The air changed before he even arrived.
A bone-deep chill rolled through the pack grounds, tightening the chests of every warrior standing guard. Wolves shifted nervously, claws clicking against stone floors, breaths puffing out in fog though it wasn't cold. It was something else. Something ancient. Something wrathful.
The trees bowed, the skies dimmed.
He was coming.
Even without a horn or an announcement, they felt him. The Beast King. Kael of the Shadow park—cursed Alpha of Shadows, breaker of bloodlines, and executioner of ancient vows.
When his entourage finally arrived—shrouded in black cloaks, riding massive beasts with eyes like molten coal—no one dared speak. His warriors said nothing. Only their presence screamed. Sharp. Deathly. Final.
And then he emerged.
Tall. Towering. Drenched in silent menace.
Kael's presence struck like thunder, his very scent enough to make wolves kneel. His long black cloak swept behind him like shadow given life. Armor clung to his body like second skin, forged in the fires of hell itself. But it was his face—sharp angles, stubble-dusted jaw, and those eyes. Silver. Unholy. Ageless. And furious.
His men didn't dare look at him. The tension rolling from his body was too thick, too alive.
He was pissed.
They had stalled. Negotiated. Whispered lies through silver tongues.
They had promised him the strongest daughter. And now, he could feel it in the earth—they were trying to deceive him. And he didn't like being lied to.
He stepped into the ceremonial hall, every guard along the wall stiff as corpses.
And then... they brought her in.
Layla.
She was... fragile. Too fragile.
Her limbs moved as if every step cost her, even under the thick silk,
He scanned her with the intensity of a predator circling prey. Jaw tight. Gaze dark.
"This is the strongest?" The words were unspoken, but thundered in the silence.
His gaze didn't move, yet he noted everything—the stiffness of her arms, the way she wouldn't meet his eyes, the clink of chains still hidden under her dress. A mockery of beauty. A marred offering.
Yet…
Gods, she was stunning.
Tiny. Ethereal. Like she'd been carved by starlight and molded in moonlight. Too delicate for a battlefield. Too breakable for a mating bond.
He stared too long.
His jaw clenched harder, the hunger crawling under his skin like wildfire.
"She looks like an egg," he thought bitterly. "Yet something in me wants to crack her open."
She shouldn't affect him like this. She was frail. Supposedly broken. But something in her eyes—those haunted, gold-specked irises—refused to be extinguished. And it stirred something in him.
Not pity.
Possession.
Kael turned slightly, gaze flickering toward the second daughter standing near Luna Catherine. The tall, curvy girl. Eyes bright with ambition. Fear swimming just behind the surface.
She was not the one promised. That much he knew.
And now they were trying to pass him this girl—this trembling, quiet, haunted creature.
A trick?
Fine.
He would play along.
But if this girl died before he touched her...
He would return.
He would burn their lands.
He would rip the truth from their blood.
And then he'd take the second daughter screaming.
Kael stepped forward, stopping just a breath away from Layla.
She dared to look up at him—just once.
His breath stilled.
There it was again. That pull. That ancient stirring. The feeling he hadn't felt in two thousand years. It clawed at his control, drumming through his veins.
What the fuck are you, little one?
"I'll take her," he said at last. His voice low. Unmoving. Irrevocable.
Catherine's relief was barely masked, Felissa's face turned a shade paler, but Layla...
She blinked.
And for the first time in years, Kael felt like he was the one being watched.