Selene rode hard through the forest, her white wolf steed streaking like a ghost beneath the trees. Rain still clung to her armor, steam rising in the early light of dawn.
She didn't look back.
Not once.
But her mind? Her body? Both burned with the memory of him—Varek Nyxen.
The way his mouth claimed her like a curse. The heat of his hands. The sound of his voice whispering her name like he'd been born to speak it.
Damn him.
Damn herself more.
She'd crossed a line. Not just physically. Spiritually. She was Shadowfang Pack's rising general. Disciplined. Ruthless. Unyielding.
And she'd let the enemy between her legs.
Even now her thighs ached from the memory, her lips tingled with phantom kisses. Her skin bore the bruises of his grip like marks she didn't want to fade.
She rode faster.
But she couldn't outrun herself.
Hours later, the Shadowfang stronghold rose from the valley like a fortress of fang and fire—black stone walls ringed by silver runes, wolves pacing the perimeter, guards in beastform sharpening blades the size of axes.
Selene dismounted just inside the gate, head held high, jaw clenched.
Her second-in-command, Korr Valdrek, waited for her near the war lodge. His amber eyes narrowed.
"You're late."
"I took a different route," Selene replied evenly.
"You smell like sex and hybrid blood."
Selene didn't flinch. "Do I smell like defeat?"
"No," Korr growled. "You smell like betrayal."
"Be careful," she said coldly, brushing past him.
He caught her arm. "You touched him, didn't you?"
She met his gaze. "Would it matter if I did?"
"It matters to the Council. To the Pack. To the war."
"It matters to me," she hissed. "And what I found… changes everything."
Korr's grip tightened. "If the others find out—"
"I'll handle it."
"You're not thinking straight, Selene. He's a walking heresy. A mistake our ancestors buried in ash."
"And yet he lives."
She yanked her arm free and walked into the lodge.
Inside the Council Hall, seven wolf elders sat in semi-circle around a smoldering fire pit. Their faces were stone; their eyes sharper than blades. All had lived centuries. All carried the scars of war.
The head of the council, High Fang Malrik, rose as Selene entered.
"Well?" he rasped.
"I found him."
Murmurs.
"Alive?" another elder snapped.
"Yes."
"Describe him."
Selene hesitated. "Tall. Vampire-featured. Wolf-hearted. His presence is… disruptive. His aura feels like a breaking storm."
"You fought him?"
"I engaged," she said vaguely.
"And?"
"I lived. He did too."
"You spared him?" Malrik's voice boomed like thunder.
Selene stared at the fire.
"I saw what he was," she said softly. "Not just hybrid. Something more. Something… chosen."
The council roared at once—outrage, denial, fury.
One elder bared his teeth. "The prophecy is rot. The child of ash and fang must not live. We swore it!"
Malrik slammed his staff. Silence fell.
"You disobeyed a direct order," he said.
"I did," Selene admitted. "But I didn't fail. I witnessed."
"What did he say?"
Selene looked up. Her voice was a whisper.
"He asked me why I was afraid."
Malrik stared.
"And are you?" he asked.
Selene answered honestly. "Yes."
Meanwhile…
Varek stood alone on the cliffs above the Ashwind Expanse, staring at the smoke that rose from distant farms.
He could smell fire. Death.
They'd retaliated already.
Brytha joined him, wrapped in a cloak of raven feathers.
"You left scent trails all the way to the pass," she said. "I had to erase them myself."
"She knows who I am."
Brytha didn't look surprised. "And you didn't kill her?"
Varek said nothing.
Brytha hissed. "You fucked her."
Still, no answer.
"You've bound yourself, boy. You think she's yours now? You think that kind of soulbonding ends with a kiss and moans in the trees?"
"I know what it ends with," Varek said. "But I don't care."
Brytha's face twisted in pain. "You are your mother's son."
That hit harder than claws.
"She gave her life so I could survive," he said. "I won't waste it hiding in caves and shadows."
"You're not ready."
"I never was."
Varek turned and began walking back toward the blackened horizon.
"I saw vampire smoke on the wind. A raid. One of the small border villages. Dozens dead. No survivors."
Brytha stiffened. "Do you think she—?"
"No. This is someone else."
His voice dropped to a growl.
"Someone who knows what I am."
That night, Varek stood naked in the center of a ruined cathedral hidden in the valley below.
He had carved symbols into the stone with his claws, the blood from his palm used as ink.
He had never done a blood-call before.
It was dangerous. Forbidden. It connected two souls—at the cost of pain.
But Selene was further away now. And every moment apart felt like a thousand knives.
He whispered her name and bit into his wrist, letting the blood fall onto the sigils.
His voice rose in a growl, then a roar.
The storm came back.
And across the miles…
Selene screamed in her bed.
Her body arched, sweat pouring from her skin. Her heart thundered in her chest like it might break through bone.
She felt him.
Inside her.
Calling.
Her thighs clenched involuntarily, the pleasure-ache from their night together flaring into heat once more.
But this was more than lust.
This was a claim.
Not ownership.
Bond.
She threw back the sheets and stormed to the balcony, hair wild, breath fogging in the air.
Somewhere out there, he was waiting.
And something deep in her soul demanded she go to him.
Elsewhere…
In the dark catacombs of the Vampire Ascendancy, Lord Alaric Mordane dipped his fingers into a basin of black water.
The surface rippled. Images formed.
Varek.
Selene.
Entwined.
Alaric's eyes blazed crimson.
"Fools," he whispered. "Your lust will be your undoing."
A hand touched his shoulder.
A female voice purred, "Or perhaps... their beginning."
Alaric turned to the pale woman behind him—tall, veiled, ageless.
"The seer," he growled.
She smiled. "It has begun. The Crimson Path cannot be broken now."
"I will see it burned."
The seer leaned in close.
"Then you'd better pray they don't love each other too deeply."