Elara
I wasn't supposed to be here.
The war between the packs was none of my business. I had no loyalty to either side—no reason to be near bloodshed or battlefields. But visions don't care about reason. They drag you by the throat.
And tonight, mine had screamed.
Flashes of fire, silver eyes, a voice I'd never heard but somehow knew would undo me. I told myself it was just a dream. Just another cruel trick from the gift I never asked for.
But the scent of smoke and death pulled me here anyway.
I crept through the trees, heart pounding, clutching the cloak tighter around my body like it could hide the shaking. My wolf was restless beneath my skin, pacing, ears back.
Go back, she warned. We don't belong here.
She was right. I didn't belong anywhere.
And then I saw him.
Towering. Broad shoulders. Blood smeared down his arms, his chest rising slowly like he hadn't even been fighting, like none of this touched him. His aura hit me first—cold, commanding, cruel.
Then his eyes locked onto mine.
I stopped breathing.
Silver. Not just glowing—burning. I felt the heat slam into me like a shockwave. My knees nearly gave out. My wolf stopped moving.
The world faded. Sounds fell away. It was just him—and the bond snapping into place with vicious finality.
No.
I didn't want this. I didn't want him. I'd spent my entire life avoiding Alphas, hiding what I was, surviving in the shadows. I'd learned how to be invisible. How to keep my power buried so deep no one would ever notice it flicker.
But he saw me.
And worse… he felt me.
I saw it in the way his posture changed. How he moved—like a predator who had finally caught the scent he'd been chasing forever.
He took one step toward me. Then another.
My instincts screamed. Run. Shift. Disappear. But my legs wouldn't move.
I wasn't afraid of him. Not exactly. It was worse than fear.
It was recognition.
"My name is Lucien," he said, voice like gravel and thunder. "And you shouldn't be here."
I swallowed hard. His presence pressed against me, massive and suffocating. His wolf was close to the surface—I could feel it, pacing behind his eyes. Wild. Ready.
But so was mine.
"I didn't come for you," I said, barely above a whisper. "I didn't come for any of you."
His eyes narrowed.
He didn't move, but I felt the tension coil in his body like a storm about to break. He was fighting it—the pull between us, the bond that wanted to drag us together like gravity.
So was I.
Because this bond?
It didn't feel like fate.