Dumped Omega? Now Their Alpha King Begs at My Feet novel Chapter 37

Kai's POV

It was late. Way past midnight.

The city was a carpet of glittering lights thirty floors below my study window, but I didn't see it. I was staring at the reports on my desk, but I wasn't seeing them either.

All I could see was her face.

Valerie.

The name was a constant, irritating buzz in the back of my mind. It had been there for twenty-four hours straight.

My top analysts had just confirmed it an hour ago. She was right.

She was one hundred percent, devastatingly right about Marcus Thorne. The guy was skimming millions. A rat in my own pack, right under my nose.

The proof was all there, buried deep, but there.

How?

How the hell could she have known that?

She didn't have access to my files. She didn't have inside information. She'd just looked me in the eye and stated it like it was a fact. Like she was telling me the sky was blue.

That kind of certainty was power. It was a power I didn't understand, and it was driving me insane.

I hated things I didn't understand.

I ran a multi-billion-dollar empire and the most feared pack on the continent. I understood numbers. I understood force. I understood strategy.

I didn't understand her.

My wolf was restless, pacing under my skin. It didn't understand her either, but it recognized her. It saw a challenge.

It saw a mate.

I slammed that thought down. Hard.

This was a political arrangement. A contract. Nothing more.

But the thought kept coming back, nagging at me.

That's when it happened.

"It… it reacted with his condition! It wasn't a restorative, Alpha, it was a catalyst! It's feeding the curse! It's like a fast-acting arcane poison! We can't stop it!"

The words hit me one by one, like punches to the gut.

The gift. The polite, insignificant gesture. The little power play I had dismissed with such arrogance.

I hadn't just allowed this. I had ordered it. My own words came back to haunt me. If it's harmless, give it to him.

Harmless.

I had been so sure. So in control. So damn arrogant.

My casual decision, my refusal to take a weak, political opponent seriously, had just signed my grandfather's death warrant.

A wave of guilt so huge it felt like a physical blow slammed into me. It was followed by a surge of black, boundless rage that was so hot it felt like it was going to burn me up from the inside out.

The city lights outside my window blurred into meaningless streaks of color.

"He's dying, Alpha! Oh Goddess, he's dying!"

My hand shot out and slammed down on the polished obsidian desk, the sound like a gunshot in the dead silent room.