The throne room of Blackthorn Castle smelled of iron and pine.
Iron from the blood still drying across the black marble floor.
Pine from the endless forest that wrapped the castle in its shadowed embrace.
The scent of death and wilderness.
The scent of a kingdom ruled by something not entirely human.
Kael Voss, Alpha King of Shadowfang, sat motionless on his obsidian throne.
He did not lean back.
He did not fidget.
He did not blink.
Six centuries had carved patience into his bones.
Over six hundred years of watching empires rise and fall. Of burying enemies. Of burying allies. Of burying the rare foolish soul who thought they could challenge him and live.
He had stopped counting the years.
Time meant nothing when your heart beat with two warring rhythms.
The wolf's wild pulse thundered hot and savage in his chest.
The vampire's cold hunger coiled beneath it, eternal and whispering.
Two predators.
One body.
No peace.
He was the sin of a forbidden union.
His mother had been a vampire queen—beautiful, ruthless, untouchable.
His father, a wolf alpha feared across three territories.
Their love had not been blessed.
It had been cursed.
And their child inherited everything.
Immortality.
Strength unmatched.
Speed that blurred into shadow.
And a curse that never loosened its grip.
Every full moon, the wolf demanded freedom—claws, teeth, blood beneath his paws.
Every night, the vampire thirsted—crimson warmth sliding down his throat.
When the moon was high, both sides clawed for dominance.
They did not cooperate.
They fought.
Inside him.
Tearing. Scraping. Burning.
Kael ruled through fear because fear was simple.
Fear did not ask questions.
Fear did not look too closely.
Fear did not notice when his control slipped for half a heartbeat too long.
No mate.
No queen.
No one close enough to see him fracture.
Tonight, the moon hung swollen and low beyond the high windows, heavy and watchful. Its light spilled across the throne room like judgment.
It pulled at his veins.
His fingers curled around the arms of the obsidian throne. Claws extended without permission, slicing into the polished stone.
Black blood welled from his palms.
It hissed softly where it touched the marble.
And then it healed.
As it always did.
At the base of the throne, a body was being dragged away. The last challenger. A rogue alpha who thought rumors of the hybrid king were exaggerated.
He had been wrong.
The heavy doors groaned open again.
Chains scraped against stone.
A seer—ancient, bent, wrapped in silver bindings etched with runes—was forced forward by two guards.
She knelt before him, though her spine remained straight.
Her eyes were milky white, but they found him without effort.
"The prophecy unfolds, my king," she whispered.
Her voice sounded like wind through dead leaves.
Kael did not move.
Prophecies bored him.
They were crutches for weaker creatures who needed hope to survive.
"The rejected one will come," she continued, breath trembling. "A she-wolf cast aside, broken by her own bond. Marked by humiliation. Hardened by survival."
A low, dangerous sound vibrated in Kael's chest.
"Only she can calm the storm in your blood…"
The wolf inside him snarled.
The vampire went very still.
"...or drown you in it."
Silence swallowed the throne room.
The guards shifted uneasily.
Kael's laugh broke the stillness.
Low. Dark. Cruel.
It rolled across the chamber like distant thunder.
"A rejected stray?" he said, rising slowly from the throne.
The air changed when he stood. It always did.
Power pressed outward from him in waves. Ancient. Predatory. Absolute.
"The Moon Goddess mocks me."
His eyes flashed—crimson first, then molten gold, the colors warring for dominance.
"If she dares enter my lands," he continued, voice soft but lethal, "I will tear out her throat before any bond can form."
The wolf liked that idea.
The vampire liked it even more.
"I need no savior," he said, stepping down from the dais. His boots echoed heavily against the stone. "I am the end of weakness."
He stopped before the seer.
She should have flinched.
She did not.
Instead, her cracked lips curved upward.
Not in fear.
In pity.
The expression unsettled something deep in his chest—something he crushed immediately.
The seer smiled sadly.
"Arrogance is the first chain, my king. And fate loves to break it."
Outside, the wind howled through the pines, carrying the scent of rain… and something sweeter.
Something forbidden.
The rejected one was already near.