The helicopter cut through the gray sky like a blade, a sleek silhouette disappearing into the mist-drenched peaks behind the castle. When it landed on the helipad nestled beside the jagged cliff, there were no theatrics—no dramatic music, no camera panning for effect. Just silence, broken only by the heavy whir of the rotors slicing through the fog.
And from the belly of the beast, The Wolf emerged.
They moved like smoke—silent, precise, contained. No unnecessary movements, no wasted glances. Their assessment site had been the most remote, buried in a snow-laced gorge nearly inaccessible by normal means. It had taken days to reach it, and longer to survive it. But they had. Barely. And what they'd endured there wasn't something they planned on sharing. It belonged to them now—sealed behind their ribs like a secret too dangerous to utter. The others didn't need to know how that particular bloodbath ended. They didn't need to know who stood last. They never would.
The Wolf didn't come here to impress. They came to win—and win clean. Quietly. Efficiently. Without drawing heat or wandering eyes.
Because unlike the rest of the contenders scrambling for glory, validation, or the promise of wealth so obscene it could warp kingdoms, The Wolf's reasons were different. The money was a convenient bonus. But their true prize? That was something far more elusive, far more personal. A name. A whisper. A shadow they needed to chase down and pin to the ground.
They walked with purpose, their footsteps light on the stone path that led to the castle's towering main gates—no swagger, no hesitation, just silent confidence. A black coat hugged their frame, sleek and unadorned, with a hood pulled low to shadow their features. Every choice calculated. Every step rehearsed. The Wolf had studied for this, prepared in ways none of the others had. They didn't just train; they transformed.
At the entrance, a castle steward awaited with the practiced weariness of someone who had seen too many strangers in too few hours. But something shifted in the man's eyes as The Wolf approached. A flicker of recognition? Or just the echo of something he couldn't quite name? Regardless, he straightened subtly and offered a smile—the first he'd managed all day.
No words passed between them. Just a nod. Respect without acquaintance. Understanding without exchange.
The Wolf reached into the antique wooden box holding the team keys. Their fingers brushed against cool metal and closed around the one they already knew would be theirs—a lion carved in gleaming gold, bound in a strap of blood-red leather. Of course. Of course it would be the lion. The irony wasn't lost on them. The predator marked by a predator.
They tucked the key into their coat and followed the steward's secretary into the castle's grand drawing room, where the other twenty-four contestants waited—each of them clad in formal black, as instructed. The room was cavernous, all vaulted ceilings and sweeping tapestries, dimly lit by a dozen chandeliers dripping with crystal.
The Wolf kept to the perimeter, unspeaking. Observing. Cataloguing. Measuring the weight of every glance, the tremble behind every smile, the twitch in every clenched jaw, in their first seconds there.
She entered and the atmosphere changed.
A ripple moved through the room, palpable and electric. Conversations died mid-sentence. Glasses froze mid-sip. The very air shifted, dense with something primal and magnetic.
Twenty-four heads turned as one. Twenty-four pairs of eyes widened, then narrowed, caught between wonder and wariness.
She didn't just enter the room—she altered it.
She was the kind of beautiful that didn't beg for attention—it commanded it, like a tide pulled by moons no one else could see.
Her hair, a deep mahogany threaded with hints of auburn, spilled down her back in silken waves, catching the light like flame over polished wood. Her skin was golden olive, smooth and sun-kissed, the kind of radiant warmth that whispered of ancient summers and temples lost to time. High cheekbones carved her heart-shaped face with elegant precision, softened only by full rose-toned lips and a gaze that defied explanation. Her eyes—almond-shaped and slightly upturned—held the rare glow of golden-hazel fire ringed in green, a gaze so magnetic it made secrets unravel and promises form unspoken.
A straight, subtly aquiline nose lent her the nobility of a goddess cast in marble, while dark, arched brows gave her expression weight and unshakable confidence. She stood at nearly five foot ten, sculpted with a dancer's grace—broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, full hips, toned, her every movement fluid, deliberate, devastating. When she entered a room, it was as though the walls leaned in to listen.
She smelled of jasmine and fig and things long forgotten. She was not merely beautiful. She was myth reborn, a vision so complete that even silence bent to her.
She wore black like it was invented for her. She walked like she didn't need to prove anything, because the world had already been convinced.
And she played it well—this game of calculated naiveté. She looked down at the lion-shaped key in her hand as if it were just a trinket, not a declaration. She toyed with the crimson strap and let her lips part in mild confusion.
"Um… where are the Lions?" she asked, her voice husky and low, like velvet slipping off a blade.
The room collectively blinked.
"There," came the unified chorus, all fingers pointing to the far right corner of the drawing room, where four contestants stood frozen, watching her like she might burst into flames or demand fealty.
"Thank you," she said with a small smile, all soft curves and devastating poise. "I'm Thalia. Thalia Drakos."
Her name dropped like silk over stone.
"You're Greek?" asked one of the Eagles—a tall man with olive skin and an Italian accent. Curious, hopeful.
