Chapter 228

• Third Person's POV
• "Retribution! It's all retribution, Ulric! I may have tempted you, may have clawed into your life and torn at your loyalties-but if you had not been consumed by hunger for power, if you had not abandoned your mate first, could I have ever succeeded?!" Ivy's crimson eyes glinted like the burning coals of a winter hunt. Her words were fangs and fire, lashing at the Shadowbane second-line Alpha as she poured every ounce of venom from her heart. "Now, who do you show your affection to? Your true mate is gone... dead, because of you! Your cubs refuse to recognize you, despise you to the point that even their mother's remains cannot be laid with you-they loathe your scent, your very existence!"
• She circled him like a cornered wolf, letting her rage tear open old wounds, each word a strike meant to pierce Ulric's soul. The crimson mark from her last strike burned against his furred chest, a reminder of the cage his own son had crafted for him-a wheelchair both physical and symbolic, binding the once-proud Alpha in chains of his own legacy.