11

The training fields of the Darkfang pack were not built for mercy.

Mud soaked with blood, sharpened stakes jutting out from ditches, bone-littered corners where sparring turned to savagery, this was the heart of Kade’s kingdom. And no one ruled it better than him.

The pack warriors circled him, panting, trembling, coated in grime. Five down, two still standing, and neither dared make the next move. Kade stood bare-chested in the early morning fog, his muscles slick with sweat, a cut bleeding lazily down his cheek. His eyes gleamed with a deadly thrill that made even seasoned wolves flinch.

“You disappoint me,” he said quietly, voice calm but sharp enough to cut bone. “I told you to attack like you meant it.”

No one answered.

He lunged first. The taller wolf barely raised his arms before Kade slammed into his ribs, sweeping him off his feet and crushing him into the dirt. The second tried to run but Kade pivoted, grabbed him by the throat, and threw him into a wall.

Silence followed.

“Pick them up,” Kade barked to the medics. “Train them harder.”

The others scattered, but not fast enough to hide their fear.

He didn’t mind. Fear meant power. And power meant control. It was the only thing that had kept him from burning this cursed pack to the ground long ago.

As the warriors limped away, Kade stood alone at the edge of the field. His breathing slowed, the high of battle fading.

But something else stirred. A different fire.

He thought of Charollet.

Her scent haunted him. Ghosting through his senses in the quiet hours after dusk. No matter how many enemies he tore through or how many victories he claimed, it was her pale face that lingered in the shadows of his mind.

Her silver-grey eyes, always too still, too knowing. The way she refused to shatter, even when everything around her had.

He hated it.

He wanted her on her knees, begging for him.

He wanted her to look at him with something other than quiet defiance.

He wanted to own her completely.

And yet… every time he touched her, every time he got close, there was something that stopped him.

Not pity.

Not guilt.

But a feeling he couldn’t name and it made him furious.

Later that night, a long howl broke the windless silence over the packhouse. A signal.

Kade’s jaw clenched.

Alpha Boris was coming home.

He hadn’t been seen in nearly two moons, off strengthening old alliances with outer packs. Most thought he would retire soon. But Kade knew Boris better than they did.

He wouldn’t let go of power unless someone tore it from his claws.

Kade paced the hall outside the war room, boots echoing against polished stone. When the heavy door finally creaked open, a gust of foreign scent followed pine, old whiskey, and the stale musk of aged dominance.

Boris entered slowly.

Tall, broad-shouldered, and greying at the temples, the alpha still carried the weight of legend in his stance. But there was rust under the steel. His left hand trembled as he removed his coat, and his eyes once sharp as glass looked clouded with something deeper than fatigue.

“Kade,” Boris said flatly. “Still hungry for blood, I see.”

“Only when needed,” Kade replied, folding his arms. “Welcome home, Alpha.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“It’s not mockery if it’s true.”

Boris chuckled, a cold, dry sound. “I heard about your little slave girl. The one with the witch’s eyes.”

Kade’s jaw twitched.

“Word spreads,” Boris continued, pouring himself a drink from the sideboard. “They say you parade her like a prize. That you can’t break her.”

“I’ve broken everything else,” Kade said tightly.

“Not her.” Boris sipped. “You want her. That’s dangerous.”

Kade’s silence was his only answer.

The elder wolf walked toward the hearth and tossed another log onto the flames. The fire spat sparks upward, lighting the tension in the room.

“You think I’m getting old,” Boris said at last. “That I’m slipping.”

“I think you're still alive, barely. Which is more than I can say for most who get in my way.”

A long pause.

“You remind me of myself,” Boris said softly. “Before I earned my scars. Before I lost my first mate. Before the power stopped feeling like a choice and started becoming a chain.”

Kade stared at him. “I’m nothing like you.”

“No,” the alpha said, turning slowly. “You’re worse. Because you don’t even pretend to care. You want the crown. I can see it in your eyes.”

Kade smiled faintly. “Maybe. But you’ll be dead before you know if I take it.”

That smile didn’t reach his eyes.

Boris watched him for a long moment before finishing his drink. Then he turned and walked to the door.

“You want to rule?” he said, opening it. “Then be ready to lose everything else. Even the girl. Especially her.”

When the door shut behind him, Kade stood motionless, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles cracked.

He would kill Boris.

Not out of ambition.

Not out of revenge.

But because the world would never bend to him while that old relic sat on the throne.

And Charollet? She’d kneel before him when it was done.

Not because he wanted her to.

But because she would have no choice.

The moon rose high, casting fractured light across the edge of the northern cliffs where Kade stood alone. His cloak snapped in the wind, the chill biting at his skin but he didn’t feel it. Not anymore. The cold, like most things in his life, was just background noise.

Behind him, the estate buzzed with Boris’ return.

Packs from outlying territories had sent offerings, sycophants had crawled out of their hiding places to fawn over the returning Alpha, and the Council wolves, grey-muzzled and spine-bent—feigned loyalty while whispering about succession plans in secret chambers.

But none of them mattered.

Because the truth was simple: Boris was dying. His time was running out. Kade could feel it in the way he walked, in the slow calculation of his voice.

Boris would not hand over power willingly. And Kade would not wait.

