CH.2

The city looked smaller from above.

Rain dragged silver lines down the glass walls of a private office, blurring the towers, traffic, and neon-lit streets into something distant and obedient.

Far below, people moved through the storm with their collars turned up and their heads bowed, unaware that half their laws, fears, and secrets eventually found their way to the man watching from the top floor.

He stood near the window with one hand in his pocket and the other curled around a glass he hadn’t touched.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, and still in the way predators were still before violence.

His charcoal suit fit with brutal precision, black hair swept back from a face built from sharp angles and colder judgment, and his silver-gray eyes reflected the city without softening for it.

Behind him, the office remained dark.

No music, no warmth, no unnecessary comfort.

Only dark furniture and a single fireplace burning low enough to look decorative until one noticed the lingering bitter scent of wolfsbane in the flames.

Inside his skin, something ancient paced.

Fenrir had been restless all evening and that was never good.

The wolf didn’t whine or scratch at the walls of Evren’s control like an ordinary beast.

He lifted the glass at last and let the whiskey touch his mouth but it tasted like smoke.

Everything did lately.

A soft chime sounded from the office doors before they opened.

Tyson Warren stepped inside with a tablet tucked beneath one arm, looking every inch the polished blade he was.

Tall and lean, with dark blond hair swept neatly away from an aristocratic face, he wore his charcoal suit like armor.

His gray-green eyes missed nothing — not the untouched desk, and certainly not the faint tension locked between Evren’s shoulders.

Then the scent reached him.

Wolfsbane.

Only traces of it remained now, smoke and bitter ash clinging to the air, but even that was enough to make Tyson’s wolf recoil.

The poison scraped down his senses like a dull blade, harsh enough that his jaw tightened before he could stop it.

And Evren had been sitting in it for hours.

Tyson’s gaze flicked to the hearth, then back to the silent man. Whatever had driven him to endure that much poison in silence, it wasn’t ordinary irritation.

"Thornton is dealt with, Alpha," Tyson said, dropping into a chair and kicking his feet up onto the table. "But you're not going to like this. Urgent summons from the Elder Council."

Evren didn’t turn from the window.

"Another border disputes?" His voice was deep and cold.

"Worse. The East Coast is about to tear itself apart. Iron Fang and Blood Ridge are at each other's throats, and they're both blaming the Shadow Moon pack for instigating it."

Evren’s brows furrowed. "Who's the Alpha?"

"Aurora Moonridge. They call her the Widow Queen." Tyson’s mouth curved without humor. “Iron Fang wants retaliation and the Council’s pretending this is still diplomacy.”

Evren finally turned.

The rain light caught his eyes and made them look almost metallic.

Tyson tapped the tablet, sending the file to the wall screen.

The title was in bold letter: AURORA MOONRIDGE, ALPHA OF SHADOW MOON.

Known publicly as Rory Moonridge also known in underground circuits as the Widow Queen.

Evren read without moving closer.

Twenty-four. Alpha by succession after the death of her parents.

Widow status. Aggressive territorial policies. Repeated refusal to submit to the crown and external pack audits.

High combat rating. Politically unstable. Extremely dangerous.

At the final line, Evren’s expression barely changed.

There was a particular stillness Evren had when something interested him.

It wasn’t curiosity. Curiosity was softer but this was assessment sharpened into possession before the thing being assessed even knew it had been seen.

“There’s footage,” Tyson added.

Evren’s eyes moved to him.

“Of course I’m that capable,” Tyson shrug, knowing what Evren’s look meant.

The Argent Syndicate owned enough of the city’s underworld to make denial more useful than secrecy.

Fighting rings, debt networks, black-market routes, mercenary channels, weapons brokers, corrupt judges, frightened informants, and politicians with private appetites all fed into shadows that eventually led back to a particular point. 

“Show me,” Evren ordered.

Tyson sent the footage to the wall.

The image flickered, grainy and dark, taken from a camera mounted high above a warehouse cage.

The crowd pressed around the fence, screaming around a fight already in motion.

Then she appeared.