She tilted her head slightly and hummed, "Mmhm," then turned away, her heels clicking softly on the polished marble floor as she approached her new team.
It took her only seconds to read them—truly read them.
The older man with sun-worn skin and dark eyes? South American. Likely Colombian or Peruvian. The tall, icy blonde with glacial blue eyes? Russian, no question. The light-haired guy with that easy slouch and Midwestern jawline? American or Canadian. And the last one—the quiet one with straight black hair, pale as porcelain, and an elegance she immediately respected—Japanese. Her favorite of the four, she decided, almost instantly.
"Hey," she said to them, flashing a disarming smile that melted through all their composure like spring thaw. "I hope you'll take care of me for now. I think I'm the youngest here," she added, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear with a practiced innocence. "Since I was… the last."
Before any of them could respond, the heavy double doors at the far end of the chamber creaked open.
And the room fell under a new silence.
"All of you are here, Miss Thalia Drakos," came a voice like velvet over steel—deep, deliberate, and unmistakably foreign.
Everyone turned.
Standing beneath the archway, clad in bespoke midnight-blue velvet, was Lucien Vallois de Sévigné. The host. The architect of the Trials. The billionaire whose whims could reshape economies. Sixty-eight years old. Born of Swiss nobility and French diplomacy. A man of many tongues, many masks, and only one rule: Everything has a price.
And now, all twenty-five players had gathered in his game.
The Wolf did not flinch.
And the girl with the lion key met the billionaire's gaze. She didn't bow. Didn't curtsy. Just smiled, as though she had been expecting him.
The Wolf felt it before it happened—like the pressure change before a storm cracks open the sky. A flicker in the air. A shift in gravity. The moment their eyes met the Billionaire's across the grand room, something ancient and savage surged within them, nearly ripping through the quiet mask they wore like a second skin.
Lucien Vallois De Sévigné stood with a king's poise beneath the vast arch of the drawing room's entrance, robed in bespoke black velvet and centuries of power. At sixty-eight, the man was no longer young, but his presence eclipsed age—he radiated command, the kind that couldn't be taught or bought, only bled for. His eyes, a cutting shade of green like moss veined with serpentine silver, locked on the Wolf's like a blade meeting another mid-air. Silent. Precise. Dangerous.
It wasn't a glance. It was an evaluation.
A dissection.
The Wolf's instincts screamed, every nerve alight with a feral need to act—to move, to strike, to demand the truth that had festered inside them for over a decade. The knowledge he held. The blood he'd helped spill. The things he'd buried and smiled over as though they were garden secrets. They could see it in the smug slant of his lips, in the ease of his stare. He knew.
And worse—he knew they knew.
But the Wolf was no amateur. Emotion was a luxury they had long since amputated. So they wore stillness like armor. A perfectly constructed expression, cold and civil. The porcelain smile that had carried them through embassies, interrogation rooms, and near-death. They forced the twitch in their jaw to die in the cradle. They curled their fingers inward, not into fists, but into elegance.
There could be no cracks here. No tells.
Not this early. Not with twenty-four pairs of eyes and a camera in every corner.
They remembered too well how the pre-entry assessment had ended—a place so brutal it had rewritten their bone-deep understanding of cruelty. And they'd been the last to leave that blood-soaked field alive. No one here needed to know what had happened in that trial. And they certainly couldn't afford another one spiraling out of control before the real game even began.
So, they did what they'd done all their life.
They stayed quiet.
They watched.
They waited.
The Billionaire's lips curved ever so slightly, as if recognizing the restraint in them—almost pleased. His voice cut through the murmuring tension like a guillotine through silk.
"Amusing, isn't it," Lucien said, in that deep, almost honey-thick Swiss-French accent of his, "that both the eldest contestant—Mateo Atilano, Peruvian, thirty-one—and the youngest—Miss Thalia Drakos, Greek, eighteen—have found themselves in the same team."
Thalia stood at the edge of the Lions with the composed serenity of someone who had worn diamonds before daggers. She sucked her tongue behind her teeth, clearly restraining a smirk as if pleased her earlier nationality assessment had been spot on.
"I'm fine with being the youngest," she said with a shrug that was just this side of coy. The tilt of her voice was velvet and smoke—light, but with embers beneath.
Lucien hummed, then turned from her and swept the room with his gaze like a monarch surveying his kingdom. His grin spread wider, blooming with something predatory beneath the charm.
"Welcome, children. Welcome. You are the chosen," he declared, voice rising like an overture. "The elite, the strongest survivors of the twenty-five pre-entry assessment camps. Be proud. You have earned your place here."
He paused, letting the gravity of his words settle. His eyes gleamed.
"You are now one step closer to twenty-five million pounds."
Applause did not follow. Not yet. There was too much unspoken in the room—too much blood still clinging to memory, to skin, even beneath the designer black attire they'd all been dressed in.
The Wolf didn't join in the tension. They were already past it.
Their mind was elsewhere—ten steps ahead, as always. Because this wasn't about the money for them. Not really. This was about truth.
And if they had to walk through fire again to get it, they would.
Smiling.
All teeth.