"You're twenty-one, Lyra. No wolf. No shift. The grace period is over."
Alpha Roland didn't look at me when he said it. He was busy cleaning his fingernails with a small silver dagger, his voice entirely too casual for a man currently destroying my life.
I knelt on the splintered floorboards of the pack hall, my knees aching from the damp cold creeping up from the stone basement below. Behind me, the heavy hands of two pack warriors pressed into my shoulders, keeping me pinned. I could smell the sour ale on their breath, hear the quiet, mocking snorts from the gallery rows where the rest of the Silverwood pack sat watching the show.
They had come for entertainment.
In a world ruled by claws and bloodlines, turning twenty-one without a wolf spirit meant you were a dead weight ,Worse than an Omega. A useless mouth to feed during a brutal northern winter.
"Alpha, please," I said, keeping my voice level despite the tremor threatening to break it. I refused to give them the satisfaction of a sob. "I can still work the infirmary. I know the herbs better than the pack doctors. I don't need a wolf to scrub floors."
Roland finally looked up, his eyes cold and flat. "We are hosting the Supreme Alpha’s vanguard by week's end. I will not have a scentless, broken human-pretender scrubbing floors where royal wolves walk. It's an embarrassment to our bloodline. As of this moment, you are stripped of your—"
The latch of the heavy oak doors at the back of the hall clicked.
It was a tiny, sharp sound, but it cut through Roland’s speech like a blade. The massive doors creaked open a mere fraction, just enough for a low, freezing draft to slide across the floor.
Then came the pressure.
it felt like the gravity in the room suddenly tripled. The two heavy-handed warriors gripping my shoulders choked out a gasp, their hands flying off me as they collapsed sideways, their chests hitting the floorboards. Across the gallery, the whispers died instantly. Wolves dropped to their hands and knees, their heads bowed so low until the scent of dust filled their nostrils
Even Roland froze, his silver dagger slipping from his fingers and clattering against his throne.
A single man stepped through the door. He wore a heavy, scarred leather coat stained with road salt and dried mud, his dark hair messy from the storm outside. But his eyes. fierce. unblinking amber. carried the kind of quiet, terrifying authority that made your survival instincts scream at you to run.
Alpha Kael. The man who held the keys to every executioner's block in the north.
He walked down the center aisle with a slow, heavy stride. He didn't look at the wolves groveling on either side of him. He didn't even look at Roland, who was currently trembling so hard his knees were knocking together.
Kael’s eyes were locked entirely on me.
The second our eyes locked. I felt the pull in my chest snap tight , a feeling I had never experienced in twenty-one years of being entirely numb.
Mate.
The thought wasn't a voice in my head; it was an absolute, terrifying certainty that settled deep in my bones.
Kael stopped a foot away from me. He looked utterly shocked, his jaw tight as he took a sharp, shallow breath.
He dropped to one knee, his heavy leather boot scraping against the wood. He reached out, his thick, calloused fingers catching me under the chin.
The moment his bare skin touched mine, a searing, white-hot agony erupted beneath my collarbone.
I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat as I tried to pull away, but his grip was iron. Beneath my thin shirt, something was burning its way out from under my skin. Kael ripped the collar of my tunic down, and a low, collective hiss of breath echoed through the room.
A glowing, jagged silver mark was searing itself into my flesh:a crescent moon twined around a royal crest.
My head throbbed violently, the pain blinding me. Images that didn't belong to me flashed behind my eyes: a room engulfed in black smoke, a woman’s terrified scream, and a man's face
scarred and bloody
holding a silver dagger.
The same dagger Roland had just been holding.
Before I could process the thought, the room spun, and my strength completely gave out. I didn't hit the floor. Kael’s arm caught me around the waist, pulling my dead weight against his chest.
"Prepare the master quarters," Kael said. His voice carried a dangerous, vibrating frequency that made the windows rattle in their frames. "And lock the pack gates. If anyone attempts to cross the border tonight, bring me their head."
