CHAPTER 2: NO PULL

The silence was a hole in the world, and it was sitting in his penthouse.

Rhydian stood before the wall of glass, his city glittering below. He held a glass of whiskey but didn't drink it. He was trying to feel something.

He had replayed the moment in the lab a dozen times. The clarity of her grey eyes through the glass. The way his mind, usually buzzing with the pack's emotions, went quiet when he looked at her. He waited for the Pull. The deep, undeniable snap of the mate bond. The thing that guided every wolf to their other half.

He felt nothing.

Not a spark. Not a hum. Just… empty space. It was like looking at a star and feeling no gravity.

This was worse than rejection. Rejection was pain. This was nothing. And it broke a law older than the city beneath him.

"Kellan," he said, his voice too loud in the quiet room.

His Beta appeared in the doorway. He was out of his suit, dressed in dark clothes. He looked like a soldier, which he was. "The reports from Level 42 are bad. Focus is down. Aggression is up. The wolves near her station are on edge. It's like a mental allergy."

"Her name is Nyxara," Rhydian said, still not looking away from the city.

"The anomaly," Kellan corrected, his voice careful. "She's a disruption. What are your orders?"

Rhydian finally turned. "My orders are to understand what she is."

Kellan’s calm mask slipped for a second. "And the bond?"

"There is no bond."

The words fell like stones. Kellan’s face went blank with shock. "That's impossible. The bond is"

"what I cannot feel," Rhydian finished, his voice cold and final. "I have felt nothing. My wolf is silent around her. It does not recognize her. It only… goes quiet."

Kellan stared. This was the foundation of their world. An Alpha without the pull of a mate was like a compass without north. It was a flaw, a weakness. "The Elders will know. They feel the bonds of all Alphas. They’ll feel this… gap."

As if summoned, the secure line on the black stone desk chimed. The screen lit up with a single symbol: a mountain with a wolf's head silhouette. The Elder Council.

Rhydian nodded at Kellan, who faded back into the shadows.

He opened the line. A hologram flickered to life, showing three figures seated on stone chairs. The air around them seemed older and colder. The one in the center was Rafe. His hair was silver, his face hard. His eyes were the color of flint.

"Alpha Blackthorne," Rafe said. His voice was dry, like stones grinding. "The network is disturbed. We feel a dead zone in your territory. Explain."

"A new asset at Veridian," Rhydian said, his CEO voice locked in place. "A unique genetic profile. She causes some sensory disruption. We are studying it."

"Do not lie to us," said the woman on the right, her voice sharp. "This is not a 'disruption.' It is an absence. Our seers describe a hole in the pattern. What is she?"

"A human with a null effect," Rhydian insisted.

"A human does not make an Alpha's bond go silent!" Rafe’s composure cracked for a second, showing fury. "If the bond does not guide you, then what does? Your whim? Your curiosity? This is how empires fall, Blackthorne."

Rhydian said nothing. The truth was a weapon he wouldn't hand them.

"You have thirty days," Rafe decreed. "Contain her. Study her. Then, you will bring her to the Stone Seat for judgment. We will decide if she can be used or if she must be unmade. If you refuse… we will send the Conclave to take her. And you will answer for shielding an abomination."

The screen went dark.

The Conclave. The Council's personal hunters. They were not soldiers. They were a force of nature. If they came, people would die. His people.

Kellan stepped forward again, his face grim. "Thirty days. We can try to find a use for her. Make her seem valuable. Or… we can make her disappear before the Conclave arrives."

Rhydian looked back at the city, his city. He saw the silver tower where she sat, unaware that ancient wolves had just marked her for death.

"No," he said. "We don't make her disappear."

"Then what's the plan?" Kellan asked, frustration creeping in.

Rhydian’s pale eyes reflected the city lights. "We change the definition of abomination."

Nyx was jolted awake by a nightmare. She’d been running through a silent forest. The trees had golden eyes.

She got water in her dark kitchen. The silence in her head was still there. A gift. A curse.

She looked in the hallway mirror. A tired woman with grey eyes stared back. Who are you? she thought. Why do you make monsters uncomfortable?

Her phone buzzed on the counter. A message from an unknown number.

UNKNOWN: The attention you have attracted is fatal. You are a disease in the eyes of the cure. You have 30 days. Learn what you are, or be erased. A Friend.

The phone slipped from her fingers and clattered on the floor.

She wasn't just a puzzle. She was a target.

And somewhere in the night, a clock had started ticking.