C4

"Am I truly forbidden from entering your den, Alpha?"

The air in the grand hall locked up like ice.

Zyric Fenwolf nearly choked on his own saliva at my words. I could see the sheer disbelief rolling off his scent profile as he darted a glance between me and the senior matron. He clearly expected me to keep baring my fangs, yet here I was, shifting my strategy entirely to appeal to the primal bond.

No other female in the Blackwynd Moon Dominion would dare stand in the center of the council floor and address the Sovereign of the North with such intimate defiance, especially when his lethal aura was actively suffocating the room. The previous high-born omegas sent by the pack council had literally broken into tremors just trying to speak a greeting to him.

But I knew better. With a True Alpha like Vickon shielding my position, why waste my breath snarling at Elira Stormveil?

I tilted my head, letting my eyes flash a soft, luminous silver as I stepped closer to his command chair. "My Alpha?"

Vickon’s pitch-black pupils fixed entirely on me, his chiseled jaw locked tight as he radiated a freezing, absolute authority.

As the silence dragged out between us, my inner wolf began to fidget, a prickle of raw anxiety hitting my skin. Had my instincts pushed the boundary too far for our first meeting? This wasn't the old timeline where our bonds were fully forged, after all.

Across the hearth, Sorelle Mistfang let a small, spiteful curl slip onto her lips.

She obviously thought the Alpha was about to shred me. No matter how much tolerance Vickon had shown a moment ago, entering his personal territory without a blood-binding was a capital offense.

"The doors remain open to you."

Sorelle’s smug expression froze instantly.

My inner wolf howled with victory. I stepped forward, my voice bright with a surge of genuine hope. "Does that mean your territory is mine to cross whenever my wolf chooses?"

"You carry my pack-scent now. Your presence is always welcome in my den."

The surrounding guards stared at their leader, completely stunned into a dead silence.

Zyric blinked rapidly, his aura fluctuating in shock. None of the previous females chosen by the elders had ever been granted unrestricted access to the Alpha's private quarters. This was an unprecedented breach of pack law for a single female.

"Thank you, my Alpha!"

I closed the distance between us and impulsively wrapped my arms around his massive forearm, letting my scent press into his sleeve.

His entire muscular frame went rigid as stone beneath my touch. Realizing my lupine instincts had moved too fast, my face flushed with heat and I immediately pulled my hands back.

"I will ascend to the upper level and shift into proper attire," I murmured, backing away.

Vickon’s gaze tracked the heavy ceremonial shroud dragging behind my heels before his eyes snapped to the head matron with an icy glare. "Why has my mate not been provided with the garments of the Blackwynd lineage?"

After witnessing his explicit favor twice in a single hour, Elira didn't dare challenge his authority. She bowed her head lower, her scent dropping into forced submission. "The ceremonial furs are ready, Alpha."

He gave a single, sharp nod of his head. "Clear the master guest den directly adjacent to my private quarters. She sleeps there tonight."

He didn't even ask which low-tier bunk Elira had originally assigned me. He had redefined the boundaries of the fortress himself.

Elira’s jaw tightened hard. She wanted to fight the order that specific high-tier chamber was the one she had promised to her own daughter, Sorelle but she swallowed her pack pride.

"As you command, Alpha."

The victory made my steps lighter as I turned back to the stairs. "I am heading up, my Alpha!"

Vickon watched my shadow retreat into the upper corridor, his large hand unconsciously covering the exact spot on his arm where my fingers had pressed into his skin, feeling the faint, lingering heat of my wolf.

"If another oversight occurs regarding my mate's quarters, the executioner will handle the next shift," Vickon growled into the dark hall.

Sorelle turned dead pale, her scent reeking of terror. "Yes, Alpha Blackwynd..."

Upstairs in the private corridor, I exhaled a soft breath, realizing I still hadn't fully explained the situation with Thorne. But Vickon's primal wolf hadn't shown any trace of rejection toward me, meaning Vaelira’s poison hadn't corrupted his view of our bond yet.

Within minutes, a trembling Sorelle arrived at my door clutching a pile of fine leather tunics and heavy winter furs. "The adjacent den is being cleansed of old silver toxins, Lady Blackwynd. Forgive the delay."

