Chapter 2: The Summoning

I didn’t understand what was happening until hands grabbed me.

Rough. Firm. Final.

Beta Kael’s grip locked around my arm the moment the Alpha’s order ended.

“Did you hear him?” he muttered under his breath, though his voice trembled slightly. “Move.”

“I can walk on my own,” I said, trying to pull away.

That earned me nothing but a sharper grip.

“Not anymore, you can’t.”

The words didn’t make sense, not fully, but I didn’t get the chance to question them. The world around me had already shifted.

The courtyard that had been noisy moments ago was now suffocatingly silent. No laughter. No training. No movement. Even the wind felt like it had stopped.

Every wolf in the Blackridge Pack was watching.

Me.

An omega.

Being taken to the Alpha.

I kept my head down as I was dragged forward, but I could feel it—every stare pressing into my skin like heat. Curiosity. Confusion. Something sharper underneath it.

Fear.

Because Alphas didn’t summon omegas.

Not unless something was wrong.

Or something was about to change.

The gates of the central hall loomed ahead.

Massive stone doors carved with ancient pack symbols. Symbols I had never been taught to read. Symbols that suddenly felt… familiar.

That thought alone unsettled me.

The doors opened before we even reached them.

Not manually.

They opened on their own.

A hush followed.

Inside, the hall was colder than outside. The air smelled like cedar, smoke, and something metallic I couldn’t place. Torches lined the walls, flickering low despite the daylight outside.

And at the end of it—

He stood.

Alpha Kael Draven.

Not seated.

Not waiting.

Standing like he had never needed permission to occupy space in his life.

Beta Kael released me immediately, stepping back like the distance might protect him from whatever came next.

I swallowed hard.

This was it.

Every instinct told me to lower my head, to make myself small and invisible. But my body didn’t obey properly anymore.

Not after what happened in the courtyard.

Not after the mark.

My arm burned faintly under my sleeve, as if reminding me it still existed.

Kael’s eyes dropped to it instantly.

“You,” he said quietly.

My breath caught.

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

The hall itself felt like it leaned toward him.

I forced my voice out. “Me?”

A pause.

Then he stepped forward.

Each step was measured. Controlled. But there was something in it now—something I hadn’t seen before in him.

Tension.

Contained, but real.

“You felt it,” he said.

It wasn’t a question.

I hesitated. “Felt what?”

His gaze sharpened slightly.

That alone made my stomach twist.

“Do not waste my time,” he said coldly.

Heat rose in my chest—not fear, not entirely. Something closer to frustration.

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I said. “One moment I’m working, the next I’m on the ground in pain, and you’re ordering me into your hall like I’m—like I’m something important.”

The words came out sharper than intended.

Silence followed.

Too much silence.

The guards behind me shifted.

I immediately regretted speaking.

But Kael didn’t react the way I expected.

He studied me.

Long.

Unblinking.

Then, quietly:

“You should not exist like this.”

My throat tightened. “Like what?”

His eyes flicked briefly to my arm again.

“Untrained,” he said. “Unmarked—yet marked. Weak—but reacting.”

My pulse quickened.

“What does that even mean?”

Kael’s jaw tightened slightly, as if the explanation itself irritated him.

“It means,” he said slowly, “that something inside you responded to me before you understood why.”

My stomach dropped.

“No,” I said immediately. “That’s not possible.”

A faint shift crossed his expression.

Not amusement.

Not anger.

Something more restrained.

“You are an omega,” he said. “You are not supposed to feel it.”

I stared at him.

My mind tried to reject everything at once.

The pain.

The mark.

The pull.

The way my body reacted when he came closer—

No.

I shook my head once. “You’re wrong.”

A beat.

Then Kael moved again.

Closer.

This time, I didn’t step back.

I hated myself for that.

He stopped a few steps away, close enough that I could see the faint shadow of exhaustion under his eyes. Close enough that I realized he wasn’t unaffected either.

His voice lowered.

“There is a bond,” he said.

The words hit like a strike to the chest.

I laughed once, sharp and disbelieving. “A bond? Like mate bond?”

Kael didn’t answer immediately.

That silence was answer enough.

My breathing faltered.

“No,” I whispered. “No, that’s impossible. Alphas don’t mate omegas like me. Not—never.”

“You are correct,” he said.

That should have comforted me.

It didn’t.

Because his next words followed immediately.

“But the bond exists regardless.”

My hands started to shake.

I hid them behind my back.

“That’s not how it works,” I said, voice tightening. “If it were real, I would have known. I would have felt it before now.”

Kael’s eyes darkened slightly.

“You did not feel it before now,” he said, “because it was dormant.”

The word made my skin prickle.

Dormant.

Like something asleep inside me.

Something that had just woken up.

I swallowed hard.

“Why me?” I asked quietly.

For the first time, something shifted in his expression.

Not softness.

But something… conflicted.

“I do not know,” he said.

That admission was more unsettling than anything else.

Kael turned slightly, pacing once across the hall as if movement helped him think.

Then he stopped.

“You were not supposed to react,” he said more to himself than to me.

My chest tightened. “React to what?”

He looked at me again.

And this time, the weight of his gaze felt heavier.

“To me.”

A chill ran through my spine.

Before I could respond, a sharp voice cut through the hall.

“Alpha.”

A tall warrior stepped forward from the shadows. I hadn’t noticed him before. His presence was sharp, alert, and dangerous in a different way than Kael's.

“Should I remove her?” the warrior asked.

The question made my breath stop.

Remove.

Not escort.

Not a question.

Remove.

Kael didn’t look at him immediately.

His eyes stayed on me.

And for a brief moment—just a fraction of time—I thought I saw something flicker in them.

Something possessive.

Something he quickly buried.

“No,” Kael said finally.

The warrior hesitated. “Alpha—”

“I said no.”

The finality in his voice cut the air like steel.

The warrior stepped back instantly.

Silence returned.

Kael turned back to me.

“You will stay here,” he said.

My heart pounded.

“For how long?”

“As long as necessary.”

“That’s not an answer,” I said.

A faint exhale left him—controlled, restrained, almost irritated.

“It is the only one you will get.”

My chest tightened.

“You can’t just keep me here.”

His eyes sharpened.

“I already am.”

The same words from before.

But now they meant something worse.

Because I understood them.

I wasn’t being invited.

I wasn’t being asked.

I was being contained.

Not as punishment.

But as something far more dangerous.

Containment of something unknown.

Kael stepped back slightly, breaking the intensity of the moment.

But the pull didn’t break.

It only tightened.

“You are dismissed,” he said.

I blinked. “Dismissed? I’m not—”

“You are dismissed,” he repeated, colder now.

A warning.

Not to disobey him.

But to survive him.

My throat tightened.

Slowly, I turned.

Every step away from him felt wrong.

Like leaving something unfinished.

Like walking away from something that wasn’t done with me yet.

And behind me, I felt his eyes follow until I disappeared through the hall doors.

But even when I was gone…

The pull didn’t leave.

It stayed.

Alive.

Waiting.