Rory Moonridge moved like someone had taught rage how to wear skin.

Blood stained her mouth and one eye was swelling.

Her left side was compromised, probably cracked ribs, but she kept circling the male in front of her with a patience that didn’t match the violence in her face.

Her opponent lunged and one could see she let him think he had her.

Then came her knee, boot, sweep, twist, dislocation.

She was efficient, cruel and entertainingly vicious!

The crowd roared when the male hit the mat.

Rory leaned over him, smiling through the blood on her mouth, and said something the camera didn’t catch. Whatever it was, the male spat at her and she kicked him unconscious.

Fenrir, Evren’s wolf slammed against his control.

The glass in his hand cracked.

Tyson’s gaze flicked to the fracture spreading through the crystal, then back to Evren’s face.

He didn’t comment. Commenting on Evren’s loss of control, however slight, was an excellent way to end an otherwise productive working relationship.

On the screen, the referee lifted Rory’s arm.

The Widow Queen stood beneath flickering lights, bruised, bloody and utterly unbowed, while the warehouse screamed for her like violence had found a patron saint.

‘Mate!’

The word didn’t arrive as thought, it arrived as command.

Evren didn’t move. Only his fingers tightened, turning the crack in the glass into a spiderweb.

“Again!” he ordered.

Tyson was momentarily stunned. Then he quickly restarted the footage.

This time, Evren watched the details. The tremor in Rory’s hand before the fight. The delayed breath after the rib strike.

The way she swallowed pain like it was familiar. The silver case she pulled in the alley afterward, small and polished, too deliberate to be recreational.

Suppressants. Strong ones.

Evren’s gaze cut to Tyson. “Supplier?”

“We’re tracing it.”

Evren’s eyes cooled.

“I know. It’s not enough.” Tyson’s mouth tightened.

The footage paused on Rory’s face. Blood on her mouth, murder in her eyes, smile sharp enough to split skin.

Tyson hurriedly brought up the Council file beside it. “Her widow status is sealed, not confirmed. Either her mate existed and someone buried the proof, or he never existed and she lied well enough to keep the Council embarrassed for three years.”

A faint change touched Evren’s mouth.

“A lie that survives three years isn’t a lie,” he murmured. “It’s strategy.”

Tyson looked mildly concerned. “You like her.”

“I haven’t met her.”

“That’s not a denial.”

Evren didn’t answer, because Tyson was irritatingly correct.

Aurora Moonridge. Mateless Alpha. Possible liar. Definite menace. Public widow. Underground fighter. Bleeding herself through illegal cages while holding a territory everyone else wanted to carve apart.

She should’ve been irrelevant yet she wasn’t.

That was the problem.

The Stormvale curse had destroyed every king in his line who’d allowed a mate too close.

His grandfather had gone mad after his queen died screaming in childbirth.

His father had burned through treaties, enemies, and half a city trying to save a woman fate had already marked for the grave.

Evren grew up with the warning carved into every lesson.

Claim your mate, and she becomes your ruin. Love her, and the throne burns.

Reject her before the bond takes root, or watch destiny sharpen its knife.

Evren didn’t believe in destiny, he believed in leverage, violence, loyalty, and consequences.

Unfortunately, Fenrir believed in the woman on the screen.

The broken glass finally gave way in Evren’s hand.

Whiskey spilled over his fingers, mixing with blood where the shards cut through his palm. The wound should’ve closed immediately but for some reasons, it didn’t.

Tyson’s gaze dropped to the blood, then lifted again.

On the screen, Rory’s frozen smile remained bloody, vicious, and impossible to ignore.

“Tomorrow’s Council session may expose the widow claim,” Tyson continued. “Blood Ridge and Iron Fang will push hard. If they prove she lied, Shadow Moon becomes vulnerable. If they prove she’s mateless, half the Alphas in that room will see an opening.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty.

Evren looked back at the woman on the screen. “Prepare the jet.”

Tyson lowered the tablet and gave a deep bow. “Roger that, Your Majesty!”

With that, he turned and left.