I Forgot I Loved You Alpha (Ellie and Nolan) novel Chapter 296

Chapter 296

Third Person POV

Kieran withdrew from the campaign quietly.

There was no stage. No bannered hall. No questions shouted from reporters eager to capture the moment his ambition finally fractured under pressure. There was only a written statement, released through official channels just before dawn, concise and immaculately phrased.

He cited instability across the kingdom. Heightened security threats. A belief that leadership during crisis required focus, not competition. He expressed confidence in the council’s ability to guide the realm forward and reiterated his commitment to Pine Ridge above all else.

It was dignified.

It was bloodless.

And it was a devastating end to his campaign.

By midmorning, the news had rippled across the kingdom, faster than even Nolan’s withdrawal had. Kieran had been the last viable counterweight in the race, the one candidate many had clung to as a stabilizing alternative amid growing fear. His polling numbers had already been slipping-quietly, inexorably-ever since the debate attack.

This decision merely confirmed what many had already begun to suspect.

The crown was no longer the point.

Fear was.

Within council chambers, reactions were mixed. Some elders praised Kieran’s restraint, framing it as a rare act of political maturity. Others accused him of capitulation, of abandoning the field when the kingdom needed reassurance the

most.

Kieran did not respond to either camp.

He stayed in Pine Ridge, closed doors, and redirected his resources inward—toward border security, food stores, and refugee routes from packs nearest the rogue lands. His advisors urged him to clarify his position, to reassure supporters that this was

not weakness.

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He refused.

“History doesn’t reward speeches,” he told them flatly. “It rewards outcomes.”

Privately, he knew the truth was harsher than anything his statement had conveyed.

The kingdom was no longer in a political moment.

It was bracing for war.

Kieran knew that just as well as Nolan and Cassian did. With is proximity to the rogue lands, it was important that he was prepared. He sent coded correspondences to Cassian in Moonstone. It wasn’t an alliance, just good business. Just sensible.

They wanted to avoid unnecessary bloodshed as much as he did and it only made sense that their chances were better together.

So Kieran worked with them. Quietly, in the shadows. His own borders and pack were his top priority, but he saw no problem in sharing intel and information. In return, he was kept apprised of whatever new information Silver Fang and Moonstone gathered.

Unbeknownst to the packs, the most powerful territories in the kingdom were bracing for invasion. For a storm the likes of which they’d never seen.

And on the far side of that coming storm, Felicity was unraveling.

The rogue zone was nothing like the stories told in council halls.

There were no grand encampments, no unified clans bound by shared purpose. Just fractured territories stitched together by desperation, violence, and the unspoken agreement that no one here was innocent-and no one expected mercy.

Felicity had lasted three days before the reality of it sank in.

For the first couple of days she had convinced herself that this was nothing, that she could endure anything if it meant winning Nolan back. That notion didn’t hold up long.

The cold bit first. Not the clean chill of winter estates or warded keeps, but a damp, bone-deep cold that clung to her skin and refused to let go.

The ground was uneven, churned into mud by countless boots, blood, and rot. Smoke hung low in the air, acrid and constant, carrying the stench of unwashed bodies and old fires.

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She was outside of one of the rogue settlements, deep in the forest where the outcast warriors and killers for hire made their homes.

This was where Ellie came from. This is where she ended up after the orphanage. Here, in the mud and blood and desperation of the rogue zone.

That thought burned hotter than the cold could counter.

Felicity paced the edge of the encampment, boots caked in filth, cloak pulled tight around her shoulders as if she could shut the world out by sheer will. The rogues she had hired watched her from a distance-some sharpening blades, others muttering among themselves in low voices.

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