The walk back to my chambers felt like navigating a dream—one where the floor was made of glass and the air was thick with the scent of an approaching storm. Silas led the way, his pace slow, his presence a heavy, grounding force that seemed to pull at the very center of my chest.
Every time his shoulder brushed mine in the narrow corridors, my skin felt like it was catching fire. My wolf was practically pacing a hole in my mind, her tail flicking with a restless, hungry energy.
"Touch," she hissed. "Press. Taste."
Be quiet, I begged her, though my own pulse was traitorously loud.
As we reached the heavy oak door of the North Suite, Silas stopped. He turned to face me, and the space between us vanished. He was so tall I had to tilt my head back just to see his jaw, which was set in a hard, jagged line. The amber glow of the wall sconces cast shadows over his face, making him look more like a god of the underworld than a man.
He didn't move to open the door. Instead, he leaned one hand against the wood beside my head, effectively pinning me between the door and his massive frame. The scent of him—leather, cedar, and that sharp, electric Alpha musk—flooded my senses until I was dizzy with it.
"Get some sleep, Seraphina," he said. His voice wasn't just low; it was a rough, broken growl that vibrated against my own skin.
I looked up at him, my breath hitching. His eyes were no longer amber. They were molten gold, the pupils blown so wide there was barely any color left. His gaze dropped to my mouth, and for a heart-stopping second, the air between us seemed to ignite.
He leaned in, his face inches from mine. I could feel the heat radiating off him, the sheer, primal hunger that made his nostrils flare. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I waited for the blow, for the harsh word, for the rejection.
He hates me, I thought, my chest aching. He looks like he wants to tear me apart just for existing in his space.
Silas's hand moved from the door, his fingers twitching as if he were fighting the urge to wrap them around my throat—or my waist. He let out a low, pained sound, a sound of someone being burned alive.
Then, abruptly, he pushed away. He took a staggering step back, his face contorting into a mask of cold, distant fury.
"Tomorrow," he said, his voice now like shards of ice, "the world will ask more of you than it ever has before. Don't fail me."
He turned on his heel and disappeared into his own wing before I could even draw a breath.
I leaned against the door, my knees trembling. He can barely stand to be near me, I thought, blinking back hot tears. I'm a debt he has to tolerate, and he's disgusted by the pull of the bond.
I retreated into my room, stripping off the midnight-blue dress with numb fingers. I saw the faint, hair-thin scores on my fingertips where the claws had emerged—a reminder of the monster he was now forced to train.
I crawled into the massive bed, the silk sheets feeling unnaturally cool.
"He is not disgusted," my wolf whispered, though she sounded just as frustrated as I felt. "He is starving."
The sun hadn't even cleared the horizon when the "noise" of the estate woke me. I dressed quickly in the gear Mrs. Vance had left: leggings of reinforced leather and a tunic of dark grey wool. It felt like a second skin.
When I stepped out onto the training grounds, the morning mist was still clinging to the grass.
Caleb and Elias were waiting. As I approached, my new senses began to sift through the air. I inhaled, and the scent of them hit me. Caleb smelled of ozone and dry earth—a reliable, grounding scent. Elias smelled of old parchment and cold iron—sharp and disciplined.
They were Alphas, but they didn't smell like the rot of the Silver-Moon. There was a strange, dormant tug in my chest as I looked at them—a flicker of a connection that felt like a tether waiting to be tied. It was a sense of "mine" that lay buried under years of pain.
"Ours," my wolf whispered. "The Shadow's guard."
"Morning!" Caleb called out, giving me a grin that was meant to be charming, though he stayed exactly where he was. "Ready to learn how to ruin a man's afternoon?"
I took a tentative step onto the mat, acutely aware of Silas watching from the stone gallery above, his silhouette dark against the pale sky.
"I... I've never hit anyone before," I whispered.
Elias stepped forward, his voice a soft, velvet-over-steel command. "Good. Then you haven't learned any bad habits. In your old pack, they taught you to shrink. Here, we teach you to take up space."
He gestured to the mat. "Close your eyes. Find the heat in your chest. That's where she lives."
I closed my eyes. At first, there was only the cold morning air. Then, I felt it—a spark, right beneath my ribs.
"Now," Caleb's voice came from my left, serious for once. "Think about the cellar. Think about the hand that reached for you when you didn't want it to."
The memory hit me—the smell of stale ale, the sound of Julian's laughter.
"No," my wolf snarled.
My eyes snapped open. The world was sharper. As Elias reached out his hand toward my shoulder in a mimicry of a grab, my fingertips burned. The black obsidian claws slid out with a quiet shink.
