He was a wraith of grey fur and vengeance. The forest, his stolen kingdom, was silent but for the soft, wet dripping of blood onto ferns. A metallic, coppery tang hung heavy in the air, mingling with the scent of pine and disturbed earth. One hunter was down, his throat a ruin. A second lay twisted against the gnarled roots of an ancient oak, his surprise forever etched on his dead face. Connall tasted the air again—sweat, fear, and the lingering musk of Bloodfang dominance. One remained.
He moved through the undergrowth with a predator's lethal economy, his massive paws making no sound on the damp soil. This was not a fight. It was a culling. His rage was a cold, hard thing, a diamond forged in the pressure of a decade of loss, honed to a razor's edge and guided by years of solitary discipline. He spotted his final target. Kael, the brutish leader, was scrambling backward on all fours, his wide eyes darting through the shadows, searching for the men who were already dead. Terror rolled off him in waves.
*Prey.*
As Connall coiled his powerful haunches for the final, lethal rush, the blood-red moon flared, its light intensifying as if it were a malevolent eye opening wider. The unwanted connection to the silver she-wolf ignited in his chest, a spear of agonizing energy that tore through him. It was a disorienting pulse, a foreign presence flooding his mind, whispering instincts he refused to hear. Images not his own flashed behind his eyes: the urge to cover her trembling body with his own, to lick the blood from her wounds, to nuzzle his face into her neck and fill his lungs with her scent. *Protect. Shield. Mate.* He felt a ghost of her terror, her bone-deep pain, an echo that threatened to unbalance his killing focus.
He shoved the feeling down, crushing it with the cold fury that had been his only companion for years. He would not be weakened. He would not be controlled by some cosmic joke. He exploded from the shadows, a blur of muscle and righteous hate. Kael had no time to scream, only to see a flash of grey fur and glowing amber eyes before jaws of impossible strength clamped down on his throat. There was a sickening crunch of bone, and with a single, violent shake, it was over. The forest fell utterly, unnaturally silent.
The immediate threat was gone. But the bond remained—a glowing, undeniable tether of crimson light that only he could see, linking him to the wounded wolf in the clearing.
Connall padded to the edge of the trees, the spectral thread pulling at him, an infuriating leash on his very soul. He saw her huddled against a tree, her silver fur matted with blood and dirt. She was trembling, not from the cold, but from pure, unadulterated terror. A wave of instinct, raw and powerful, washed over him again—a command from his own blood to go to her, to soothe her, to shield her from the world with his body and his life.
He suppressed it with a viciousness that made his own muscles ache. *Weakness.* It was a poison he could not afford. Mistrust was his armor. Solitude was his shield. This feeling was a chink in that armor, a flaw he would hammer shut.
With a low grunt of effort, he let the change take him. The process was a controlled agony. Bones cracked and reformed, his spine lengthening, shoulders broadening. Fur receded into skin with a searing heat. He stood naked in the crimson moonlight, his body a canvas of old scars and hard, unforgiving muscle. The shift was a tactical choice, an attempt to appear less of an immediate animal threat, but his grim expression and the chilling control in his eyes offered no comfort. He was all menace, human-shaped but no less a predator.
The sight of him, a powerful Alpha in human form, spurred a pained, shuddering transformation in the she-wolf. It was not a controlled shift like his, but one born of exhaustion and terror. With a low whimper of agony, her own bones cracked and reformed. Fur receded into pale skin, leaving her just as naked, smaller and infinitely more vulnerable, huddled against the base of the tree. She wrapped her arms around herself, trembling, a stark image of a hunted fugitive now stripped of her last defense.
He did not offer a gentle word. His voice was a low growl, hard as the granite stones beneath his feet. "Who are you? Why were they hunting you?"
The she-wolf flinched, her silver eyes wide with a fear that grated on his last nerve. She tried to press herself further into the rough bark of the tree, making herself smaller as if she could simply disappear. Her silence was an answer he wouldn't accept. He took a deliberate step forward, and the bond between them flared, a visible shimmer in the air that made them both wince in a shared, unwanted sensation. A jolt of her terror shot through him, and she recoiled as if struck by the cold force of his will.
He repeated the demand, his voice leaving no room for refusal. "Answer me."
Her breath hitched, a small, terrified sound in the quiet clearing. She seemed to find a sliver of courage from some deep, hidden well, her gaze lifting from the ground to his face. "Althea," she whispered, her voice trembling but clear.
The name meant nothing to him. It was a sound, a collection of syllables. He needed to know her allegiance, the poison that ran in her veins. "Your pack," he commanded, his tone leaving no doubt this was not a request.
She looked up then, fully meeting his cold gaze. Her fear was still there, a palpable thing, but it was now warring with a flicker of cornered defiance. She spoke the name that was a curse on his tongue, the word that had defined every moment of his wretched life for the last ten years.
"Bloodfang."
The world stopped. The name didn't just echo in the clearing; it detonated in his mind. The air crackled. Visceral flashes of memory, sharp and brutal, tore through the walls he'd built around his past. The reek of burning pine and scorched fur from his family's den. The high-pitched, terrified screams of his mother and sister. The booming laugh of a Bloodfang warrior as he stood over his father's body, the usurper's snarling wolf crest emblazoned on his armor. His father's last roared command: *Run, Connall. Live.*
The nascent, unwanted protectiveness the bond had forced upon him curdled, then flash-froze into pure, soul-deep hatred. A feral snarl ripped from his throat, a sound of utter revulsion that was more animal than human. He no longer saw a wounded she-wolf. He saw a monster. A piece of the very plague that had destroyed his world, delivered to him by a sick twist of fate.
He lunged.
The instant his killing intent focused on her, the fated bond ignited like a chain of white-hot fire. The violent conflict between his murderous rage and the bond's sacred, protective purpose created a backlash of pure, unimaginable agony. It wasn't a push; it was a detonation. A scream of invisible energy slammed into him, hurling him backward as if he'd been struck by lightning. He crashed into a tree trunk, the impact jarring every bone in his body.
He staggered to his knees, clutching his chest, a scream of torment trapped in his throat. It felt as if his heart was being torn from its moorings while simultaneously being branded with a hot iron. The magic of his ancestors, the sacred promise of a mate, had not just failed him—it had betrayed him utterly, shackling him to his sworn enemy. He was trapped. He was tormented.
His mind screamed the silent, desperate question into the uncaring, blood-red sky.
*How can my fated mate be one of them?*