.”

Maddox nodded in understanding. “I apologize for interrupting and… I’m sorry for your loss.”

With that, Maddox left the room.

James returned to sit next to Cornelia on the sofa, and he absentmindedly poked a piece of sausage with a fork.

His hand froze mid-air when Cornelia asked, “Someone from your pack died?”

James released a long breath. He really didn’t want to talk about it, but Cornelia overheard what Maddox said. He couldn’t pretend like it was nothing. “My sister. She died last night.”

Cornelia’s eyes widened in slow motion when she understood that Maddox was talking about Marcy. Cornelia saw Marcy in the Shadow Fang pack. At that time, Marcy made a statement to a reporter in front of a camera about how she was giving up on the role of Dayson’s Luna so that she can travel the world.

Cornelia was confident that she will never hear about Marcy again, and it didn’t cross her mind that Marcy will be here. Dead now.

“I went there last night,” James spoke in a low voice. “I was hoping that she will be in the shelter, or maybe that she left this pack. But I found her in the forest, being beaten to death by rogues. There was a girl crying, yet I felt nothing. My biggest concern was to avoid exposure. If my father found out that Marcy was here, I would be in trouble. Alpha Dayson and Alpha Maddox would also be blamed. I didn’t care about Marcy.”

Cornelia hugged him from the side. “I’m so sorry.”

James snorted. “Why are you sorry? Didn’t you hear what I said? I felt nothing. The female I considered to be my sister died, and I felt nothing. I am a monster.”

Cornelia moved to look into his blue eyes which were like endless oceans as they reflected his internal struggle.

“Monsters don’t feel, Jay. You are capable of love and care and anxiousness, and so many other emotions. I know. You are not a monster. You are just… broken.”

James fisted her shirt, his fingers dug into the fabric, nearly ripping it but he didn’t notice because he was staring into her dark brown eyes full of love as her words echoed in his mind.

“I am not a monster,” he repeated.

“That is correct,” Cornelia confirmed. “I know you are not a monster because you are my soulmate. You were forced to hide everything deep inside, so your father won’t find it and use it against you. You hid your emotions so well that you couldn’t recognize them anymore. I know you are scared. You are scared to look into the person your father molded, but I can tell you that I’m looking at him and he is not a monster. I am here for you and I’m not going anywhere. I won’t force you to open up to me, but I hope that one day you will allow me to share your everything, pain included.”

Cornelia raised her hands and wiped the moisture off his cheeks.

“See? I am right. Monsters don’t cry. Monsters don’t fear disappointing their other half. Your father broke you, but I know that my sweet Jay will feed me and put my needs first. My Jay will do everything he can to keep me safe, and he will rather harm himself than do something I might dislike. I love you, Jay. Together, we will get through everything.”

James’ shoulders shook and then he pulled her into him, and he sobbed silently.

Cornelia hugged him with all her might and patted his back. No matter how smart and how tall and how mature he was, in the end, he was still a sixteen years-old boy who was dealing with a lot.

His father was a horrible person, his mother didn’t care, and he just saw his sister dying. He was surviving every day while fearing that his father will oust him due to the lack of Alpha aura, and there was also the point that James believed he was not strong enough to protect Cornelia, his mate. That was a lot of challenges for anyone to bear, and James was just one person.

At that moment, he looked like a fragile boy and Cornelia held him and let him cry it out because she knew that he needed it.

Part of her was glad that James broke down like that. He opened up and allowed her to see his vulnerable side. She knew that no one got to see that, and it made it special.

…

Later that afternoon…

Maddox led the group to an isolated stone building.

By his side was Tatiana, and behind them were Dayson, Talia, Jaeden, Maya, Kalina, and Tony.

When they entered the room, they found Grady, Varya, Cornelia, and James.

Cornelia drew a circle with chalk on the stone floor.

Cornelia confirmed that Grady removed most of the unnatural energies by washing the body paint from his body, and she performed a few spells to extract the rest.

Cornelia said that she will need to investigate the collected samples to confirm how the bodypaint actually worked.

James ensured that no one could see his chocolate-colored Goddess doing her magic, so guards and Varya had to stay outside, but unfortunately… Grady saw it. Cornelia was performing the spells on him, so Grady was necessary.

James was set on killing Grady at the smallest sign of betrayal. Actually, he might kill the guy just in case he reveals later how special Cornelia was.

Grady was overwhelmed by the hostility that was tangible. What the heck? Even that teen boy looked at him like he couldn’t wait to end him.

No matter how Grady saw this, he disliked packs and whatever structure they were following. No one asked him his name, nor occupation; that one word “rogue” labeled him as a black sheep and it seemed that no amount of good deeds will help him appear clean. Maybe Tristan was right after all.

Grady’s instincts told him that he was lucky to be alive. Somehow, the scout and observe mission that Tristan described escalated. He saw bodies of rogues being carried, and he recognized some.

For now, Grady decided to observe and cooperate. His priority was to survive, and he will find his exit later. Hopefully, with Varya by his side.

“The circle on the ground is to contain the flames, in case he spontaneously combusts,” Cornelia explained when she finished.

