Chapter #4 - The Weight of Fate

I didn’t remember standing up.

One moment, the courtyard was shaking from the god-fragment’s backlash, shards of silver light still drifting down like ash. The next, I was being hauled through the west archway, half carried, half dragged, by the enormous, terrifying, unfairly gorgeous stranger whose magic had nearly detonated a few minutes ago.

Thane.

That was the name he’d snapped at someone, right before he’d snarled at the wolves for circling too close to me.

Heat still trembled over my skin where his hands had been. My stomach was doing confused, traitorous gymnastics. And I still couldn’t get his eyes out of my head and those fractured gold-and-gray irises that had locked on me like I meant something.

No. Not “like.”

They had known something.

Something impossible.

Something dangerous.

And I wanted to pretend I didn’t feel the same thing shudder through me when he looked at me as if I was some lost star he’d finally found.

The archway spilled into the inner halls of Stormfall Institute, the air cooler and quieter here. The marble floor gleamed white beneath the glowing overhead sigils. Students peeked around corners. Of course they did. I’d look too if a six-foot-seven demi-god wolf with crackling sun magic was storming through with a random girl he’d scooped off the ground.

One of the academy guards stepped forward, hand to his earpiece.

“Sir, Director Calen asked for—"

Thane’s aura flared.

Silver-white light erupted around him for a second, hot enough that my hair lifted from my shoulders.

The guard stumbled back. “R-right. I’ll, uh, notify him you’re coming.”

Thane didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at him. His grip only tightened around my wrist and not painful, but fierce, like he was afraid someone would rip me away.

I tugged.

“Hey. Big guy. Demi-Godzilla. You can’t just—”

“You could’ve been killed.” His voice was a low growl that vibrated through my ribs. “That thing targeted you.”

He stopped abruptly, turning on me so fast I collided with his chest. Again.

Ugh. I was going to develop a bruise shaped like his pecs.

His eyes dragged over me, taking in my scraped cheek, my trembling hands, my scuffed boots. But there was no mockery there. Only… fury. And fear. And something that made my knees go soft.

“I don’t even know you,” I whispered.

His jaw flexed. “You will.”

My heart did a full somersault and landed somewhere around my ankles.

This was insane. Completely, cosmically insane. I was a scholarship student with average grades and above average thighs, not some chosen, one prophecy girl. My only superpower was finishing an entire pizza alone.

Why me?

Behind us, several wolves and their eyes glowing the same molten gold as Thane’s had approached. They moved like a unit, steps perfectly in sync, each one radiating supernatural dominance. Even their shadows stretched unnaturally long along the marble, as if refusing to obey physics.

One of them, a woman with braided white hair and a scar running from temple to jaw, stepped forward.

“Alpha,” she said. “We secured the courtyard. The fragment dissipated. No fatalities. Sustained casualties are minimal.”

Alpha?

Thane didn’t react. He was still looking at me like the rest of the world was background noise.

The woman’s eyes flicked down to where Thane still held my wrist. Then she froze. Like someone had poured concrete down her spine. Like she knew exactly what that touch meant.

Thane finally tore his gaze away from me. “Layla ,” he said—except that wasn’t my name.

Wait.

No.

Oh gods.

He was speaking to her. The wolf soldier. Not me. I swallowed a ridiculous wave of disappointment.

“Yes, Alpha?”

“Alert Calen we’re meeting in my office. And tell him…” Thane’s voice tightened, “…to pull the Null Blood files.”

Every wolf stiffened.

My stomach dropped. “Null Blood? What does that mean?”

Thane didn’t answer.

He was already walking again, pulling me gently but relentlessly down a long corridor toward a set of steel and reinforced double doors.

Something sparked under my skin as we walked, like static, but deeper. More alive. And every time our arms brushed, another jolt surged through me, hot enough that my breath caught.

Please let that just be adrenaline.

Please don’t let this be what I think it is.

Inside Thane’s office, the lights flickered when he entered it had literally flickered, responding to the unstable, furious magic swirling off him. Papers rustled on nearby desks. Books vibrated against shelves.

“Sit,” he said quietly.

I sat.

I didn’t mean to. My muscles just… obeyed. Not because he compelled me and no magic forced me, but because the command rolled through me with a strange, magnetic weight.

Thane paced once. Twice. Then he stopped, bracing both hands on the edge of his desk as if holding the world in place.

“Your blood reacted before the fragment appeared,” he said without turning. “I felt it.”

“My blood?” My laugh came out choked. “I didn’t do anything except scream and fall on my face.”

He turned.

His eyes weren’t gold and gray anymore.

They were molten.

Alive.

Bond, bright.

“You’re Null Blood,” he said. “And you’re my fated mate.”

My lungs forgot how to function. Thoughts scattered like leaves in a storm. Every instinct screamed that he was wrong. That this was impossible. That things like this didn’t happen to girls like me.

But the other part of me and the part that remembered the sparks when he touched me, the heat pooling low in my belly, the way the world had muted when he grabbed me out of danger and knew he was telling the truth.

Null Blood.

Fated mate.

Demi-god wolf.

Me.

“What, what even is Null Blood?” I rasped.

“It means you’re immune to divine magic,” Thane said. “God fragments, curses, relic energy and none of it can harm you. You should not exist. Humans with null properties are extinct.” His voice softened. “But you’re here.”

He stepped closer.

And my pulse leapt so violently I thought it might burst.

“Thane…” I warned, inching back.

A low rumble vibrated in his chest. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I believed him. That was the terrifying part. I believed him more than I believed my own instincts.

“Look at me,” he said.

I shook my head.

Not because I didn’t want to.

But because I already knew what I’d see.

He crouched in front of me, expression raw. Carefully, so carefully that he lifted his hand and cupped my cheek. A warm surge, like sunlight breaking through clouds.and flooded my skin. My breath caught.

That same electric, inevitable pull roared between us.

The bond.

It wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t gentle. It was a gravitational collapse, a destined collision. The universe pressing me toward him and him toward me.

His forehead touched mine.

“You feel it,” he whispered. “Don’t lie.”

My eyes squeezed shut. “I don’t want this.”

His breath hitched with a quiet, pained sound.

Then his hand slid down, fingers brushing my jaw, my throat, the rapid pulse there.

“You have a choice,” he said softly. “A fated bond doesn’t erase your will. But it does tie our souls together. Whether you accept it or not, I will protect you. Even if you run from me.”

Run?

Could I even move with him this close?

A knock shattered the moment.

Layla, the wolf soldier had stepped inside, eyes darting between us in wide, wary recognition.

“Alpha… Director Calen is waiting. And… there’s something else.” She swallowed hard. “The gods sensed the fragment’s activation. They’re demanding answers.”

Thane rose slowly, the warmth of him leaving me cold and unsteady.

He looked down at me like a promise.

Or a warning.

“Stay here,” he said.

And then, lower and almost reverent.

“My mate.”

The door closed behind him.

And I was alone with the truth that had just rewritten my entire world.