I woke up tasting silver and stone.
The scent was overwhelming: sharp, sterile, and laced with so much pure Lycan Alpha energy that it made the Vampire side of my soul violently hungry. It felt like being submerged in a vat of delicious, forbidden poison.
I was no longer in the forest.
I lay on a thin, stiff mattress in a cell carved from black granite. The room was not the filthy dungeon I expected.
It was cold, clean, and frighteningly secure. There was no window, only a massive iron door, and the air was thick with ancient, stabilizing magic—likely designed to contain far worse things than me.
I immediately checked my neck. My throat was bare. The iron Emblem Chain, my shield and my disguise, was gone.
Panic, cold and sharp, cut through the residual pain of capture. Without the chain, my hybrid scent was screaming into this stone fortress.
Every Lycan in this building knew I was tainted. Every instinct I had—Lycan and Vampire—was amplified, demanding satisfaction and survival.
The thirst was a constant, low-level throb in my jaw, intensified by the lingering, overwhelming scent of my captor.
Kael.
My traitorous Lycan heart gave a sick, lurching beat at the memory of his touch, the sudden, cataclysmic slam of the Mate Bond.
The bond wasn't a sweet connection; it was a shackle of raw, aggressive ownership, placed by the one male I was biologically destined to obey, and morally destined to kill.
I sat up, testing my body. My shoulder was bruised, but the healing was already unnaturally fast—a gift from the Vampire half. Good. I would need every advantage.
The iron door scraped open, and the light that flooded the cell was too bright, too stark.
It wasn't Kael who entered. It was Alpha Thane.
He was Kael's Second, a towering Lycan male known for his ambition and his perfectly pure, ruthless bloodline.
He didn't carry Kael's chilling shadow, but his eyes were a calculated, dangerous silver. He wasn't afraid of me.
He looked curious, like a scientist inspecting a highly toxic specimen.
He stopped just inside the doorway, his scent—pure Lycan, slightly sweeter than Kael's—making my Vampire fangs ache.
"Well, well. The King's new pet," Thane drawled, his voice mocking. He wore a sneer that promised pain. "You are small for such trouble, little taint."
I pushed myself off the bed, holding his gaze.
"You risk a great deal coming down here alone, Alpha. You are not my jailer."
"I am the King's Second," he corrected, taking a slow step forward. "And I am responsible for the purity of this court. Kael's decision to keep you alive is... unusual. It warrants inspection."
He moved close enough that I could smell the leather of his clothes, the hint of musk beneath the silver power of his shift. The thirst hit me with a vicious spike. My knees momentarily buckled.
Control it, Seraphina. Control it.
"Step back, Thane," I warned, my voice a low, Lycan growl, forcing a dominance I didn't feel. "You won't like what happens when I lose patience."
He laughed—a sharp, humorless sound.
"That is the chaos of your blood, isn't it? The Lycan wants to fight; the other half wants... what? To surrender? To beg?" He leaned in, his eyes narrowed, searching for the tell-tale sign of the Mate Bond.
"Or perhaps, little Vampire, you just want to sink your teeth into pure blood?"
He was testing me, knowing the danger of my exposed state.
He must have seen Kael's reaction, felt the rupture of the Mate Bond, but he was too proud to believe the Scourge King could be claimed by an abomination.
"I want to tear out your throat and burn the ruins of this castle to the ground," I said, my voice dangerously calm.
Thane's smile faded. He saw the threat in my eyes, but he still saw a weakness Kael hadn't noticed.
He reached out a hand, not to strike, but to lightly touch the bare skin of my throat where the chain had rested.
"You smell of panic, little thing. And you smell of... a terrifying promise," he whispered, his eyes gleaming with ambition.
"Tell me your secret. Why did the King spare your life?"
The lie was instant: "I am a weapon. I possess skills your pure bloods lack."
Thane paused, his thumb brushing my pulse point. And that was when Kael's power, his warning, arrived.
