The ground here tasted like ash and iron. It was the scent of dead earth, but beneath that, a deeper, metallic tang that warned me I'd pushed too far.
I was two boot-lengths past the border, right on the fringe of Lycan King Kael's hunting grounds.
I wasn't here for sport. I was here for a root—a sickly, pale thing that grew only in the shadow of pure Lycan energy, and the only thing that could stabilize the civil war currently raging in my veins.
My breath misted in the cold, but I didn't dare inhale deeply. Every nerve ending I owned was screaming at me to dissolve.
I had perfected the art of becoming mist—a technique courtesy of my uninvited Vampire half—but even that skill felt brittle here, close to the Scourge.
My fingers went, as they always did, to the iron chain beneath my collar. The Emblem Chain. Ugly, heavy, and the single reason I was still breathing.
It didn't just suppress my Lycan shift; it acted as a lead shield over my Vampire scent, muffling the sweet, dangerous copper-and-spice that would otherwise be a beacon to any pure Lycan within a mile.
It's working. Keep moving.
But then, the air shifted. It didn't just get cold; it got silent.
I've spent my life hunting, hiding, and running.
I know the sounds of the woods: the snap of a deer, the rustle of a squirrel, the heavy tread of a Lycan patrol. But the sound I heard now was worse than any of that.
It was no sound at all.
The forest noise simply ceased, as if a conductor had slammed his baton down. That was the signature of the Black Maw—Kael's elite executioners. And they were close. Too close.
I stopped breathing, folding myself instantly into the shadows cast by a deadfall tree.
My heart hammered a desperate, uneven rhythm against my ribs—Lycan, Vampire, Lycan, Vampire—a chaotic beat that always felt like a countdown to disaster.
They emerged from the gloom like nightmares given flesh. Five Lycans, fully shifted, their fur black as sin and their eyes glowing a cold, merciless silver.
They moved with a devastating unity that patrols lacked. They weren't patrolling; they were hunting something specific.
They passed the deadfall. One. Two. Three.
I let out the breath I was holding, relief making my limbs momentarily weak.
I'm safe. The chain held.
Then, the fourth Lycan stopped dead. Not looking, but smelling. He lifted his massive snout, his silver gaze still fixed straight ahead, but his posture radiating confusion.
He'd caught a faint ripple of my scent—the scent of a Lycan that smelled… wrong.
Run.
I shot out from behind the log, not shifting, but utilizing the impossible acceleration of my Vampire bloodline.
I was a dark blur, aiming for the border, trying to melt into the gathering dusk.
I didn't make it two steps.
A black wall of muscle slammed into me from the side—the fifth Lycan, the clever one, who had circled back. The impact was like hitting a speeding carriage.
The air whooshed from my lungs, and the world became a blinding spray of pain.
I hit the ground with the Lycan atop me, his weight crushing. He roared, not in challenge, but in confusion.
"Hold her! The scent! It's—"
I didn't wait to hear the rest. My free hand, rigid as steel, shot for the Lycan's throat, but my true defense was my chaos.
Panic fueled the release of my latent Lycan power—a savage, uncontrolled burst of brute force.
The Lycan was thrown off me with a startled cry, slamming into a tree trunk hard enough to crack wood.
I scrambled back, dagger already in my hand, my body half-shrouded in the oily black mist that was my shame. But it was over.
The four remaining Lycans surrounded me, their silver eyes locked on the faint crimson stain that blossomed on the forest floor where I'd fallen. Not my blood.
The root had scraped my forearm. Lycan blood—but near the Vampire-tainted earth.
One of the guards, a scarred brute named Borin, lunged for my neck. I didn't dodge. I raised my hands to block.
A voice, deeper than the earth, stopped him dead.
"Stay your hand."
It wasn't a command; it was a cessation of movement, a forceful, magical imposition of will.
The Lycans around me became stone. Borin froze, his muzzle inches from my throat. Their fear was a tangible thing, a heavy pressure in the air.
I forced myself to look beyond them. To the true source of the silence, the cold, and the sudden, overwhelming sense of danger.
He walked out of the deepest shadow as if he were born from it. King Kael.
He wore the title of Scourge like a dark crown. He wasn't shifted, but his height and the flawless, lethal perfection of his human form were more terrifying than any wolf.