Kade turned from the cliffs and made his way back through the thickets, heading not toward the packhouse, but a hidden entrance beneath the stone steps that led to the oldest wing of the estate.

The archives.

Few knew the tunnels existed. Fewer still dared to descend into them.

He struck the sigil on the moss-covered stone and stepped inside as the door hissed open.

Torchlight flickered, revealing carved walls lined with scrolls, books, and relics. Here lay the forgotten history of the Darkfang pack—bloodlines, betrayals, sacred oaths… and secrets long buried.

Kade walked past the annals of wars and triumphs until he found it: a bound ledger wrapped in waxed leather, marked with the sigil of the Moon Court.

The oldest bloodlines.

He turned the pages.

And there she was.

A sketch worn with age, but unmistakable. The same silvery eyes. The same birthmark above the shoulder. The symbol she bore was not just a crest.

It was a right.

“Charollet isn’t just some half-wolf orphan,” Kade whispered to himself.

“She’s descended from the Moonblood line…”

He stared at the entry. It spoke of a vanished royal bloodline—a line that had ruled not through strength, but prophecy. A union of wolf and witch. Power bound not by fangs, but by will and the moon itself.

And he’d paraded her in rags.

He had humiliated her, broken her spirit piece by piece, all the while never knowing that he had leashed a creature who was never meant to bow.

Kade’s throat tightened.

He slammed the book shut, shoved it back on the shelf, and stalked out of the archives.

He had plans to finalize. Enemies to destroy.

And something inside him was shifting...something deep, feral, and disturbed by the truth.

Elsewhere in the manor, Charollet sat in her small stone-walled chamber, cold seeping through her skin as she rested against the frame of her cot.

The room was barely more than a cell.

But tonight, it felt oddly heavier. Like the walls were listening.

She had noticed the whispers. The change in how the guards looked at her. The way her meals were colder, later. The stiffness in the air when Kade's name passed her lips.

And she hadn’t seen him not truly seen him for three days now.

But something had changed.

When she closed her eyes, she could almost feel his presence brushing the edge of her thoughts, like his shadow had grown longer, darker.

She traced the mark on her shoulder again.

It had begun to itch.

It glowed sometimes in the dark but faintly, like moonlight caught in flesh. She had tried covering it with grime. Scratching it away. Nothing worked.

And in her dreams, the old wolf appeared again. The one from the eastern forests, the one she used to see as a child.

“You are not prey,” he told her in that voice of wind and earth. “You are chosen. Even the monster cannot claim you.”

She woke every time with tears in her eyes and never knew if they were from hope or despair.

The next night, the Council convened.

A ceremonial meal, meant to honor Boris’ return, had turned into a meeting of power dynamics. The hall filled with laughter that held no joy, toasts that clinked too hard, and a thousand glances cast between rivals in plain sight.

Kade sat at Boris’ right hand. Silent. Regal.

Predatory.

He said little. But he watched everyone.

Especially the councilwoman from the Western Ridge. Elder Thorne. Her allegiance could shift a vote.

Especially Gama Matthias, who had once been loyal, but lately asked too many questions.

Especially the guards stationed at Boris’ door. The ones Kade had hand-picked.

At the end of the night, when the torches had dimmed and the mead had soured, Boris leaned toward him.

“Still watching, pup?”

Kade smiled. “Always.”

“You’ll choke on your ambition one day.”

Kade raised his goblet. “Only if I fail.”

The following morning, Charollet was summoned.

She hadn’t been called by name in weeks, only dragged by command.

But today, the voice that summoned her came from the head of the staircase, and it was smooth.

“Charollet. Come.”

She stepped into the foyer barefoot, her shift thin, her eyes wary.

Kade stood there in black, his coat lined with silver trim. A warrior’s blade strapped to his hip. His face unreadable.

He said nothing for a long moment—just looked at her.

Then, quietly: “Come with me.”

She hesitated. Then obeyed.

They walked through the main halls. Past warriors who turned their eyes away. Past servants who scurried like rats in his shadow.

He led her to the eastern balcony. The highest in the estate.

From here, you could see the mountain ridges. The tree line that marked the edge of the old territories.

And the cliff below.

He stopped walking, resting his hand on the railing. “I should kill him.”

She stiffened. “Kill who?”

He turned to her. “Boris.”

Her breath caught.

“You think I’m a monster,” he said, voice even. “You’re right. But even monsters get tired of wearing someone else’s chains.”

She stared at him.

“I know what you are now,” he added, stepping closer. “I know what your blood carries.”

She stepped back.

But Kade didn’t touch her.

Not this time.

“I could use you,” he said. “To take everything. The throne. The pack. Everything they ever denied me.”

“Why me?” she asked, voice cracking.

His eyes narrowed. “Because you’re not just anyone. And I’ve tried to destroy you. But you’re still here. Standing. Bleeding. Breathing. I hate that.”

“I’m not yours,” she whispered.

“No,” he said. “But you will be.”

He turned then, leaving her alone on the balcony.

Below her, far off in the courtyard, a black wolf stood watching.

Not just a wolf.

Boris, in full form.

The battle would come soon.

And when it did, nothing in Darkfang would remain untouched.