The Alpha's Refusal
The great hall still buzzed with noise when Kael turned on his heel and strode back up the dais, his cloak came snapping like the lash of a whip behind him. He didn't look at me again.
The Bloodfang warriors hesitated, caught between the instinct to jeer at me and the instinct to follow their Alpha's lead. A restless ripple moved through them, their laughter faltering into low murmurs. I stood rooted in place, my knees aching from the forced kneel, my pulse still racing from the violent surge of the mate bond. My skin felt feverish, my throat raw as if I'd swallowed fire.
I tried to steady myself, but my body betrayed me, trembling with the aftershocks. The bond was still there, tugging at my core like an iron chain. It made every breath burn. It made every heartbeat feel like it belonged to someone else. Him.
Kael didn't pause at his throne. He didn't even allow himself a moment to address the watching crowd. He swept past the carved stone seat as though it were nothing more than an obstacle, disappearing through a side archway that gaped like the maw of the fortress itself. His steps echoed briefly, then faded into shadow. Two guards fell in behind him at once, their boots pounding against the stone floor in perfect rhythm, their faces grim.
The silence he left behind pressed on me heavier than the jeers had.
Dozens of pairs of eyes clung to me, their weight sharp and suffocating. The firelight from the torches painted me in shades of gold and blood, the heat prickling my skin until I wanted to tear it off. I clenched my jaw and forced myself not to move. Not to flinch. Not to give them anything.
If they wanted to see a Silvermist wolf broken, they would be waiting a long time.
In his chambers, Kael paced like a caged beast.
The hearth fire spat and cracked, throwing jagged shadows across the walls. Its glow brushed along the hard planes of his face, gilding his golden eyes until they looked like molten metal. He braced his hands on the heavy oak table in the center of the chamber, shoulders bowed under the weight of something he refused to name. His breath came hard, uneven, as though the act of breathing itself had become a fight.
The bond thrummed in his blood. It was a living, breathing thing, clawing at his control, forcing recognition where he wanted only denial. His wolf snarled inside him, restless, demanding what the moon had decreed. He hated it, hated that his body knew her, that every nerve strained toward her even while his mind screamed refusal.
The memory rose before he could stop it, as sharp and bitter as ash.
He had been seventeen the night the Silvermist wolves spilled into Bloodfang lands. His parents had gone ahead to settle a border dispute. Diplomacy, they had called it. Honor, his father had said. Kael had believed him.
By dawn, honor was buried with them.
He remembered the scent before anything else, the Silvermist musk clinging thick in the air, coating his tongue until it turned his stomach. He had followed it, running wild through the trees, his heart refusing to believe what his instincts already knew.
Then he'd seen them.
His father's body sprawled in the mud, throat torn open. His mother lying nearby, her white hair tangled with blood, her hand still reaching for him even in death.
The ring that had never left his father's finger was half-buried in dirt, crushed into the earth as though it were nothing.
The grief had been endless, but grief alone could not sustain him. It hardened, calcified, until only rage remained. Rage, and a vow forged in blood and fury: "Silvermist would pay."
And now fate had bound him to one of them.
His jaw clenched. His nails dug into the oak, scoring grooves into the wood. His chest heaved as he fought the urge to smash, to destroy, to give his wolf the violence it craved. But violence would not break the bond. Only rejection would. Only refusal.
By the time Kael returned to the great hall, the restless crowd had swelled into near chaos. Warriors lounged against pillars or prowled the edges of the chamber, their conversations could be seen as a low, eager buzz. More than once, their eyes slid toward me, lingering too long, their lips curled into knowing smirks.
I stood where they had left me, rigid as stone. My back screamed, my knees throbbed, but I would not bend again. Not here. Not under their eyes.
When Kael appeared once more at the top of the dais, the room fell silent as if someone had driven a blade through the tension. He stopped halfway down the steps, not close enough to touch me but close enough that his gaze pinned me like a blade to the wall. His eyes were fire and iron, they were unrelenting.
"Bloodfang," he said, his voice echoing against the stone, resonant and commanding.
The hall quieted further. Not even the torches seemed to crackle.
"Tonight we stand victorious. But fate..." his lip curled faintly on the word "...plays cruel tricks. Tricks I will not bow to."
A ripple of unease passed through the warriors, but they did not dare speak.
Kael's gaze burned into mine, and for a moment the world shrank until there was only him and me.
"This woman," he continued, his voice slicing through the hall like a blade, "is Silvermist. She is nothing to me. No matter what bond the moon tries to weave, I reject her."
The words were iron. Final!!! They cut through me sharper than any steel.
The pain came instantly; a sharp, tearing agony deep in my chest, as if invisible claws had raked through my heart. My wolf screamed a howl of anguish that reverberated only inside me, tearing at my soul. My knees buckled under the weight of it. I gasped, choking, clutching at my chest as though I could physically hold my heart together.
The stone floor met me hard. I collapsed against it, palms splayed, breath coming in ragged gasps. The pain was relentless, rolling through me in waves that left me shaking and broken. It was like fire and ice colliding inside me, a burn that hollowed me out from the inside.
Gasps rose around the hall, sharp intakes of breath. Some faces showed shock. Others, grim satisfaction. I heard the hiss of whispers spreading like wildfire, speculation dripping from every tongue.
Kael didn't move toward me. Not a single step. His back remained straight, his eyes unreadable. He had delivered his judgment, and now he turned from me as though I were already nothing.
"Take her to the dungeon," he said with a low tone that carried serious danger.
The words sealed my fate.
Immediately, almost too soon, hands seized me, rough and unyielding hands. They dragged me up, and the chains clattered, with my legs barely obeying. The taste of blood filled my mouth where I had bitten my tongue, blood slickly poured against my teeth. The mate bond was still there, it burned in my veins, raw and searing like an open wound that would not close.
And yet, in spite of the humiliation, in spite of the agony tearing me apart, my body betrayed me.
Even as my heart screamed in protest, even as my wolf writhed in anguish, a part of me still ached for him. Still yearned for the very Alpha who had rejected me before his entire pack.
And that was the cruelest cut of all. And I doubt I could ever forgive me for that.