Chapter 1362:

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“So alike… so very alike,” he murmured, lifting a trembling hand halfway before letting it fall. “Your eyes… they’re Josie’s. Her reflection.”

My chest constricted. My breath caught.

“You knew my mother?”

The king lowered himself into a velvet-lined chair beside the bed. The servant slipped a cushion behind his back with practiced ease.

He didn’t meet my gaze—his attention lingered on the moonlight filtering through the window, as if it, too, belonged to the past.

“Twenty years ago, during the war with the werewolves… your mother saved my life…”

He gave a brittle laugh, dry and cracked like old paper.

“She didn’t know I was a wizard. Didn’t ask. Just… helped.”

Another cough gripped him—violent, wrenching.

A handkerchief was swiftly placed in his hand.

He turned away, coughed into it, and when he drew it back, the white cloth bloomed with red.

His voice softened.

“Karma, perhaps… Josie showed me mercy, and I betrayed her. I used her trust to slip my soldiers into werewolf territory. She’ll never forgive me.”

His eyes—clouded, tired—glistened with grief not yet aged into numbness. I stared at him, my thoughts a whirl of shadows and echoes.

Then, as if yanked from some distant haze, his gaze snapped to mine—sharp, piercing, alive.

“Makenna, if you’re willing to stay with us, then from this day forward, you will not only be the white wolves’ Saint—I will name you the Saint of the Wizard Clan as well.”

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My fingers dug into the edge of the blanket, knuckles white, but I held my silence.

“And more than that…” His smile stretched slowly—almost fatherly, yet it chilled me to the bone. “You could marry Jett, as you’ve always dreamed. When he inherits the throne, you’ll be queen of the Wizard Clan. But those three werewolf princes who trespass on our land—must die.”

Outside, the moonlight vanished behind drifting clouds, casting the room into an eerie gloom.

I looked at the aging king seated before me, and in that moment, I understood. This was how he had clung to power for two decades—by dressing poison as honey and offering it with a smile.

“NO.” I drew in a steadying breath and raised my chin to meet his stare. “The three princes are my men. I won’t let harm touch them—not here, not anywhere.”

His wrinkled face contorted, as if I had slapped him.

“What did you just say?”

“Your Majesty, you believe their deaths will secure your path to conquering the werewolves. But my mother once saved your life and asked for nothing in return.”

I cast the blanket aside and stepped barefoot onto the cold stone floor.

“If she had known you were the King of the Wizard Clan, I believe she would have begged you for peace. She would have pleaded with you to stop this war.”

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