Alpha Kael Blackthorn did not believe in restlessness without cause. Everything in his life had a reason. Every action, every decision, every silence was deliberate. That was what leadership required. That was what the Nightfall Pack expected of him.
And yet, as the moon climbed higher into the sky, unease settled beneath his ribs like a splinter he could not reach.
Kael stood at the tall windows of the pack house, hands clasped behind his back, his dark silhouette framed by silver moonlight. Below him, the clearing buzzed with preparation. Wolves moved in practiced rhythms hanging lanterns, arranging stones, laughing with the careless joy of those who trusted the Moon Goddess to be kind.
Trust was a luxury Kael had never learned to afford. Behind him, the council chamber was quiet. Too quiet. The elders had left earlier, satisfied with the final preparations for the Mate Ceremony. They believed tonight would strengthen the pack. Secure alliances. Reinforce bloodlines.
Kael believed tonight would change everything.
He just did not know how.
He inhaled slowly, drawing in the familiar scents of pine, earth, and wolf. His own wolf stirred faintly beneath his skin alert, watchful, restrained. Control had been drilled into him since childhood. A future Alpha did not indulge impulses. He mastered them.
That was how he had survived becoming Alpha at twenty-two, after his father's sudden death. That was how he had kept Nightfall strong, respected, feared.
That was how he had remained untouched by the foolishness of mates and bonds.
"Alpha."
Kael did not turn. He recognized the voice immediately.
"Speak," he said.
Beta Rowan stepped forward, his presence steady, respectful. "The pack is ready. The ceremony will begin when the moon reaches its peak."
Kael nodded once. "Ensure the outer borders are reinforced. No interruptions."
Rowan hesitated a rare thing for a Beta who had fought beside him for years. "You've doubled patrols. Are you expecting trouble?"
Kael's jaw tightened slightly. "I don't expect. I prepare."
Rowan accepted that, as he always did. "As you command."
When the Beta left, the silence returned.
Kael exhaled, slow and controlled.
Mate bonds were unpredictable. Rare. Powerful. Dangerous.
He had seen what they did to wolves how they softened edges, clouded judgment, weakened resolve. How Alphas lost themselves in devotion, in obsession. How packs suffered when leaders chose love over loyalty.
Kael would not be that Alpha.
He turned from the window and crossed the chamber, boots silent against polished stone. On the far wall hung the crest of Nightfall a black wolf beneath a silver moon. Legacy. Duty. Blood.
His father had stood beneath that crest the night Kael was sworn in as Alpha.
You will feel the pull one day, his father had said, voice grave. When you do, remember who you are before you remember who you love.
Kael had remembered.
Always.
And yet..
A sharp, unfamiliar sensation rippled through his chest.
He froze mid-step.
The air shifted.
Not a scent. Not a sound. Something deeper. Instinctive.
His wolf stirred violently now, pacing, restless, as if responding to a call Kael could not hear.
"What is this?" he murmured.
The sensation came again stronger this time. A tightening. A warmth edged with something dangerously close to longing.
Kael pressed a hand to his sternum, fingers splayed, breath shallow.
He had been injured before. Broken bones, torn muscle, poisoned claws. None of it had felt like this.
This was not pain.
This was awareness.
His gaze flicked instinctively toward the window to the clearing below, glowing under moonlight.
Impossible.
He had not scented a mate. Had not felt the unmistakable snap of a bond.
And yet his wolf knew something was wrong.
Kael closed his eyes and forced his breathing to steady. Control. Always control.
"This is nothing," he told himself. "A reaction to the ceremony. Anticipation. Nerves."
But his wolf did not agree.
The restlessness intensified, tugging him toward the door, toward the night. Toward...
Kael stopped the thought before it could finish.
He straightened, shoulders squaring. Whatever this was, it would not rule him.
When he finally stepped outside, the moonlight washed over him like cold fire.
The pack fell silent the moment he entered the clearing.
As one, wolves bowed their heads not in fear, but in respect. Kael acknowledged them with a nod, his presence commanding without effort. This was where he belonged. Where he was strongest.
His gaze swept the clearing, cataloguing details automatically. Security. Formation. Order.
Then he felt it again.
A pull. Sharp and sudden.
Kael's eyes snapped to the far edge of the gathering.
She stood there quietly, half-hidden by shadow and lantern light. Pale blue dress. Dark hair pulled back simply. Hands clasped as if she did not know where else to put them.
Aria Vale.
An Omega. seventeen, would be eighteen in a few days Wolfless.
Kael knew her name the way an Alpha knew every member of his pack not personally, not intimately, but as part of the whole. She was quiet. Kept to herself. Never caused trouble.
Never mattered.
And yet his chest tightened violently as his gaze landed on her.
His wolf surged forward, a low, startled growl echoing in his mind.
There.
Kael's breath caught.
No. That was not possible.
She did not react. Did not look at him. Did not scent him the way a wolf sensing a mate would. She simply stood there, eyes lifted toward the moon, expression soft and distant.
Unaware.
The pull intensified confusing, wrong, dangerous.
Kael tore his gaze away as if burned.
"This is absurd," he muttered.
Mate bonds did not form with wolfless Omegas. They did not whisper without snapping. They did not linger quietly like a promise half-made.
He forced his attention back to the ceremony as the elder stepped forward, voice rising in ritualistic cadence. The words washed over him without meaning.
His focus kept slipping.
Back to her.
Back to the strange calm that seemed to surround Aria, like the moonlight favored her without reason.
His wolf paced, unsettled. Curious.
Mine, it whispered, instinctive and insistent.
Kael clenched his fists.
"No," he growled internally. "We do not claim what we cannot afford."
The ceremony reached its height. Wolves stepped forward in pairs, bonds snapping into place with gasps, laughter, tears. The clearing filled with emotion joy, relief, certainty.
Kael felt none of it.
Only the quiet ache beneath his ribs. Only the awareness that something fragile and dangerous hovered just out of reach.
When the ceremony ended without incident, the pack erupted into celebration. Music rose. Laughter returned.
Relief rippled through Kael brief and hollow.
Nothing happened, he told himself. You imagined it.
And yet, as he turned to leave, his gaze betrayed him once more.
Aria Vale was gone.
The pull did not fade.
It lingered.
Waiting.
And for the first time since becoming Alpha, Kael Blackthorn felt the unsettling truth press against his carefully ordered world:
Some bonds did not announce themselves with thunder.
Some waited.