The silence after his words was louder than any storm.
Ember stood frozen in the middle of her room, eyes locked with the stranger who claimed something impossible. The mate bond wasn't just sacred; it was guided by the Moon Goddess herself. To have one form without her blessing... it defied every law written into werewolf blood.
"What do you mean it wasn't supposed to happen?" she asked, her voice cracking beneath the weight of the bond flaring between them.
The boy stepped back as if retreating might stop what had already begun. "I'm not supposed to have a mate. Not now. Not like this."
His name, she learned quickly, was **Ronan**. A hunter from a nomadic pack that roamed the northern wilds, one untouched by council politics and ancient rules. His pack had been cursed decades ago, their bonds suppressed by a blood oath meant to protect the rest of the realm from what they carried.
"We weren't supposed to love," he told her. "We were meant to survive."
Ember sat across from him in the old greenhouse behind the main house, her hands curled around a chipped tea mug as rain hammered the glass overhead. The place smelled of damp soil and forgotten flowers. Her sanctuary.
"Then why am I your mate?" she asked. "Why now?"
Ronan looked away. "Because something is breaking. In the curse. In the council's grip. In the old laws. Maybe even in you."
Those words struck deeper than he could know.
Ember had always felt the stirrings of something ancient inside her, a second rhythm beneath her heartbeat, a heat in her blood that flared during storms or when she was angry. It wasn't just fire. It was power. Unchecked. Untethered.
And it was growing.
That night, she dreamed of the past. Not her own, but someone else's. Someone with her face, standing before the Moonstone Throne, screaming as fire consumed the world around her.
When Ember woke, her sheets were smoking.
Three days later
Kael stood at the edge of the training grounds, arms crossed, watching Ember spar with Ronan. His expression was unreadable, but his wolf paced beneath his skin.
"You shouldn't let her near him," said Aria quietly, approaching his side.
"I don't have a choice," Kael muttered. "The bond is real. And you saw what happened the last time she tried to fight it."
Aria winced. Three shattered mirrors. A melted door handle. And a power surge that knocked out the eastern wards for hours.
Ember moved like wildfire, precise and fierce, but Ronan met her every strike with a calm, almost haunting control. He didn't dominate. He flowed. Like someone who knew how to fight without breaking.
"He's holding back," Kael noted.
"He's protecting her," Aria said.
"Or hiding something."
At the center of the field, Ember lost her footing and fell. Ronan offered a hand. She slapped it away and rose on her own, chest heaving.
"I don't need saving," she growled.
Ronan nodded slowly. "Good. Because no one's coming."
That night, Ember stood on the cliffs beyond the border. Ronan found her there, the wind ripping through her curls, the cursed moon bleeding low above them.
"It feels wrong," she admitted. "Not us. Not the bond. The world. Like something is shifting, and we're caught in the faultline."
Ronan stared ahead. "There's a prophecy. In my pack. About a child born of fire and shadow. A moonborn heir with power to unmake the bonds."
She looked at him sharply. "You think it's me."
"I know it is. And the council knows too. That's why they sent me. Not to protect you."
Her heart dropped. "Then why?"
He turned to her, silver eyes solemn. "To end you before your power wakes the others."
---
Can Ember trust the very mate fate gave her... if he was born to destroy her?