Chapter 4

The human world moved on schedules but the predatory world moved on instinct. Right then, every instinct I possessed was screaming at me to run until my legs gave out.

I stood at my desk outside the boardroom, my fingers flying across my keyboard as I pretended to audit logistics spreadsheets. In reality, I was booking a one-way train ticket to a small, isolated human town six hundred miles west. I didn't care about my career anymore, I didn't care about the corporate ladder I had spent four grueling years climbing. None of it mattered if Kaelen found Leo.

Through the heavy double-paned glass of the boardroom I could see the dark, commanding silhouette of the Alpha. He was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out at the stormy skyline of Astra City. Even from a distance, the build of his shoulders and the rigid, absolute authority of his posture made the executives around him look like paper cutouts.

He was restless. I could tell by the way his hand gripped the silver handle of his cane, a weapon disguised as a mobility aid and the sharp, rhythmic twitch of his jaw. The fated bond though rejected and buried under layers of silver-infused chemicals, was a two-way street. He might not recognize me through the synthetic lavender haze, but his inner wolf was feeling ‘something’. An itch under the skin, a familiar scent, a warning that what belonged to him was in the room.

“Just thirty more minutes,” I prayed, my eyes darting to the digital clock on the corner of my screen. “Thirty minutes until the board recesses for the afternoon, and I can walk out of here.”

"Elena."

I jumped slightly, my fingers freezing over the keys as Mr. Vance stepped out of the boardroom looking like he had aged five years in the span of two hours. He leaned over my desk, dropping a thick stack of financial folders onto my desk.

"I need you to take these down to the archival floor and cross-reference the signatures with the 2022 acquisition files," Vance whispered, wiping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. “Mr. Laurent's legal team is tearing our historical data apart. They’re looking for a compliance loophole to force an immediate asset transfer."

"Mr. Vance, my shift is almost over, and I have to pick up Leo from the daycare – "

"Elena, please," Vance intercepted, his voice cracking with genuine desperation. "If we don't satisfy their legal team by five o'clock, Mr. Laurent will pull the funding, and Apex Global goes under by morning. I’ll pay you triple overtime, I’ll authorize a bonus, just get me those files."

I looked at the files, then at the clock. It was 4:15 PM. The daycare closed at 5:30 PM. If I hurried down to the basement archives, I could grab the files, dump them on Vance’s desk, and still make it to Leo with ten minutes to spare.

"Fine," I said, tight-lipped. "I’ll be back up in ten minutes."

I grabbed my designer leather tote bag, keeping it with me because my train ticket barcode was saved on the phone inside it and walked toward the service elevators at the back of the floor. I wanted to avoid the main elevator entirely. I didn't want to risk the doors opening and revealing Kaelen or his Beta.

The basement archives of Apex Global were situated three levels below the street, a cold, concrete room of high-density rolling shelves filled with decades of paper records. The air down there smelled of old dust, mold, and dry ink. It was completely silent, the distant rumble of the city traffic above reduced to a faint, vibrating hum through the foundations.

I pulled the rolling levers, separating the massive steel shelves until I found the 2022 corporate folders. My hands were sweating, making the paper slick against my fingers as I flipped through the compliance receipts.

“Come on, come on,” I muttered to myself, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm.

Suddenly, the air in the basement corridor grew freezing cold.

It wasn't the building’s air conditioning. It was a rapid, unnatural drop in temperature that made my breath bloom into a white cloud in front of my face. The heavy scent of fresh cedar wood and winter frost rolled down the concrete hallway, thick enough to make the hairs on the back of my throat stand.

‘No. No, no, no.’

The heavy, measured thud of leather boots echoed against the concrete floor.

I scrambled backward into the narrow gap between two rolling shelves, pulling the heavy files against my chest like armor. I held my breath, my lungs burning as I pressed my back flat against the cold steel framework.

Kaelen walked into the archival room.

