She's alone?" my mother asked, her voice tight.
I nodded slowly, already bracing for her response.
"In the wilds?" she continued, her tone rising with disbelief. "Kael—do you have any idea how reckless that is? You left a young girl in the dead of the wild. No guards. No wolf to protect her. What were you thinking?"
I opened my mouth, but her next words struck first.
"And from what you've described, she's young. And beautiful."
My heart clenched.
"Easy prey," she added.
That did it.
Her words stabbed deeper than any blade.
Not because she was wrong.
But because she voiced every silent fear I'd buried.
Asha… alone.
In that old cabin.
Vulnerable, no matter how brave she pretended to be.
I clenched my jaw, forcing calm into my voice. "She chose to stay. She didn't want a title. Or protection. She didn't want to be here."
My mother looked at me, eyes searching. "And you didn't try harder?"
"I did," I said, quietly. "But I won't force her into something she doesn't want."
Silence settled again.
But the fire inside me hadn't dimmed.
I couldn't make her stay… but I could still protect her.
One day, I will.
So I straightened my spine, lifted my chin, and looked my mother in the eye.
"When I become Alpha," I said, voice steady, "I'll make this land hers too. I'll bring her here—not to trap her, but to give her a choice. A safe place. A home with walls strong enough to shield her from anything and anyone."
I swore it silently to myself, then aloud to the moon watching from above.
On the day I wear the crown... she'll never face this world alone again.
Not while I breathe.
It had been years.
Years since that stormy night in the wildlands.
Since I woke, broken and breathless, to the scent of pine and sage… and her.
Asha.
The girl who pulled me back from the brink of death.
The one whose hands healed my body… and whose absence haunted my soul.
No matter how many moons passed, I never forgot her.
Not her voice.
Not the fire in her touch.
Not the way she let me go when I begged her to stay.
Today wasn't just about a crown.
I'd fought through betrayal, war, and the shadows of my past to stand here.
Not just for my pack.
Not just for my father's legacy.
But for her.
Because today…
I became Alpha.
And tomorrow?
Tomorrow, I would bring Asha home.
Whether she liked it or not.
The rogue attacks had grown worse—spreading across the land like poison. Villages burned. Borders bled. People were dying.
But not her.
Never her.
I made sure of it.
Even when she didn't know, I protected her.
Private guards, hidden in the wilds.
Eyes always watching.
Wolves ready to kill if anything came close.
She may have chosen solitude…
But I chose her.
And now, as the coronation crowd faded, as the crown cooled against my head and the firelight dimmed…
I went to rest.
Because tomorrow, I wouldn't be the broken prince in her cabin bed.
Tomorrow, I'd be the Alpha of the Eastern Moon Pack—
And I was going to claim what the stars had promised me.
Her.