Chapter 2: Fire Beneath the Skin

Lyra

She knew the forest well. Every path, every twist of root and earth. But tonight, the woods pulsed with something different. The air wasn’t its usual self.

She began to run. Not from fear, but from a feeling she couldn’t name. A pressure behind her ribs, in her heart, thumping in her blood.

Her magic sparked before her mind caught up.

Something was watching her. And it wasn’t the Alpha she just ran into.

She turned just in time to see the creature leap from the shadows, not human, too fast, nothing natural. A hybrid, twisted with dark magic.Clawing at her.

She threw up her hand. Light flared—silver, fierce, shot into the creature.

It shrieked and staggered. Attempting to stop itself in its tracks.

Not dead but definitely not done.

And then, he was there.

A blur of black.

Fur. Claws. Teeth. Fury.

She gasped as Alpha Ronan Thorne shifted mid-charge, no hesitation, no sound but the crack of bone and growl of something ancient. He ripped the creature apart like it was made of paper.

Then he turned to her.

His eyes glowed golden in the moonlight, his chest heaving, blood staining his mouth. He shifted back, naked and radiating heat.

She should have looked away. But the second her eyes met his, her magic roared. Her blood pulsating.

She felt the bond slam into her like a hand gripping her heart.

“No,” she whispered. “Not you.”

Ronan

He felt her before he saw her.

The bond pulled at him like a chain, and when he caught her scent in the trees, his wolf snapped, demanding he take over.

She was in danger.

His body moved before he could think. He tore through the creature with a kind of violence he didn’t question. Only after the blood hit the leaves did he see her.

Lyra Vale. Cloak torn. Hair wild.

Power thrumming beneath her skin like a drumbeat just for him.

Then her eyes met his.

The bond hit like a lightning bolt.

His heart beat stopped, then came back harder, faster, syncing with hers.

He shifted back, trying to control the shaking in his limbs. Not from exhaustion.

From restraint. Then fierce tension that had his body roaring.

Her lips parted. Her breath caught.

She felt it too.

“You can feel that, can’t you?” he rasped.

She flinched.

“You feel it.”

Lyra

“I didn’t choose this,” she snapped, backing away.

“Neither did I,” he growled.

Gods, her skin was burning. Magic licked at her veins, flaring toward him. Yearning.

“I’m not yours,” she hissed.

“You think I want this?” His voice was ragged. “You think I want you?”

A beat of silence. Too long. Too honest. Almost like a punch to the gut. But she didn’t understand why.

She stared at him.

And he stared right back.

Electricity seemed to crackle through the air. The trees seemed to lean in closer. Wind whipping. Clarity blurring.

And her body, it betrayed her.

For one stupid second, she imagined what it would feel like to let him close. To let him pin her down and burn out the bond with teeth and heat and ruin. To wonder what he tasted like.

She hated herself for it.

Ronan

She wanted him.

She didn’t say it. She didn’t have to.The bond screamed it.

He could feel her magic reaching, testing, tasting him like it had a mind of its own.

He saw the flicker in her eyes. The hunger. But something else. Fear?

She was terrified.

Not of him, though. Of wanting him.

And that was worse.

Because the second she gave in, even once, he wouldn’t be able to let her go, ever.

Her need matched his own. Terrifying? Maybe. A risk that most likely ended in death? Definitely a possibility.

Lyra began to walk past him again, leaving him naked in her wake. 

“Where are you going?”

“None of your business.”

“It’s my business now.” Ronan replied.

“I owe you nothing, and you owe me nothing. This” as she held up her hand knowing he could feel her blood pulsating with the bond, “means nothing. Go away”

They stood across from each other like two wolves on opposite cliffs, neither willing to jump first.

Temptation. Fear. Thrill. Risk.

But the bond had already begun shoving them both off the edge.