He wasn't accompanied by his legal team. He wasn't accompanied by Beta Vance. He was alone, his hands shoved into the pockets of his charcoal trousers, his head tilted slightly as he took a deep testing breath of the basement air.

"I know you're down here," Kaelen said. His voice was a low, cavernous rumble that bounced off the concrete walls, making the metal shelves vibrate against my spine. "The human smell ends at the elevator but the silver... the silver stays in the air."

I squeezed my eyes shut, my heart pounding so hard I was terrified the sound would give me away. My hand crept into my tote bag, my fingers wrapping around the amber glass atomizer of the custom perfume. I had already sprayed it three hours ago, but the silver compounds were breaking down under the stress of my heightened heart rate.

"You look like a human," Kaelen continued, his steps slow, deliberate drawing closer to the aisle where I was hiding. Thud. Thud. Thud. "You dress like a human, you talk like one but my wolf hasn't stopped clawing at my chest since I stepped onto the fortieth floor."

He stopped at the mouth of my aisle.

Through the tiny gap between the boxes on the shelf, I could see his profile. His grey eyes were wide, dark, shifting with that dangerous volatile Lycan gold that indicated his inner beast was close to the surface. He was hunting, not a corporate asset, but a ghost.

"Four years ago, a wolfless girl walked out of my court into the rain," Kaelen whispered, his voice dropping to a very dangerous pitch. "She was nothing. A servant, a liability to the crown…I broke the bond, and yet every winter solstice since then, my soul has bled. Why do I smell winter frost on a human administrative assistant?"

He turned his head. His eyes locked directly onto the gap where I was standing.

My survival instinct took over. I didn't think, I didn't calculate. I slipped out of the opposite side of the rolling shelves, sprinting toward the heavy metal fire exit door at the back of the archive room.

"Elena!" Kaelen roared.

The sheer power of his Alpha command slammed into my back like a physical shockwave. A normal wolf would have dropped to their knees instantly, their muscles paralyzed by the voice of their Alpha but my lack of a wolf, the very trait that had made me an outcast acted as a shield. The command had nothing to latch onto. My human bones kept moving.

I threw my weight against the fire door, bursting through into the concrete stairwell. I didn't take the elevator, he could override the electrical system in a heartbeat. I began to climb the stairs, my heels slapping against the concrete, my breath coming in ragged desperate gasps.

Behind me, the fire door was torn off its hinges with a deafening, metallic screech that echoed up the stairwell.

Kaelen didn't run. He didn't need to. His stride was twice the size of mine, his physical capabilities was far beyond anything a human could manage. I could hear him ascending the stairs below me, his heavy boots moving with a terrifying rhythmic speed.

"You cannot run from me, Elena," his voice boomed from the stairwell below. "Not in my city. Not in this world."

I reached the ground floor exit, slamming my palm against the panic bar. The door flew open, spilling me out into the alleyway behind the Apex Global skyscraper. The storm had broken completely now, a torrential downpour of freezing rain that instantly soaked my silk blouse and plastered my hair to my forehead.

The rain was a blessing. It washed the synthetic lavender scent from my skin and it also washed away my tracks. Hopefully.

I didn't look back. I ran out of the alley, my heels skidding on the wet asphalt and dove straight into the crowded subway entrance at the corner of the block. The human rush hour was in full swing, thousands of persons in grey coats pushing through the crowd, creating a dense, chaotic wall of flesh and scent.

I swallowed my panic, melting into the crowd, letting the human sea pull me down toward the platforms.

Kaelen was powerful but even a King couldn't openly shift or slaughter his way through a thousand humans without exposing the supernatural world to the media. He had to play by the rules of the city, at least for now.

I checked my phone with trembling, wet fingers. It was 5:10 PM.

I had twenty minutes to get to the daycare, grab Leo and get to the central train station. The hunter was awake, the scent was found, and the corporate sanctuary I had built was officially gone.