Lucien
The moon hung high, its pale light casting long shadows over the pack's borders. It was too quiet, too still. The air smelled of earth, of blood, of fear. The kind of night that always heralded something dangerous.
I moved through the trees, the forest parting effortlessly around me. The wolf inside me thrummed with the need for violence, for action, but I held it back. I always held it back. Tonight, I was here on business. To keep my people safe. To secure my claim.
My eyes narrowed as I neared the clearing where the scouts had reported strange activity. A whisper in the night. A scent that didn't belong.
The East pack was too bold, too close to our territory.
I wasn't going to let them make a mistake.
My senses were sharp, like a predator tracking its prey. The air shifted. A faint scent of jasmine and rain caught my attention. It was out of place, but familiar.
Her.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
Her scent was unmistakable.
Elara.
I hadn't expected her to be here—on the edge of the woods. In the heart of my territory. And yet… there she was. Her small frame barely visible beneath the dense shadows of the trees, moving like a ghost. Her movements were cautious, purposeful. She was running. But why? Why here?
Before I could think, I pushed forward, my steps silent against the ground, my body moving with purpose.
I didn't call out to her. There was no need. She knew I was here. I could see the tension in her posture, feel it in the way her shoulders stiffened the moment I stepped into the clearing. She had no idea how much I could sense.
She stopped, her back stiffening as if preparing for an attack. She was good. Her instincts were sharp, no doubt, but she didn't know how to hide from me.
"You shouldn't be here," I said, my voice low, a command without effort.
Her head snapped to the side, her eyes wide with that unmistakable mix of defiance and fear. For a moment, she didn't speak. The silence stretched, both of us standing in the moonlight, neither one willing to back down.
"I'm not here for you," she said quietly, but her voice trembled slightly. There was power in her, but I could tell she was struggling. That spark of rebellion—it burned bright, but it wasn't enough to extinguish the vulnerability that simmered just beneath the surface.
"You don't get to decide that," I said, stepping closer, my voice turning harder. My wolf clawed at the back of my mind, sensing the bond pulling taut between us, like a string being drawn tighter with every breath she took. "You're mine now."
Her eyes flashed with fury. "No, I'm not."
There was a fire in her that intrigued me. She wasn't like the other omegas I had known. She wasn't broken by her past, wasn't submissive. She was defiant. Angry. Sassy.
But I knew the truth.
The bond had already formed, whether she accepted it or not. Whether I wanted it or not.
I closed the distance between us, my presence pressing down on her like a weight. "You are mine," I repeated, my voice growing colder.
Her breath hitched, and she finally stepped back, her hand instinctively resting on the small blade hidden in her cloak. The challenge was clear.
"You don't know what you're dealing with," she snapped, her voice trembling slightly despite the bravado. "I'm not some helpless omega you can just claim."
She was scared. It was there in her eyes, in the way her body stiffened when I moved too close. But there was something else too. Something stronger. A resistance. A power she hadn't fully realized yet.
I took another step toward her, watching the way her breath hitched again. This time, it wasn't from fear of me. It was the pull between us—the bond that was impossible to ignore, that neither of us could break. My wolf growled inside my chest, demanding that I claim her, demand her submission.
But I didn't. I wouldn't.
I wasn't here for that. Not yet.
"Elara," I said her name softly, as if testing it on my tongue. "You don't belong here."
"Then why am I here?" she countered, her voice laced with bitterness. "You don't get to decide where I go."
I smirked, an edge of something darker creeping into my smile. "I don't have to decide. You already belong to me. And soon, you'll understand why."
Her eyes narrowed, her lips parting as if she was about to say something biting. But before she could, there was a rustling behind us.
I snapped my head around, alert.
The pack had arrived.
My warriors were trained to be silent in their movements, but they were close now. I could hear them. Feel their eyes on us, studying her. My warriors knew who she was. They'd been briefed on the strange scent they'd been tracking. But they didn't understand the bond. They didn't know what I felt when I looked at her.
My attention snapped back to Elara. She was breathing harder now, her chest rising and falling with the kind of frantic energy I knew too well. She was scared—yes—but more than that, she was trying to control the rising panic inside her.
She wasn't running because of me. She was running because of something deeper. Something buried inside her.
"I'm not your mate," she said again, though there was less conviction in her voice this time.
The words were a plea. A denial.
But I knew the truth.
"You're mine," I repeated, my voice low and commanding. "And I'll make sure you understand that."
Before she could react, I grabbed her wrist, the bond surging between us. And with that single touch, the world around us shifted.