The world didn't just stop; it held its breath. It felt as if time itself had curdled, thick and heavy, around the clearing.
I stood there, the steam rising from the cooling corpses of the Shadow wolves at my paws. My claws were still slick, dripping with that hot, coppery iron that tasted like victory and death. In my Lycan form, I felt like a ghost carved from moonlight a blinding, pristine white that defied the rotting darkness of the Dead Woods.But my focus wasn't on the carnage I'd just created. It was locked onto the ridge.
Alpha Damon.Then his scent slammed into me. It wasn't just a smell; it was an assault, a violent invasion of my lungs that left my brain rattling. It reeked of the earth after a storm heavy, wet, and raw—but there was a jagged edge to it, like the metallic bite of a blade fresh from the forge. It was the musk of someone who owned the world, a predator who didn't know how to lose. In that heartbeat, my blood didn't just warm up; it caught fire, turning every single cell in my body into a traitor that wanted to scream for him.My soul screamed a single word, over and over, vibrating through my bones: Mate. The instinct was terrifyingly pure. I wanted to howl, to run to him, to throw myself at his feet and let that massive, suffocating power swallow me whole. I wanted to be claimed.
"Don't you dare," Lysandra's voice sliced through the fog of my desire like a serrated blade.Her presence was a cold weight in my mind, ancient and unyielding. "He is an Alpha, Elara. Right now, those golden eyes don't see a mate; they see a monster. A threat to his borders. We are a Queen, not some kneeling puppy looking for a master.Control yourself."
That cold splash of Lysandra's arrogance anchored me. I forced my muscles to go rigid, fighting the submissive tremble in my knees. I didn't bow my head. I didn't avert my gaze.I stood tall among the bodies I had shredded, my white fur a defiant, shimmering spark in the gloom. I wasn't a prize to be hunted; I was a challenge.
Damon's charcoal wolf took a slow, calculated step down the ridge. He was a creature of scars and nightmares, his massive frame radiating a lethal silence. But as he looked at me, I saw it a rare, fractured confusion in those golden depths.He could smell the bond; the pull must have been tearing at his insides just as much as mine. But he was looking at the impossible. A White Lycan. A legend that should have remained buried in the dirt of history.
He paused, his gaze flickering from the dead wolves to my face.I could almost hear the gears of his predatory mind grinding: Who are you? What are you?
"He's alone," Lysandra whispered, a dark, amusement dancing in her tone. "No Beta, no Gamma to witness his weakness. He's hunting in the neutral zone, driven by a scent he can't name.He smells the blood, Elara, but he's already obsessed with the ghost who spilled it."
I didn't wait for him to reclaim his composure. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of a confrontation while I was still riding this high of blood and adrenaline. With a low, vibrating rumble that started in my chest and shook the air like a distant earthquake, I turned.
I didn't flee like a frightened rabbit.I walked. I took slow, measured steps, disappearing into the thickest, most suffocating part of the shadows. My heart was thundering, but I didn't look back. I could feel his golden stare burning into the fur between my shoulder blades, a weight that followed me long after I vanished from his sight.
Deep in the thicket, where the trees grew so close they felt like ribs, the exhaustion finally hit me.It wasn't just physical; it was a soul-deep drain.
"Shift. Now," Lysandra commanded, her voice sounding strained.
The reversal was a special kind of hell. My bones didn't just move; they snapped and ground against each other as they shrank.I collapsed into the dirt, trembling and naked, my skin slick with cold sweat and grime. I leaned heavily against the rough, mossy bark of an ancient oak, gasping for air that felt too thin to breathe. The tattered rags of my grey dress were useless now, barely covering the girl who had been discarded by her pack.
"He's coming," I rasped, clutching my chest. The mate bond was throbbing there like a second, frantic heartbeat."He felt the connection. He won't stop until he finds what's at the end of that scent."
"Let him hunt," Lysandra replied, sounding strangely satisfied despite our weakness. "We have planted a seed of obsession that will rot his common sense. But he cannot find the White Lycan and the broken, wolfless girl in the same heartbeat.Not yet. We must hide the monster and let the girl survive the night."
I stumbled toward a small, hidden stream I could hear nearby the only clean thing in this forest of rot. My legs felt like leaden weights, and my vision was blurring at the edges. The shift had consumed every scrap of energy I had left.I knelt by the water, cupping it in my shaking hands. As the rippling surface settled, I saw a stranger staring back. My face was the same the same small nose, the same soft jawline but the hollow, haunted look of the 'Omega' was gone. My eyes weren't blue anymore. They were a striking, piercing shade of icy silver-blue.Lysandra's eyes. They looked like they belonged to someone who had seen worlds burn.
Snap.
The sound was microscopic the dry break of a single twig. To a human, it would have been nothing.To me, it was a gunshot.
I froze, the water dripping from my chin. He was too fast. Damon hadn't stayed at the kill site to investigate the Shadow wolves. He had bypassed the blood and followed the living, breathing trail.My trail. He was right behind me.
I scrambled to my feet, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard it hurt. I couldn't shift again. My body was too fragile, my energy depleted.I was trapped between the water and the predator.
"Run, Elara! Move into the shadows"
"Show yourself."
The voice didn't growl. It was human deep, resonant, and vibrating with an authority that seemed to pull the oxygen right out of the air.It was a voice that didn't ask for obedience; it assumed it.
"I can smell you," he continued, his tone low and dangerously calm, yet laced with a jagged edge of desperation. "Running will only make this more painful for both of us... Mate."
My breath hitched in my throat.He knew. He had shifted back to his human form, a move of pure, arrogant confidence in a place as lethal as the Dead Woods. He was no longer a shadow on a ridge or a charcoal wolf in the dark. He was a man, a king, and he was standing in the shadows just feet away, demanding the soul the Moon Goddess had promised him.
I forced myself to stand tall, even as my knees threatened to give way. I wiped the water from my mouth and turned around to face the King of Shadows, my silver eyes burning in the dark.