The morning air in Silver Moon Palace was heavy with anticipation. Servants moved with hurried precision, and concubines flitted through corridors like nervous butterflies, each aware of the decree but unaware of the true stirrings of power.
In the eastern garden, Kael Draven walked slowly, boots silent on the cobblestones. The scent of herbs and earth mingled with the faint warmth of the sun, but it did little to soothe the storm within him. Amber eyes scanned the courtyard until they settled on Lyria, kneeling among sprigs of lavender, fingers brushing the leaves with delicate care.
Kael's wolf stirred beneath his skin, sensing a new rhythm—subtle, yet undeniable. Not just her presence… something deeper, something growing.
"Lyria," he said, voice low, walking toward her, each step deliberate. She looked up, startled, her heart stuttering as his amber eyes met hers.
"Alpha Kael," she murmured, standing slowly, aware of his proximity. "I did not expect… company so early."
"I did not expect the garden to be so… compelling," he replied, closing the distance. He stopped just a step away, heat radiating between them, wolf instincts buzzing. "You move quietly through the world, yet you leave… traces."
Lyria swallowed, a flush rising to her cheeks, though her voice remained steady. "Perhaps some traces are not meant to be noticed."
He leaned slightly closer, enough that she felt the subtle warmth of him, the magnetic pull of his presence. "Some traces," he murmured, "are impossible to ignore."
Their closeness held a dangerous weight, a tension neither fully acknowledged. Lyria felt it deep in her chest—a stir she could not yet name. Something was shifting inside her, subtle, intimate, like a heartbeat she didn't recognize. Kael's amber eyes flicked toward her midsection instinctively, a strange heat flaring in his chest.
Riven, watching from the shadows of the garden wall, noticed the same change, his golden eyes narrowing. "Alpha…" he whispered, voice low, "there is a shift. Something… powerful, growing. I do not know what yet, but it is hers."
Above, unseen and far from the garden, the witch's senses twitched. A pulse—new, unfamiliar, potent—rippled through the palace. She did not move, however. Not yet. It was Lady Serina who would call her, summoning the witch when the timing suited her schemes.
Meanwhile, in the palace corridors, Isolde glided with slow triumph, every step radiating victory. Her "Luna" status, assumed by the pack, filled her with a delicious arrogance. Servants bowed slightly more, concubines whispered in her favor, and even the guards' gazes lingered longer than they should.
Unaware of her true power, Lyria continued tending the herbs, feeling a strange connection with the earth beneath her hands, a warmth spreading from deep within her. She did not know what it meant—only that she could feel life stirring, and her pulse danced with it.
Kael's wolf growled low, attuned to every subtle change. He stepped closer again, placing a hand near hers, brushing just the tips of their fingers together. "You feel it too," he murmured, voice low, more intimate than before. "Don't you?"
Lyria froze for a heartbeat, her mind racing. She did feel it—an unspoken presence, a power and a life she could not yet name. Yet she only nodded slightly, cheeks warming. "I… perhaps."
The tension stretched between them, unspoken and thick. Outside, the palace thrummed with misperception: Isolde loathed in her assumed victory, while Lyria's true significance remained hidden. Only Kael, Riven, and the few trusted were aware of the truth, the subtle rise of something monumental that the palace could not yet grasp.
High above, the witch's magic trembled once more, sensing the new pack member—strong, unformed, raw—but she remained still, waiting. Lady Serina would summon her soon, and when that moment came, the palace would shiver under forces neither Kael nor Lyria could fully control… yet.