I offered her a cold, unbothered smile. "Leave them. My wolf is patient."

Sorelle ground her fangs together in silence and retreated.

"Is the Nightvale stray already demanding high-rank submission?"

"First moon in our territory and she acts like she commands the entire pack..."

A cluster of low-ranking female omegas were snarling softly in the corridor, their whispers carrying through the heavy timber doors.

"The Alpha explicitly told her den he didn't require their bloodline alliance, yet she still crawled into our valley we all know her father is just hunting for our hunting grounds."

"Exactly. The scouts said the Nightvale Alpha sent a pack-comm the second her transport crossed the border, demanding territorial favors..."

I stepped out of the shadow of the archway, my voice cutting off their growls like a whip. "Your inner wolves seem exceptionally loud today. Care to share those thoughts with my fangs?"

The omegas jumped, their ears flattening against their heads as they spun around to face me, sweat pooling on their brows at my unreadable expression.

"Lady Blackwynd..." They whined softly, dropping their gazes to the stone floor.

I looked directly at Sorelle. "You forgot to bring my leather boots."

Sorelle stammered, her scent spiking. "Forgive me, my lady... it was an oversight. I will retrieve them from the stores immediately..."

"Get back to your hunting duties," the other omegas muttered, scattering down the dark hallway in a panic.

My expression darkened as I watched them run.

Demanding territorial favors? My biological father, Lucan Duskclaw the type of male who would sell his own pups to a rogue pack just to secure a higher rank would absolutely exploit my marriage alliance. I would have to warn Vickon before the next moon: if anyone was going to negotiate for Blackwynd resources, it would be me, not the male who abandoned me.

I returned to the chamber, and a moment later, Sorelle dropped the boots at the threshold. I didn't even look up from my furs. "Leave them. Get out."

Sorelle hesitated at the door, her eyes flashing with a hidden malice before she pulled out her pack-comm device, typing a rapid message:

[Sorelle: Alice, when is your hunt returning to the Ridge?]

Alice-Elira’s blood-daughter.

I had barely finished binding the leather straps of my tunic before a young guard knocked to summon me to the lower hall for the evening feast.

It would be my first meal with Vickon since my soul crossed back through time. My inner wolf paced with anticipation as I hurried down the stone steps, only to find the massive timber dining table completely deserted.

"Where is the Alpha?" I asked the guard at the door.

"Alpha Vickon left the fortress borders on a perimeter scout, my lady."

"Oh." A pang of deep disappointment hit my chest.

With his severe silver injuries, Vickon rarely left the core territory unless a rogue pack was actively testing our borders. I knew better than to challenge his military movements, so I ate the roasted meat in complete silence before returning to the upper levels.

There was too much strategy to map out; surviving a second chance at life required absolute calculation, and I couldn't afford a single mistake.

Around the ninth hour of the evening, the heavy iron gates below groaned open, signaling his return. Before I could step out onto the balcony, a violent crash echoed from the master den next door, followed by Vickon's raw, thunderous roar.

"Get out of my sight!"

My heart seized with absolute terror. I bounded toward his doors.

I had a thousand betrayals to undo in this timeline, but nothing took precedence over curing Vickon's silver sickness.

The suffocating agony of a True Alpha watching his own wolf rot from the inside out while his dominion crumbled it was enough to drive the strongest predator insane. Vickon always locked his suffering behind a wall of terrifying silence, but I knew exactly how close his spirit was to snapping.

I rushed down the stone corridor and nearly collided with Zyric Fenwolf, who had just been shoved backward out of the chamber, alongside a pack healer clutching a crate of lunar herbs.

The healer’s hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold the vials, his scent reeking of raw terror at the prospect of going back inside.

I reached out and pulled the crate from his grip. "Give me the remedies."

Zyric looked at me with wide, panicked eyes, his voice a low warning. "Lady Zafira... the Alpha's wolf is completely dominant right now. He is unstable."

"I know," I replied, my voice hard.

Precisely because his feral side was taking over, I couldn't stay away; my inner wolf was screaming to protect him.

Zyric hesitated for a heartbeat, then, remembering how Vickon had tolerated my scent earlier, nodded to the healer. "Let her pass."

I pushed through the heavy timber doors and slipped into the darkness of his sanctuary. The hearth was completely dead.

