Amias hears the mandate of vengeance, and every fiber of his being; the Alpha, the son, and the avenger, wants to scream "Yes!" and commit to this final, grand gesture for the woman he finally sees. But the logical, meticulous core of his mind, the part that survives on calculations and risks, slams the brakes.
He kneels beside the bed, still holding his mother’s cold, delicate hands. His grief-stricken eyes trace the network of small, blue veins beneath her pale skin. He is no longer just seeing a dying woman; he is seeing a cautionary tale and a prophecy of ruin.
"Mother," he begins, voice stripped of all arrogance. "I swear I want to grant your last wish. I will do anything to honor you, to bring justice to your name, and to spite Father." He pauses, wetting his dry lips. "But I have to ask you, and you must give me the truth that your wolf knows."
He squeezes her hands slightly. "You are dying because the Alpha abandoned you, pushing you to your true mate, whom the Pack then murdered. Your wolf is withering because the sanctity of your bond was violated."
He looks directly into her tired, watery eyes. "If I also marry a woman who isn’t my mate, won’t I subject her and, more importantly, myself to this same fate?"
The fear is not just for himself; it’s the fear of becoming his father; a man whose indifference led to murder and slow death. Amias doesn’t want to inadvertently doom Lira, or himself, to this same tragic cycle.
Clarissa’s breathing hitches. She understands the weight of his question. It’s the ultimate curse of the Bellamy line—the endless cycle of transactional marriages and severed bonds.
She holds his hands tightly. "Amias, my brave, foolish boy. You must simply not make the mistake I did."
Her eyes drift toward the ink stain on the wall, the ugly black bruise marking her past. "I married Tobias because my family forced me, but I allowed him to poison our relationship with his neglect. I allowed him to humiliate me with Ines. He became cold, demanding, and focused only on status. He starved me of the affection that might have kept me tethered to him, consequently pushing me into the arms of my mate."
A wry, bitter humor crosses her lips. "When you marry your wife, Lira, you must shower her with love and affection that she will never for once think about a mate. You will be attentive. You will be devoted. You will do everything Tobias failed to do for me. You will honor the political partnership with genuine warmth, and you will protect her from the kind of neglect that sends a wolf searching for its true solace."
Amias listens, his head bowed. It’s a risk, but it’s a calculable risk. He has no primal urge to abandon Lira. He is meticulous, dedicated, and capable of devotion when he commits. Unlike his father, he won’t be a brute. He can manufacture the necessary warmth.
Yet, there’s but one soul...
Heidi.
He considers this new, horrifying path. As a meticulous man, he doesn’t like making rash decisions without weighing the odds, and the odds, right now, are impossibly complicated.
He doesn’t have any feelings for Lira aside from respect for her lineage and suitability. He sees her as a tool, a necessary piece of the political machinery. No love, no lust, but also no deep, overriding aversion. A manageable arrangement.
The Alpha title is the path to justice, the vengeance his heart craves, and the only shield against the inevitable, brutal scorn that will follow his mother’s death.
Heidi, however, is the unforeseen variable, the flaw in the logic. Yet, a beautiful flaw he would have welcomed with open hands should the situation not have driven to the point they currently are.
Amias’s eyes are still clouded with residual heartbreak, but they show the battle raging behind them. He had been so careful with Heidi. He refused to sleep with her during the ceremony, specifically because he didn’t want to make a decision he’d live to regret. It’s a decision made in the moment of primal need. He didn’t want to mark her or consummate the bond before he knew his path. His principles, ironically, saved him from a guaranteed, messy fate.
Clarissa is still the cunning strategist despite her fading life. She instantly reads the deep-seated confusion in her son’s silvery eyes.
"What is the matter, Amias? What is holding your resolve? Is it... is it Lira?"
Amias flinches at the casual dismissal of Heidi’s status. He knows his mother’s reaction will be explosive, but he can’t hide the truth now.
"I found my mate and it is making me second-guess marrying Lira, even for you." He admits.
Clarissa’s eyes widen, her frail body stiffening with genuine surprise and horror. "Your mate? Who... who is she?"
Amias knows he’s about to deliver the final, crushing blow to her flimsy hope. He takes a slow breath.
"She is a Moon Blessed," he tells her, using the formal Pack term. "
A human recently Blessed by the Moon Goddess with the werewolf gift. She’s at the bottom of the Pack structure. The economy dorms. No lineage. No power.
The color completely drains from Clarissa’s face, leaving her complexion the color of cold ash. Her composure, which had held through the pain of her own dying, now shatters at the sheer, terrifying implication of his fate.
"A Moon Blessed," she hisses the title like it’s a curse and a whisper of primal terror. Her hand flies to her chest, where her wolf is slowly giving up. "No, Amias. No! We have been cursed by the Goddess!"
Her voice rises, filled with genuine, frantic panic. "This is bad! This is terrible! After all we’ve been through—the shame, the rejection, the death... this can’t be our resolution!"
Clarissa sees only one thing: the ultimate humiliation. Her son, the firstborn Alpha heir, fated to the very bottom of the Pack hierarchy, a girl with no power who will only attract the scorn and ridicule that killed her.
"Mother, what would you have me do? She is my mate. I can feel the bond. I love her." Amias asks, confessing out loud the one thing he’s never even told himself loudly.