The air in the cell dropped ten degrees. Kael's permanent shadow—the dark, oily substance I'd seen swirling in the forest—suddenly bled out of the stone walls. It wasn't smoky her
it was a solid, black presence that pooled on the floor, growing denser and colder until it stood between Thane and me, a silent, furious barrier.
Thane visibly flinched, snatching his hand back. He understood the message. Kael was watching.
"I see the King has given you a bodyguard," Thane sneered, but his silver eyes held a flicker of genuine fear. "A shame. I would have enjoyed breaking you myself."
He backed away, never taking his eyes off the swirling shadow, and slammed the iron door shut, leaving me alone with Kael's unseen, pervasive protection.
I slid back down onto the bed, shaking. Kael hadn't come down here, but his will—his territorial, possessive fury—had. He wouldn't kill me yet, not while the bond was so fragile and volatile, but he also wouldn't let anyone else claim the satisfaction.
I sat there, breathing the scent of the King's castle, fighting the urge to howl in frustration and the urge to hunt for his blood.
The cell door opened a third time. This time, I knew it was him. The entire atmosphere compressed. The shadow that had been guarding me seemed to retract, flowing back toward the doorway, drawn to its source.
Kael walked in, closing the door behind him. He didn't wear armor now, just black trousers and a thin, open black tunic that exposed the terrifying breadth of his chest and the sharp, defined lines of his body—a pure instrument of war.
He wasn't here as a King; he was here as my jailer. And my enemy.
He carried a small, tarnished leather pouch, which he tossed onto the granite table in the center of the cell.
"Eat," he commanded.
"I'm not hungry," I retorted, standing my ground.
"You will eat, or the Lycan side of your body will consume the Vampire, and the resulting chaos will kill you slowly," Kael stated flatly, his gold eyes devoid of warmth. "I require you alive."
"For what? To be your court display? A cautionary tale?"
He took one step toward me, and the space between us disappeared. I felt the full, immediate weight of the Mate Bond.
My Lycan self wanted to fall to my knees; my Vampire self wanted to tear his throat out. The conflict was so violent I nearly blacked out.
His hand shot out, seizing my hair and yanking my head back, forcing my gaze up to his. His gold eyes were blazing with pure, controlled rage.
"You are a mistake," he ground out, his voice a low, lethal snarl. "A disgusting flaw that defies the laws of nature and my crown.
He leaned closer, his breath hot and smelling of the pure, intoxicating power that made my Vampire thirst rage into a fever pitch.
"But you are my curse now," he continued.
"You will obey, or I will break every bone in your body until you learn submission."
He released my hair, pushing me roughly away. I stumbled back against the wall, my body shaking not from fear, but from the desperate, conflicting desires of the bond.
"The thirst will not consume you," Kael stated, his voice regaining its cold, imperious calm. "I have placed wards on this cell. They will not stop the cravings, but they will prevent you from shifting to feed. You are a Lycan, not a beast. You will control your hunger, or I will use that very control to break you."
He turned toward the door, his shadow pooling and following him.
"And Thane," Kael stopped, glancing over his shoulder. "He is ambitious. He suspects the Mate Bond. If you let him see it, or if you tell him the truth, I will allow him to dissect you piece by piece. Do you understand, pet?"
He didn't wait for my answer. He slammed the iron door shut, plunging the cell back into cold, sterile silence.
I sank to the floor, my fingers clutching the rough granite, fighting the overwhelming need to shift, to howl, to feed.
The pouch he had left contained dried meat and water—no blood, nothing to satisfy the Vampire half.
I was trapped. Bound to the Scourge King, surrounded by the scent of the man I craved and despised, and guarded only by his furious, volatile shadow.
He hadn't just imprisoned me; he had sealed me in a cell designed to torture my every instinct.
The next time he returned, I wouldn't just be fighting my Mate. I would be fighting my own blood.