CHAPTER 4: BEAUTY WITH BITE

Lex’s POV

Just when the bastard shifted and launched toward us like a bolt of fury, teeth bared and claws slashing through air—that’s when I saw her.

She tore into the scene like a shadow kissed by moonlight.

A dangerous beauty, cloaked in grace.

A majestic she-wolf—jet-black, lethal, divine—marked by a glimmering white star on her forehead. She didn't pounce; she danced, intercepting the Rogue King mid-air with a ferocity so fluid it felt choreographed by the Goddess herself.

I froze.

Spellbound.

She wasn’t just a fighter. She was art in motion.

While my brain cells combusted in admiration, Rowland, somehow immune to the magic unraveling in front of us, managed to snap free from his binds.

“Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” I growled, yanking against my ropes as he knelt beside me. “Get that oversized Beta butt out of my line of sight. You’re ruining the best visual I’ve had in years.”

“What the hell is wrong with you lately, Lex?” he snapped through the mindlink, fumbling at the knots. “You’re distracted, sloppy—do I need to slap the Alpha back into you?”

Even as he shifted and lunged into the fray beside her, I couldn’t take my eyes off the fierce goddess. She was elegance laced with death. A midnight storm in fur.

And she was winning.

Flawlessly.

Every movement calculated, every takedown delivered with savage grace.

Then another wolf stormed the battlefield—brown-coated, powerful, synced perfectly with her like twin lightning bolts splitting the same sky.

Her Beta, no doubt.

“If His Royal Horniness is done drooling, perhaps His Alpha-ness would care to join the war he started?” Rowland growled sarcastically.

“Not until the next ice age,” I quipped, eyes glued to her as she spun midair and took down three rogues at once, like a deadly ballerina wrapped in obsidian.

“Lex, I swear to the Goddess, I will—”

“ROWLAND! BEHIND YOU!” I shouted, snapping into my dark blue Alpha form, fur bristling and energy surging like an earthquake through my veins.

The Rogue King—crippled but cunning—had crawled toward Rowland in a final, desperate ambush.

But I was faster.

Fueled by years of relentless Alpha training… and by rage. The kind that burns from a wound so deep it never truly heals.

My mother.

Her screams still echoed in my mind.

The day the Rogue King ripped the Luna’s stone from her neck—and murdered her in front of me. That day carved a canyon of fury inside me, and tonight, I let it flood.

I tore his throat out, slowly, savagely, until the only sound was blood splashing across the dirt. The satisfaction of killing him tortuously myself was unexplainable as peace washed over me but in the middle of the war and in my fury, I had lost her. The mysterious black beauty.

She was gone.

The mysterious she-wolf who had stolen my breath and vanished before I could even ask her name.

I wouldn’t see her again.

Not for a long, long time.

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Joy’s POV

“How reckless can you be, Joy?” Dante scolded through the mindlink, tugging at my trapped leg wrapped in enchanted vines along the broken rogue border.

Honestly? Very.

I had no business diving into someone else’s war.

But Lex had clouded every instinct, every judgment, every damn rational thought.

This was his fault.

That stupidly gorgeous wolf.

Lex was... sin in the shape of a warrior.

Sharp jawline. Sculpted face. Messy golden-brown hair that looked like it was made for my fingers to tangle through.

And his eyes? A deep, espresso brown that screamed secrets and sleepless nights.

His lips? Plump, kissable, screaming for worship.

And that body?

Gods help me.

A weapon carved by the Moon Goddess herself—scarred, honed, divine. Everything about him screamed danger... and desire.

When he shifted into that rare, dark blue Alpha wolf, something in me stirred like never before. I had to fight the urge to jump him instead of the rogues.

For the first time in my life, my heart was pounding not from battle—but from him.

Lex.

I was falling for a stranger.

A stupid, gorgeous, reckless stranger.

And I didn’t even know the half of it yet.

“He was fighting for his mother,” Dante interrupted my mental meltdown, his voice solemn. “She died saving him. That Rogue King murdered her. No wonder he was a damn whirlwind out there.”

“Hmm. Whatev,” I muttered, trying—and failing—to sound indifferent.

“You like him. Just admit it.”

“No, I don’t!” I snapped, way too fast. Even I didn’t believe myself.

Dante rolled his eyes so hard I could hear it.

“For an Alpha, your lying sucks.”

“Oh, please. If lying were a sport, you’d be a billionaire,” I shot back.

He shifted without replying—probably afraid I’d bite.

I rolled my eyes.

Why don’t Betas ever read Rule #1?

Respect your fucking Alpha.

Ugh.