Black armor, black leather, black hair that fell to his shoulders—he was all dark angles and unforgiving lines.
And the shadow. It was real. It wasn't just the absence of light; it was a physical force, an oily, restless, permanent darkness that clung to him, curling around his shoulders and pooling at his feet.
It looked hungry.
He walked to within inches of my pinned body. He didn't look down at me. His gold-flecked silver eyes were scanning the metallic scent on the forest floor.
"Borin," Kael's voice was a low, resonant chord that made my teeth ache. "Explain the scent."
Borin, struggling to breathe, replied, "My King, it's—it's Lycan. But it's sweet. It's... tainted. We suspect a minor hybrid trying to trespass."
Kael finally looked at me. His eyes were not assessing my power or my potential.
They were judging a flaw, and the verdict was already death.
He knelt, the action somehow more threatening than standing. His shadow swallowed the last bits of daylight around me. He didn't touch me, but his gloved hand hovered inches from my jaw.
"You trespass on the territory of the Lycan King," he stated, his voice devoid of emotion. "You are an abomination in my sight."
"I am a hunter," I spat out, hating the slight tremor in my voice. "And my death will not cleanse your tainted laws."
A slight smile—a chilling, predatory twitch—played on his lips. "It will, however, cleanse this forest."
He didn't need to touch me to kill me. I could feel the invisible threads of his power reaching for my heart, preparing to crush it.
This was the end. After all the running, all the hiding, it ended here, killed by the King who believed in purity above all else.
But instead of the crushing blow, his hand moved.
He didn't grab my jaw. He seized the Emblem Chain at my throat.
The contact was not skin-to-skin, but the sheer force of his Alpha power, channeled through the iron of the chain, was catastrophic.
An electric shock, so profound it felt like a magical explosion, ripped through my entire being. It wasn't pain. It was a violation.
The Mate Bond.
It hit me like a physical punch, forcing a dizzying, terrifying recognition of him. He was chaos, he was power, he was the scent of silver and blood and rage—and he was mine.
The connection was raw, overwhelming, demanding immediate submission and protection. It was the purest Lycan instinct, focused entirely on the thing he was sworn to destroy.
My vision flared crimson. My Vampire thirst, which the chain had always suppressed, surged, an agonizing, addictive craving for the pure Lycan blood of the God who held me. I fought the urge to sink my teeth into his wrist.
KAEL.
I heard the silent roar of his name in my mind, a mental scream that echoed the terror blooming in his own eyes.
He felt it too. The primal, violent, unforgivable demand of the Mate Bond.
Kael released the chain instantly, stumbling back, his permanent shadow erupting into a cloud of chaotic fury.
The Lycans around us cried out, shielded only by their distance.
He looked at his hand, then back at me, his face a mask of total disbelief and pure, agonizing betrayal.
"Impossible," he whispered, the sound ripped from his chest. "You are... tainted."
He was horrified—not at my presence, but at his own weakness. His moral code was being ripped apart by a biological mandate.
Alpha Thane, seizing the moment of Kael's disorientation, stepped forward. "My King, the scent is strong. The taint must be purged. I will perform the execution."
Thane moved toward me.
Kael's voice was instantaneous. A roar so thick with Lycan authority that Thane froze, trembling violently.
"DO NOT TOUCH HER!"
His silver eyes, now full of manic, protective rage, locked onto mine.
The shame of the bond was palpable, a chain that bound us both in mutual contempt. He couldn't kill me. He couldn't.
But he couldn't call me his mate either.
He reached out and, with a vicious jerk, tore the Emblem Chain from my neck.
The chain shattered, scattering iron links across the dirt. The gold light holding my hybrid scent collapsed, and the full, deadly force of the Mate Bond slammed into us both.
The taste of his blood filled my mouth.
"She is not my Mate," Kael declared to his terrified court, his voice raw, laced with the bitterest betrayal.
He dragged me to my feet, yanking my body into the crushing, possessive space of his shadow.
"She is a captured asset, a monster of the enemy courts. And she will pay the price for all abominations."
He crushed my face into the leather of his shoulder, his pure Lycan scent momentarily overwhelming the vampire craving.
He leaned down, his voice a low, cold promise whispered only for my ears.
"You belong to me now, filth. You are The Scourge's King Hybrid Mate. You are my curse."