I didn't pull away. I leaned forward, my lip curling into a snarl.
From the gallery above, I heard the sharp, sudden scrape of boots against stone. Silas had moved to the very edge of the railing, his knuckles white as he gripped the stone, his eyes burning with a possessive fire that made the very air feel electric.
"There she is," Caleb whispered, his eyes widening with dawning respect. "The wolf is awake."
"Control it, Seraphina," Elias said, his voice a steady anchor in the storm of my own senses. He didn't flinch at the sight of my claws, though I saw his eyes track the way they caught the morning light. "The wolf is a flood. If you don't build the dam, she'll drown you both."
I stared at my hands, my chest heaving. The black talons pulsed with a dull, rhythmic heat, syncing perfectly with the frantic thrum of my heart. I felt… dangerous. For the first time in twenty years, the air didn't feel like it was crushing me. It felt like it belonged to me.
"She's not a flood," Caleb chirped, trying to break the heavy tension with his usual lilt, though his gaze remained sharp. "She's a wildfire. And I, for one, would like to keep my eyebrows. Let's start with a basic redirect. Elias is going to grab you. Don't claw him—just move him."
Elias stepped into my guard. He was close enough that I could smell the faint scent of peppermint on his breath beneath the iron and parchment. He reached out, his movements slow and telegraphed, wrapping a large, calloused hand around my forearm.
The moment he touched me, my wolf didn't just snarl—she roared.
A wave of silver-black energy rolled off me, a silent pressure that hit the air like a physical shockwave. It wasn't an Alpha's command; it was something older, something that smelled of the deep earth and the moon's dark side.
Elias's eyes went wide. His knees buckled, his hand slipping from my arm as he was forced to drop his head. Beside him, Caleb let out a choked grunt, his playful stance collapsing as he, too, was driven to one knee by the sheer weight of the aura I didn't even know I was projecting.
I stood in the center of the mat, gasping, my claws fully extended, radiating a power that felt like it was stitching itself to the very air of the Shadow-Crest estate.
"What... what am I doing?" I cried out, reaching out a hand toward them, but the closer I got, the harder they struggled to breathe. "I'm sorry! I don't know how to stop it!"
"Don't move!" Caleb gasped, his face flushed with the effort of resisting the crushing weight. He looked up at me, not with fear, but with a bewildered, staggering realization. "Gods... Silas, what did you bring home?"
A shadow eclipsed the sun.
Silas didn't use the stairs. He vaulted over the stone railing of the gallery, his heavy boots hitting the grass with a thud that seemed to shake the earth. He moved like a blur of midnight, appearing between me and his men in a heartbeat.
He didn't drop to his knees. He stood tall, his own massive Alpha aura rising to meet mine like two storms colliding. The pressure in the courtyard became so intense the mist hissed away into nothing.
"Stand down," Silas growled, but he wasn't looking at Caleb or Elias. He was looking at me.
He stepped into my space, his chest nearly brushing my nose. He reached out and grabbed both of my wrists, his grip like iron manacles. The contact was electric, a surge of heat that traveled up my arms and settled in the base of my spine.
"Seraphina, look at me," he commanded, his voice a vibration that demanded obedience.
I looked up. His eyes were entirely gold, swirling like nebulae. The raw hunger I had seen at my bedroom door was back, but now it was tempered with a fierce, protective pride.
"Pull it back," he whispered, his face inches from mine. "The wolf isn't just a weapon, she's a queen. She doesn't need to scream to be heard. Tell her to go quiet."
I focused on the heat in my chest, on the wild, dark thing that was currently trying to claim the two men on the ground as her subjects. Down, I told her. Not yet. They are friends. They are ours.
Slowly, the crushing pressure lifted. Caleb and Elias both let out long, shaky breaths, pushing themselves up from the grass. They looked at me with an entirely different expression now. There was no pity left. Only a wary, profound respect.
The claws retreated, the skin on my fingertips sealing as if they had never been there. My body went limp with exhaustion, and I slumped forward, my head hitting Silas's chest.
His arms wrapped around me instantly, holding me with a strength that felt like it would never let go. I could hear his heart—it was racing as fast as mine.
"You're a lot of things, Seraphina," Silas murmured into my hair, his voice so low only I could hear it. "But 'broken' isn't one of them."
He pulled back just enough to look at his Second and Third. "Again," he barked, though his hands lingered on my waist for a second too long. "And this time, Elias... try to stay on your feet."
Caleb let out a shaky laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. "No offense, Alpha, but I think the lady just promoted herself."