25

My breath caught, but I masked it with silence. I did not want to ask, but the question burned anyway. “What others?”

He turned toward me, slow. “Oh, come now,” Romeo said. “Surely you did not think you were the first? There were plenty before you. Pretty. Quiet. Willing... eventually. And all of them thought they could handle him too."

“you are lying.”

“I wish I were,” he said with a sigh that felt entirely false. “It’d make things less tedious. But no. They all end the same way."

I yanked at the ropes again. “What happens to them?”

He took a few steps closer, stopping just short of the bed. “They bleed,” he murmured. “And we clean the sheets before the next one arrives.”

“you are disgusting.”

“No,” he said. “I am honest. And you...” his eyes narrowed slightly, “Nora told me about your history. You were part of the Black Moon pack, you ran away and took shelter in the brothel, and you were auctioned off. you are just a little human trying to escape a hard life. you are not different, you are just still breathing.” 

He turned and picked up an apple from the tray on the side table, rolling it between his hands. “Seraphina was the last,” he said after a bite, juice dripping from his fingers. “Stronger than most, and still...” he chewed, “her screams reached the north wing.”

My stomach twisted. 

Was she dead?

“Ravok killed her?”

“Sorvane did,” Romeo said. “Or maybe it was the king. Hard to tell them apart these days.”

I did not speak.

My mouth had gone dry.

At the door, he paused, then looked back at me with a smirk that did not reach his eyes. “A word of advice, pet,” he said. “Next time he touches you, do not moan. That’s when the demon gets hungry.”

**

Ravok's POV 

As soon as I put Melany in the room and shut the door behind her, Sorvane stirred. I ordered the guard outside her room without looking back. “Watch the door. Day and night.”

He nodded, but I barely registered it. 

The taste of Seraphina was already fading from his tongue. Barely two hours had passed since her last breath, and yet Sorvane thrashed in the corners of my mind like a beast denied its feast. Her energy had burned too quickly. 

Sorvane was there. “I hear her heart,” he purred. “Faster than any I’ve ever known. I can smell her hair through the walls. I am starving for her.”

He did not sleep. Not that night, or the one after it. For three fucking days he prowled inside me, pressing against my skull, curling himself around my spine.

“You feel it, do not you?” he crooned. “The pulse beneath her skin.”

I tried to shut him out. I trained until my knuckles split, bathed in ice, walked the castle halls to keep my thoughts off her. But every time I passed her door, I heard her heartbeat too.

Ragnar did not speak. But he listened.

Sorvane did not stop. “It’s the fastest heart I’ve ever heard,” he whispered on the third night. “That means she’s afraid. Or excited. Either way... it’s perfect.”

By the fourth day, I could feel myself unraveling. The tension inside me had built to the edge of violence, and I needed clarity. 

I sat at the head of the table, the worn stone cool beneath my hands, and let the voices of my advisors wash over me. 

Romeo stood at my right. “We had intruders trying to cross the eastern border,” he said. “Near Kiev.”

I nodded, barely processing the words. My body was here, but my mind... my mind was already decaying under Sorvane’s hunger.

“We do not have strong ties with the Kiev packs,” Valassan, the oldest of my council, offered. “Perhaps a dinner invitation would ease the tension.”

I heard him, but only vaguely. Sorvane was already sick with desire. His hunger was becoming mine, and it tasted like fever in the back of my throat.

The conversation moved on, trade routes, shifting loyalties, regional complaints, and I agreed when they called my name, keeping my answers short and automatic. A nod here. A low grunt there. No one seemed to notice.

Until a voice pierced through the fog. “She has to be gone before we invite the king of Kiev.”

That made my head turn.

Saulo. Always so careful with his words. “What did you say?”

“The human,” he said, unflinching. “The one you are keeping here like a guest. Her scent reaches the outer halls. They all know she’s here. Of course, she’s only a slave and won’t last long. But it’s been four days. She eats with us and drinks our water.”

“And your point?” I asked.

“If it’s a pet you want, my king,” Valassan added, more measured, “a she-wolf would be a more suitable choice.”

I leaned forward, letting silence thicken around the table. “Of course. If I dispose of the human, that would free the position for your wolf-daughter to fill it, wouldn’t it?”

Valassan choked on his breath. 

The others looked away.

“In three hundred years, I have never tolerated insubordination. do not start now.”

Romeo, ever the shield between me and open rebellion, cut in. “Our concern, Alpha, isn’t with the place the human occupies. It’s with the one that still remains empty.” He looked at me and held my gaze. “Three centuries of rule. The people are beginning to ask for their Luna.”

Fuck me.

“I will give the people a Luna when the moon goddess gives me one,” I said low. “Or shall I marry the next well-behaved she-wolf that bats her lashes at the throne?” 

No one answered, not even Romeo.

“Very well,” Saulo muttered eventually, trying to pivot. “The dinner with Kiev...” 

But I did not hear the rest, cause I felt it... a sudden pressure inside my head, deep and intrusive, as if something had stepped across a threshold it did not need permission to cross. The space behind my eyes tightened, my thoughts stuttering, rearranging themselves around an чуж foreign weight that did not belong there. A chill slid down my spine, slow and deliberate.

Then the voice spoke, calm and unmistakable. “She’s hurt.”

Ragnar.

The metallic sting of human blood hit my nose. I did not need to ask whose it was. Her scent was different from anything else in this castle. And then I heard her heartbeat, fast and erratic, pounding from somewhere upstairs.

Melany.

Without a word, I stood. All eyes turned toward me. “Romeo, handle the invaders. Council, go to Kiev for diplomacy.” Then I turned and left the chamber without looking back.

I pushed climbed the stairs two at a time. Her heartbeat was still hammering and I followed the sound like instinct, letting it pull me down the corridor, past the guards, straight to her door.

I stepped inside, expecting to see her curled on the bed, maybe collapsed on the floor, but the room was empty. The sheets untouched, tray of food still on the table and no blood in sight.

But the scent lingered.

The bathroom door was cracked open, so I crossed the room in seconds and pushed it wider.

She was in the bathtub, knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around them. Wet strands of red hair clung to her cheeks, and water dripped down her shoulders in quiet rhythm. 

It wasn’t much, just a small cut across her palm, barely closed, with a thin streak of dried blood trailing down her wrist. But the moment I saw it, something inside me stirred. Not Sorvane this time. 

Ragnar.

She saw me, and her entire body tensed. 

Melany flinched backward, shoulders pressing against the far edge of the tub, trying to make herself smaller. Her eyes locked on mine, wide with alarm. “What are you doing here?” she pulled her knees tighter against her chest the moment my eyes dropped. 

Her arms folded over her breasts in one swift, instinctive motion.

“I’ve seen breasts before,” I said flatly, stepping into the room