They all stood facing Grady, and Kalina had to drag Varya away from the guy.

Seven more rogues were caught alive, currently held in the dungeon, but Maddox didn’t think they will give him any useful information. Leaders of rogue groups were not Alphas, and they had no way to enforce loyalty other than with threats, money, and brainwashing how everyone was out to kill them (which was not necessarily a lie).

“Do you understand that if you talk about your rogue group, you might die?” Maddox asked.

Grady shrugged. “What are my options?” He didn’t believe the burst-into-flames story. And didn’t the brown chick say how the burning curse was removed?

“Will you cooperate?” Maddox asked his next question.

“Yes,” Grady responded without missing a beat.

“Why should we believe you?” Dayson asked.

Grady looked at Varya. “Because I want to be with my mate. I will do anything to be with her.”

“Even lie?” Dayson asked stiffly.

Grady was not sure how to respond to this. Would he lie? Of course, he would! But if he says that, it can backfire big time.

—

Grady looked at the werewolves around him and he cursed internally when he realized that the only one not looking at him with malice or disgust was Varya.

If he knew things would turn out like this, he would stay in the human town and not seek werewolves. But then… if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to inhale the addictive scent of peanut butter and feel the goodness of the sparks that came with Varya’s touch.

Grady didn’t care about Tristan and he definitely didn’t care about these people that surrounded him. The only person he cared about was the brunette he knew as Varya, and she wanted to be with him, but things got complicated and he needed to use his wits to come out of it alive and with his mate.

“How about you ask questions, and then you can decide if you will believe me or not?”, Grady asked.

They all looked at Maddox who took this as his cue to start.

“Tell me about your mission. Why did you come here? When? How?”

Grady didn’t delay with answering.

“A few days ago, Nick told us that we will be heading to the Blue River pack for a mission. They said it will be easy. Infiltration, scouting, nothing more than that. We heard that there will be a big party for Luna and it was not unusual for us to take advantage of people celebrating so that we can gather information. Two days back, we were preparing for departure when we received additional information. They said that we confirmed our target will be attending this event and that our mission will change slightly. There was a crate of cube-shaped devices we needed to hide. Nick said that if we are nearby one of those, Alphas won’t be able to find us or harm us.”

Grady looked at Talia. “We each got to see photos of the same woman. Our main mission was to bring Luna Talia to our camp. If we encounter her, we were to persuade her to come with us with the only limitation that she shouldn’t be harmed. Nick showed us a map of this area and assigned us spots where we will hide. If we encounter patrols, we were to run and not cause a commotion.”

As Grady spoke about Talia, people looked at her and Dayson nervously, fearing that Dayson will explode into violence. However, Talia and Dayson were not surprised to hear that she was the target. They heard it before.

“What would you do with Talia after you get her?” Maddox asked.

“That is how much our group got to know,” Grady responded honestly. “I was just a messenger. In the last few months, I collected a few packages in a human city. I would go to the address that was either a nightclub or a bar, and a package would be waiting for me. I never saw who left it there, or what was inside, and the bartender who was holding onto the package was just a human who did it for extra tips.”

“Is that how you got those devices?” Maddox asked.

“As I said, I never looked inside packages. They told me to pick up whatever is there and bring it back without questions asked, and I was not allowed to look what was inside.”

Maddox guessed that would be a dead end. Rogues don’t have loyalty toward anyone. Whoever was pulling the strings would keep as much as possible to himself. Betrayal meant death, and most of the rogues hated packs so much that they would kill themselves when caught out of spite.

It’s not that rogues were crazed fanatics out of choice, but the lack of a pack link changed them.

Wolves are social creatures, who live in packs with a strict hierarchy, and they see themselves as part of something bigger. When that is taken away from them, their wolves turn feral and they go… rogue.

Some wolves are born outside packs, and they accept individuality as normal, even though they always feel that something is lacking. However, when a werewolf is banished from a pack later in his life, the missing pack link is a hole he knows that shouldn’t be there. There is a pain of rejection and the pack link breaking, and that wound festers and grows until they lose their compassion and empathy. The weak-minded ones succumb to it faster.

Banishing one from a pack is the death penalty for a werewolf.

Maddox was genuinely surprised that Grady knew that much, and he was collaborating.

Now, was he collaborating because of Varya, or because he was deceiving them, that was another thing Maddox needed to figure out.

“Who is Nick?” Maddox asked.

“That’s Tristan’s second in command.”

“Who is Tristan?”, Cornelia asked.

“It’s a small-time rogue who causes us trouble occasionally,” Jaeden responded.

“Are you saying that rogues we met last night belong to Tristan’s group?” Maya asked. “There were hundreds of them.”

Grady shook his head. “No, no. Tristan said that many groups came together for this. Some had a task to attack storages, some were to distract the patrols, and our group had Luna Talia as the target.”

Talia thought of asking one thing that was bothering her from last night. “How did you know Luna Talia will attend this event?”

“We got information that Alpha Dayson left with his Luna,” Grady responded.

“From?” Talia continued probing.

Grady’s brows came together. “I already told you all that I know, but I can tell you the rumor that’s circulating.”

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