The Alpha's Unwanted Bride novel Chapter 697

Chapter 697: ALPHA DANIEL

Maelis didn’t raise her voice.

She didn’t need to.

The moment she turned and began walking, the crowd parted instinctively, creating a path through the cavern as naturally as water moving around stone.

Wolves stepped back, heads bowed, some watching Jasmine with open curiosity now instead of hostility.

"Come," Maelis said, glancing over her shoulder.

Jasmine hesitated.

Every instinct screamed caution. Run. Don’t follow strangers deeper underground. Don’t trust rebels hiding beneath a forest.

But she had already crossed too many lines to pretend safety lived in hesitation.

She nodded once and followed.

They moved through the underground settlement, deeper than Jasmine had realized it extended. The cavern opened into long corridors supported by carved stone pillars, their surfaces etched with old symbols that glowed faintly when Maelis passed.

Fires burned low in iron bowls. Wolves watched silently as they went by some unshifted, some fully shifted, some in half-forms that made Jasmine’s skin prickle.

No one tried to stop them.

Maelis spoke as they walked.

"When your father arrived here," she said calmly, "he did not come as a savior."

Jasmine’s steps slowed.

"He came alone. As a good and innocent man who had somehow made it here regardless of the laws preventing anyone from in thousands of years," Maelis continued.

Jasmine swallowed. "You said he seized your lands."

"Yes," Maelis replied. "We lived here long before him. In peace. In balance."

They stopped before a wide chamber that opened into something like a hall.

The walls rose high, smooth and pale, illuminated by soft, golden light that seemed to come from the stone itself.

"We did not need a king," Maelis said. "We never did. We lived collectively. Elders guided. Voices were heard. Decisions were made together."

She turned to face Jasmine.

"But when the worlds were separated, things... changed."

Jasmine nodded slowly. She could feel it the truth of the words vibrating somewhere deep inside her chest.

"In times of crisis," Maelis continued, "we appointed a leader. Not to rule. To guide. To speak when unity was required."

She inclined her head slightly. "That leader was me."

Jasmine looked at her with new eyes.

"And when my father arrived?" Jasmine asked quietly.

Maelis’s expression hardened.

"He declared himself king," she said. "Claimed dominion over lands he had never walked, people he had never known. He brought fear where there had been caution. Order where there had been balance."

Jasmine’s stomach twisted.

They resumed walking, deeper still, until the corridor opened into a vast gallery carved directly into the earth.

Jasmine stopped short.

The walls were covered in paintings.

Not crude drawings but detailed murals, spanning floor to ceiling, stretching far into the distance.

Each panel told a story. Wolves in different forms. Battles. Councils. Rituals. Crowns raised and shattered.

History.

Real history.

Maelis gestured to the first mural.

"This," she said, "is where it all began ."

Jasmine stepped closer.

At the center of the painting stood a massive wolf, fur the color of deep crimson, eyes burning gold. A crown rested atop his head, ornate and heavy.

"He looks..." Jasmine hesitated. "Familiar."

Maelis smiled faintly. "He should."

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