The King’s Eyes

Ava's POV

"Mate."

That single word had undone me completely.

For one brief, impossible moment, I had let myself believe it. Let myself feel it — the warmth of the bond, the electricity of his touch, the wild and reckless hope that the moon goddess had finally looked down at me with something other than indifference.

I had been so foolish.

When Alpha Jackson's hand touched mine, a jolt shot through my entire body like lightning finding the ground. And with it came his scent — rich and full, like a field of flowers after rain. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever experienced.

It lasted about ten seconds.

Then he opened his mouth and destroyed everything.

"You will continue to live your life outside the pack house. It will be a thing of shame if anyone finds out about your existence."

He didn't even look at me when he said it. Not once. I was standing right in front of him — his *mate* — and I wasn't worth a single glance.

"King Sebastian will be arriving in a few days. Leave the city if you must. We cannot risk him finding out about you."

Then he walked away.

Just like that.

My knees gave out the moment his back turned. I hit the floor quietly, the way I had learned to do everything — without making a scene, without drawing attention, without giving anyone the satisfaction of seeing how deeply I could break.

No one helped me up.

No one even looked.

Now back in my apartment, I lay curled on my bed with my knees pulled to my chest, letting the tears come in waves I couldn't control. Every time I thought I was done, another one hit — harder, deeper, more humiliating than the last.

I had never let myself dream of a happy life. Not in four years of being cast out, mocked, and forgotten. I had made a quiet peace with the idea that some people were simply not built for happiness.

But Alpha Jackson had cracked something open in me the moment he said that word.

And then he had reached inside and torn it out by the roots.

"How could you?" I whispered to the ceiling — to the moon goddess, to fate, to whatever force had decided that *this* was my story.

No answer. There never was.

I pressed my face into the pillow and made myself stop thinking about his eyes. His jaw. The way his voice had wrapped around the word *mate* like it meant something.

I was so stupid.

What had I honestly expected? That an Alpha would look at a wolfless outcast and choose her? That I was somehow worth the embarrassment?

Rejecting me had been the right thing to do.

I just wished it hadn't hurt so much.

Eventually, exhaustion won. I cried myself into a sleep so heavy that even my dreams left me alone.

*****

Meanwhile — Night Howl Pack House

The entire werewolf kingdom had been buzzing for weeks.

King Sebastian Reynolds — Lycan King, the most powerful man alive — was paying a visit to the Night Howl pack. It was the kind of honour that Alphas spent lifetimes hoping for, and Alpha Jackson had wasted no time turning it into the event of the year. The pack house had been transformed. Staff moved in every direction. Decorations, catering, security — all of it calibrated to impress a king.

In her small apartment across the city, Ava lay on her bed scrolling through her phone, doing what she always did when the world felt too heavy.

She read.

His photos were everywhere online. Tall — six foot six, with the kind of face that looked like it had been carved specifically to make people forget their own names. Twenty-eight years old and already the wealthiest, most powerful being on the planet, his fortune stretching back through a thousand years of Lycan bloodlines.

Women across every species — werewolves, Lycans, vampires, even humans — had thrown themselves at Sebastian Reynolds for decades. He had turned every single one away.

He was waiting for his fated mate.

"And he's going to be at the pack house today," Ava muttered, staring at his picture with her mouth slightly open.

Then the memory of Jackson's voice cut through.

“Leave the city if you must. We cannot risk him finding out about you.”

She set her phone down on her chest and stared at the ceiling.

He wanted her gone. Hidden. Erased — the same way her family had always wanted her erased.

She thought about it for a full thirty seconds.

Then she sat up and walked to her closet.

"I just have to be careful," she told her reflection as she pulled out the black gown she had bought months ago — the one that had cost her an entire paycheck, the one that had meant three days of hunger. Looking at herself now, she decided it had been worth it.

She finished the look with a black masquerade mask that covered the top half of her face cleanly. The guests tonight would be wealthy and extravagant. A masked woman in a black gown wouldn't raise a single eyebrow.

She studied her reflection one last time.

"He won't kill you, Ava," she said quietly. "Probably."

She left before she could talk herself out of it.

By six o'clock, the pack house ballroom was alive.

Soft music. Warm light. The hum of conversations between people who mattered, dressed like they knew it. Ava slipped inside with a group of arriving guests and let the crowd swallow her whole.

She kept her head down and moved toward the front, finding a spot near the edge of the room with a clear sightline to the main entrance. If she was going to risk everything just to be here, she at least wanted to *see* him.

She had forgotten one thing.

The mate bond between her and Alpha Jackson hadn't been fully severed. She had never spoken her own rejection aloud — which meant the thread between them, thin and fraying as it was, still existed.

The moment Jackson entered the ballroom with a tall figure beside him, he caught it.

Faint. Floral. Unmistakable.

His jaw tightened.

She was here.

He had told her to leave and she had come anyway. He kept his expression perfectly neutral as he guided his guest forward, people parting and bowing as the two of them moved through the room.

"This way, Your Majesty."

Sebastian Reynolds moved like someone who had never once in his life questioned whether he belonged in a room. Unhurried. Commanding. The kind of presence that didn't demand attention — it simply received it, automatically, the way gravity worked.

He scanned the room with dark, quiet eyes as Jackson led him toward the front.

Then something shifted.

A scent reached him — honey and warmth, soft and deep and completely unlike anything he had encountered in twenty-eight years of existence. It moved through him like a current, and his Lycan — the ancient, powerful creature that lived beneath his skin — stirred for the first time in years.

Sebastian's steps slowed.

He followed the scent with his eyes, moving past faces and masks until he found her — a dark-haired woman near the edge of the crowd, head bowed, face half-hidden behind a black mask.

She wasn't looking at him.

She didn't know.

His Lycan surged forward with a single, certain word that resonated through every part of him.

"Mate."