The Scent of the Flower One Part 1

Kieran -

The rose sat on my desk like an accusation, its crimson petals still perfect despite being severed from its roots three days ago. I'd wrapped it in one of Lydia's lace handkerchiefs—a delicate thing embroidered with forget-me-nots that had survived twenty-seven years of careful preservation. The irony wasn't lost on me: using a token of love lost to preserve a token of love promised.

But it wasn't the rose itself that held my attention. It was what the rose carried.

Her scent.

Every time I lifted the handkerchief to breathe in the flower's perfume, I caught traces of something else—something that made my wolf pace restlessly behind my ribs and sent heat coursing through my veins like molten gold. Human, yes, but human touched by grace. Female, young, with an underlying sweetness that spoke of innocence maintained despite hardship.

Catherine.

Her father had spoken her name with reverence and desperation in equal measure, and now that name echoed through my thoughts like a prayer. I'd sent Charles Montgomery home with his pockets full of gold and his soul weighted with debt, knowing full well that the rose he'd stolen would carry more than just beauty back to his daughter.

It would carry her scent to me. And mine to her.

"You've been staring at that flower for three hours."

Lucas's voice cut through my reverie, though I didn't turn from the tall windows that overlooked the rose garden. Even without looking, I could sense his disapproval radiating from the doorway like heat from a fire.

"Have I?" I lifted the handkerchief again, breathing deep. The scent hit me like a physical blow—feminine warmth and something indefinably her that made my teeth ache with the need to bite, to claim, to mark.

"Kieran." Lucas stepped into the study proper, his footsteps measured and careful. "What are you doing?"

What am I doing? Planning. Anticipating. Counting the hours until the bargain I'd struck with her father would bear fruit and bring me what I'd been waiting twenty-seven years to claim.

"I'm appreciating beauty," I said, finally turning to face my beta. "Surely there's no harm in that."

Lucas's expression suggested he thought there was considerable harm in it, actually. "That's not just any flower. It's connected to them. To her."

Her. He couldn't even say Catherine's name, as if speaking it aloud might make the situation more real, more dangerous than it already was.

"Yes," I agreed. "It is."

"You're planning to collect on the debt."

Again, not a question. Lucas had known me too long, served my family too faithfully, to mistake the signs. The way I'd been pacing the castle halls at night. The way I'd ordered the east wing chambers prepared—chambers that hadn't been occupied by anyone but ghosts for decades.

"The man stole from me," I said, setting the rose back on my desk with careful precision. "He admitted as much. Debts must be paid."

"By taking his daughter?" Lucas moved closer, his voice dropping to the low, urgent tone he used when he thought I was about to make a mistake that would endanger us all. "Kieran, think about what you're doing. What you're risking."

Risk. Such a small word for such an enormous concept. I was risking everything—my sanity, my pack's safety, the careful isolation that had protected us all for nearly three decades. But I was also risking the chance to end this curse, to reclaim the man I'd been before magic and betrayal had twisted me into something that belonged more to nightmare than to the waking world.

"I've thought of little else," I admitted. "The prophecy—"

"May not mean what you think it means." Lucas's interruption was sharp enough to cut. "Prophecies are notoriously unreliable. They twist intentions, subvert expectations, lead the hopeful into traps they never see coming."

He wasn't wrong. I'd learned that lesson the hard way twenty-seven years ago, when I'd trusted the wrong woman and paid for it with my humanity. But this felt different. This felt like destiny finally stirring from whatever cosmic slumber had kept it dormant for so long.

"The rose will bring her," I quoted softly. "He came for a rose. For his daughter. The connection is clear."

"The connection is tenuous at best," Lucas countered. "And even if the prophecy is beginning to unfold, that doesn't mean you should force it. Some things happen when they're meant to happen, not when we will them to."

Some things. But not freedom. Not redemption. Those had to be seized, fought for, claimed with the same ruthless determination that had built my family's power in the first place.