Chapter 192: The Large Rogue Returns

"Because...I do not want her leaving or even roaming about the castle. Who knows what she could do if left to move about? She’s already done enough damage,"

Della’s eyes darkened to the length where Cassian had to take a cautious step back, and the room’s temperature dropped so badly he started to shiver on his feet.

Did he say something wrong?!

"Are you trying to protect her?" Della finally asked, one brow raised in question.

"No!"

"Then let her come out of her room," She said, her tone ominous, "Let her roam about the castle and the Pack and the villages. Let her do whatever she pleases. How the hell am I supposed to torture her like I want to...if she remains behind those bitter four walls?"

"Y... you’re right." Cassian forced a smile, "I thought keeping her on house arrest for a while would cool her down,"

"I don’t want her cooled down, Cassian. I want her moving around, thinking she still has some power left in her palms while I strip it all away from her. I want her to make plans so I can wreck it. I want her running insane as she wonders what the fuck went wrong!"

"I promise," Cassian breathed, looking away from her eyes before he got stoned, "I’ll relieve her from house arrest,"

"Good," Della’s dark, ominous gaze instantly curled back into the regular frightening cold ones, "I look forward to it,"

She was about to leave when she recalled their last encounter. She’d literally scared the man away when it looked like he had a whole lot to say to her. If it were up to her, she would have left still.

But unfortunately, that twitching side of hers was a relentless force of... emotion that kept making her question everything she was doing.

"What is it?" She groaned out.

"What?" Cassian blinked.

"I get the feeling that you have something to say."

He shook his head, "No, I do not,"

She turned to leave but her hands twitched again. For the love of God, she was going to fucking cut it off!

"Are you sure you have nothing to say to me?" She groaned even deeper, like a tortured animal.

Cassian didn’t answer immediately, and a troubled look crossed his face. The look was becoming more and more disturbed by the second, and she remained standing there as she’d got the feeling that whatever he had to say, it was a lot.

"Packs are falling, Della. Our forces combined with others may hold back the rogues, but we stand no chance against the Moonfire. We don’t even know who has been taming them,"

She quietly listened.

"I got in touch with Malachi this morning. He informed me that you had merged him back with his wolf. But there’s a problem,"

Her brows furrowed.

"He returned to the cave last night, and he found the place empty,"

"W...what?"

"All the Moonfire is missing, Della. Every single drop. Every single barrel of it. Every wisp of particle. There’s nothing left,"

She kept staring at Cassian, waiting for him to drop the part where he was kidding about all this but it never came. If anything, he looked and sounded even more serious than ever.

Moreover, he would never make a joke about something like this.

"How could that be?" She muttered.

There were thousands of barrels of Moonfire filling up that cave. Gideon himself had stored them all around. Few had gone missing, yes, but how could everything disappear in just a span of two days?!

"Malachi has wolves searching all over the area. Once they find a trail, he would let me know,"

Della looked at Cassian again. It’s a good thing they were actively communicating with each other again. They would need the alliance once the war begins.

"What would you like me to do with this new information?" She asked.

Help us — Cassian wanted to say.

Help us find who has been stealing Moonfire and using it to kill wolves!

But his lips remained shut.

His words wouldn’t simply sound empty in her ears.

A dead woman’s ear and a dead woman’s heart.

"I just wanted to let you know...since you were involved with Gideon," He said instead, stamping a tight smile on his face.

He didn’t know if he was in the right position to try and convince her. Hell, all the people that could have convinced her to help had all been murdered by wolves.

She’d also died too.

The Adelaide who cared was now far gone. Maybe.

"Just make sure you let Selene out of house arrest. That is all I care about," She uttered dryly and turned around to leave.

This time, she didn’t stop for anything.

Once she was back in the quiet of the Eastern chambers, she pulled off the cloak like she was about to fight a bull and then she raised her left arm and stared hard at it.

Real hard.

It was vibrating now. It’d upgraded from twitching to full-on shivering.

*Asteria,* Della breathed angrily, *If I cut off a limb, could I grow a new one?*

*It’ll take years, so I do not recommend it,* Asteria replied, *Plus, that arm isn’t the problem, and you know it. It’s just a manifestation from the source,*

*Alright, how about this,* Della rolled her eyes this time, *If I ripped out my heart and cut out the defective part that keeps annoying me, would I survive?*

*You won’t survive a second without your heart!*

*Ughhh!!* She screamed and collapsed on the bed, her arms spread out.

She couldn’t keep living like this.

Every part of her that was soft and fragile and... had real feelings was supposed to have died along with her. But now she was consistently battling with this insistent, broken side.

Della squeezed her eyes shut, then her arm twitched again.

She opened them slowly. "Stop."

Another twitch.

"Stop!"

Nothing.

She grabbed the arm with her other hand, squeezing it hard enough for her nails to dig into her skin, "Why won’t you fucking stop?"

*Because you still care.* Asteria’s quiet voice echoed inside her head.

"I don’t!"

And somewhere deep inside her chest, something ached.

She hated it.

She hated that stupid ache more than anything.

Then suddenly, a low howl sounded from far beyond the castle. It was so low that she was pretty sure no one else heard it, yet the pitch was so intense that her ears started to ring.

Della stood up immediately and walked to the window. The weird howl was coming from the lakeside, and she was very sure that no regular wolf could howl like that.

She opened the window without fear and looked outside.

Standing right there, far away, by the glistening lake that reflected the Moonlight and the stars, was the silhouette of a wolf.

A huge wolf with hungry, blue eyes.

A Rogue.

Not just any rogue.

The one the tamer had been riding the night Della was attacked.

And from the way the rogue was already staring directly back at her, it’s pretty obvious it was here for her.

The question is: what does it want?