"The closer I got to him, the more I remembered why distance had been safer."
The fire had died down to embers by the time a soft knock came at the door. Orange light pulsed faintly against the stone walls of the chamber, casting long shadows that seemed to breathe with each flicker. Outside, night had fallen completely over Crescent Hall, the moon hidden behind thick clouds that promised rain by morning.
I jolted upright where I had drifted into a shallow, restless sleep on the bed. The quilt—thick and heavy with the scent of cedar and something uniquely him—tangled around my legs like binding ropes. The heavy scent of burning wood filled my lungs, somehow both comforting and suffocating all at once.
For a moment, I sat there frozen, half-lost between waking and dream, between memory and reality.
The knock came again, firmer this time, snapping me back to the present.
I rubbed my face quickly, my fingers tracing the line of fatigue beneath my eyes. Standing, I smoothed the light white dress around my shoulders—one of the garments Kael had arranged to have prepared for me. The fabric whispered against my skin, too soft, too delicate. I'd grown accustomed to rougher materials, to clothing that protected rather than adorned.
The air in the room seemed colder now—or maybe it was just the way the bond prickled against my skin, warning me. It had been dormant for so long, buried beneath layers of anger and betrayal and distance. But since crossing the threshold of Crescent Hall, it had awakened like a starving creature, stretching and clawing beneath my skin, demanding recognition.
Recognition I couldn't afford to give it.
My bare feet made no sound as I crossed the woven rug toward the door. Each step felt deliberate, as if I were moving through water, against some invisible current pulling me back toward safety. Toward solitude.
Away from him.
I paused with my hand on the latch, steadying my breathing the way elders concil had taught me during those first brutal months of exile. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Feel the earth beneath your feet. Ground yourself in what is real.
The problem was, the bond was real too—as real as the floor beneath me, as real as the heartbeat pounding in my chest.
I opened the door.
A young male wolf stood there—a guard, by the look of him—stiff-backed, wearing the crescent moon insignia embroidered in silver thread against his dark uniform. His hair was cropped short at the sides, longer on top, and his amber eyes darted nervously to mine before quickly looking away.
He's new, I thought.
"Alpha Blackthorn requests your presence for dinner," he said formally, eyes not quite meeting mine. His posture betrayed his discomfort—shoulders too square, stance too wide. A wolf trying to appear more dominant than he felt.
Dinner.
Not a command. Not a suggestion.
A request.
But from Kael, a "request" felt no different than an order. I'd learned that lesson well enough by now.
I hesitated—long enough that the guard shifted uneasily on his feet. A small, petty part of me enjoyed his discomfort. Let them all be uncomfortable. Let them all remember that I wasn't here willingly, wasn't here as a friend or ally or pack member.
"Tell him I'm not hungry," I said, injecting ice into my tone.
The guard's throat bobbed as he swallowed. A thin sheen of sweat appeared on his brow. "Alpha Blackthorn asked me to inform you that refusal would not be well received."
Of course not. Kael Blackthorn, Alpha of the Crescent Fang Pack, had never taken well to rejection of any kind. Whether it was a dinner invitation or—
I sighed inwardly and nodded once, stepping into the hall.
The guard said nothing more, simply turned and began walking. I followed, the soles of my boots whispering against the ancient stone floors. Each step felt like a surrender, though to what, I wasn't entirely sure. To the bond, perhaps. To the inevitable confrontation that awaited me.
To him.
The hallways twisted and wound like veins through Crescent Hall, heavy with silence, the air dense with the scents of iron and pine and old magic. Torches lined the walls at irregular intervals, casting pools of golden light that barely pushed back the darkness.
Tapestries depicting the history of the Crescent Fang Pack hung between the sconces—tales of ancient battles, of alliances forged and broken, of wolves who had risen to greatness and those who had fallen to ruin.
Every step closer to him, the bond grew louder—not in sound, but in sensation.
A heartbeat I could feel through the floor. A pull like invisible threads woven through my skin. A tension that made the air feel thinner.
By the time we reached the eastern wing of the hall, where the private dining chamber was located, my skin felt too tight for my body. The wolf in me paced restlessly beneath the surface, responding to the proximity of its mate even as I tried to silence it.
He is not your mate, I reminded myself fiercely. Not anymore. Not ever again.
We reached a wide double door carved with the sigil of the Crescent Fang Pack—a snarling wolf's head surrounded by a perfect crescent moon.
The guard knocked once, then pushed the door open without waiting for a response. The hinges moved silently, well-oiled and maintained like everything else in Crescent Hall. Nothing was allowed to rust here, nothing permitted to decay.
And there he was.
Kael stood at the head of a long dining table set with simple, functional place settings. No gold, no velvet—just dark polished wood, worn smooth by generations of wolves who had sat there before us. Two candelabras cast a warm glow over the table, illuminating the feast laid out but leaving the corners of the room in shadow.
He wasn't wearing the heavy Alpha's cloak I'd glimpsed earlier when I'd first been brought before him. Just a black shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, the first two buttons undone at the collar, revealing a sliver of skin.
Casual. Deceptively disarming.
But the tension coiled beneath his skin gave him away. I could see it in the rigid set of his shoulders, the careful way he held himself, as if one wrong move might shatter something irreplaceable. His dark hair—longer than I remembered it—fell across his forehead, casting shadows over eyes that had haunted my dreams for three months.
He's a wolf barely leashed.
And he was waiting.
Waiting for me.
I felt heat pooling low in my abdomen, an instinctive response to his presence that infuriated me. Even now, after everything, my body remembered his. The bond between us flared, bright and demanding, and I ruthlessly shoved it down, burying it beneath layers of remembered pain.
Our eyes met across the room—and the bond lashed out between us, sharper than before. A visible shudder ran through him, so subtle that anyone else might have missed it. But I knew his body too well, even after all this time. I knew what it meant when his pupils dilated like that, when his nostrils flared to catch my scent.
Kael's jaw clenched, but he said nothing. He simply gestured to the seat at his right—not at the far end of the table, but close enough that our shoulders would nearly brush. Close enough that avoiding contact would require constant vigilance.
A test, then. Or a trap.
I lifted my chin and walked toward him, every step deliberate, refusing to let him see how my pulse skittered under my skin. The dress swirled around my ankles, too light, too revealing. I felt exposed in more ways than one.
I took the seat silently, smoothing the dress over my lap, keeping my eyes fixed on the table before me. The silverware gleamed in the candlelight, reflections dancing along polished surfaces. I resisted the urge to pick up a knife, just to have something solid to hold onto.
Kael sat after me.
A subtle show of deference—or control.
Maybe both.