"I said get out!" The growl was a physical vibration, thick with unadulterated rage, coming from the shadows ahead.

By the faint moonlight filtering through the high narrow windows, I could discern his massive silhouette sitting motionless in his command chair, his back turned to me. He looked completely drained of life-force, enveloped in a heavy, suffocating aura of death like an ancient predator waiting for the winter to take him.

A sharp, agonizing pain ripped through my chest.

He was only twenty-seven winters old.

Had he suffered in this absolute darkness during my past life too? Drowning in silent torture night after night while his pack watched for weakness? Back then, my only instinct had been to flee his borders—I had never given a single thought to the agony tearing his wolf apart. Not once.

Slowly, my boots clicked against the stone as I approached his chair.

As my scent registered in his space, Vickon lunged blindly out of the shadows, his massive, clawed hand clamping around my wrist with bone-crushing force.

"I said get—!"

The pressure was so intense I gasped aloud as the bones in my arm groaned.

The instant my specific scent profile hit his nostrils, his vice-like grip loosened completely.

"Leave this room," he commanded, his voice raw and raspy.

In the dim lunar light, I could see the rigid, violent line of his jaw and the sharp profile of his face, but his eyes were completely obscured by the dark only the waves of pure, volatile anger rolled off his skin.

"Zyric said your core was rejecting the remedies," I said softly, letting my voice drop into a soothing, submissive purr to calm his feral side. "My wolf was frantic with worry for you."

"Worry?" His growl shifted, the lethal edge receding just a fraction as his heavy gaze locked onto my face.

"Yes." I dropped to my knees right beside his chair, one hand gripping the carved armrest while I reached out through the pitch-black space, searching for his hand.

My fingers accidentally brushed the thick muscle of his thigh; his entire body tensed like a coiled spring. In the next fraction of a second, his massive hand shot out and seized mine.

This time, his grip was completely measured firm enough to ensure my wolf couldn't pull away from his touch, but gentle enough not to leave a single mark on my skin.

"What are you hunting for, female?" His voice was thick, strained with the effort to control his beast.

A wave of guilt hit my chest for tricking his senses, but I kept my tone entirely innocent. "I was looking for your hand, Alpha. The moon is too low for my eyes to see."

"...And why does your wolf require my hand?"

I turned my palm upward within his large grip, wrapping my slender fingers tight around his heavy wrist, using the movement to surreptitiously press my pulse-points against his, reading the chaotic, erratic rhythm of his internal blood-flow. "Your beast is thundering against your ribs. I only wanted to offer comfort to your wolf."

Vickon went completely still.

Strangely, his primal wolf didn't reject the contact or tear my hand away.

A moment later, I finished reading his internal pathways, my mind spinning with a complex mixture of intense relief and sharp frustration.

The relief was absolute I knew exactly how to purge the silver poison from his bloodlines. With my knowledge of the old timeline, there was no way his wolf would perish before his thirtieth winter, despite what the high-ranking pack healers had prophesied.

But the frustration was a heavy weight I lacked the vital catalyst. The specific lunar strain required to neutralize this specific poison wouldn't be harvested for another three moons at the Wolfsbane Lunar Herbarium, the sacred sanctuary my mother had left behind in her bloodline will.

And that herbarium wasn't even under my operational control yet; it was locked tight within my grandfather's territory.

Thinking of the corrupt elders ruling my mother's ancestral den, my eyes flashed with an icy rage.

"Alpha Vickon? Lady Zafira?" Zyric’s tense voice drifted through the heavy oak doors, breaking the silence of the den.

"State your business, warrior," I called back, my voice carrying the clear, unyielding authority of a high-ranking mate.

Zyric, who had been gripping his blade ready to break down the doors to save my life, froze in the corridor, his hand hovering over the iron handle as his scent shifted into utter confusion.

They were both alive?

After hearing no sounds of tearing flesh for so long, he had expected to find a corpse. For the True Alpha's feral side to remain entirely pacified by an unbonded female was nothing short of an ancestral miracle.

Inside the darkened den, I slowly released my hold on his wrist, looking up into his shadow-shrouded face as I spoke softly. "May I ignite the torches and tend to your bleeding wounds, my Alpha?"