Kael –
Consciousness returned like a blade to the throat.
Kael's eyes snapped open to a circle of concerned faces, his pack's collective anxiety pressing against him through their shared bonds. Every nerve in his body screamed protest as he forced himself upright, the puncture wounds on his neck throbbing with residual vampire venom. But beneath the pain lurked something far more dangerous—the phantom sensation of fangs piercing his flesh, the memory of crimson eyes that had looked into his soul.
"Alpha!" Riven dropped to one knee beside him, steel-blue eyes scanning for injuries. The Beta's nostrils flared, no doubt cataloging every scent clinging to Kael's skin. "Report. What happened out there?"
The pack pressed closer—Nyssa with her hand on her blade hilt, Thalen's ambitious gaze searching for weakness, the younger wolves radiating barely-contained aggression. They needed answers. They needed their unshakeable leader to explain how the mighty Alpha of Thornhaven had been brought to his knees by a single vampire.
If only he could give them the truth.
Inside his chest, Kael's wolf paced like a caged beast, alternately snarling with rage and whimpering with longing. The mate bond—impossible, forbidden, undeniable—thrummed through his veins like poison. Every instinct screamed at him to hunt down the dark-haired vampire, to claim what his wolf recognized as his own.
Instead, he buried the truth beneath layers of Alpha authority.
"Vampire got lucky," Kael growled, his voice rougher than usual. He pressed a hand to his throat, feeling the raised puncture marks already beginning to heal. "Caught me off-guard with some kind of paralytic venom. Won't happen again."
The lie tasted like ash on his tongue.
Riven's expression remained skeptical. In all their years together—growing up as cubs, training for leadership, fighting side by side—the Beta had never seen his Alpha show a moment's hesitation in battle. Werewolves didn't freeze. Alphas didn't falter. And Kael had done both.
"Paralytic venom," Thalen repeated, amber eyes gleaming with poorly-concealed satisfaction. "Strange. I've never heard of such a thing among the bloodsuckers."
"There's a lot about vampires we don't know," Nyssa interjected, but her worried gaze remained fixed on Kael. "Are you certain you're unharmed, brother? You look..."
Like a man whose world just shattered, Kael thought grimly. Like someone who just discovered his destined mate is his sworn enemy.
"I'm fine," he snapped, injecting enough Alpha dominance into his voice to make the younger pack members step back. "The battle is won. The vampires retreated. That's what matters."
But even as he spoke, Kael's enhanced senses picked up something that made his blood sing. A whisper on the wind, so faint it might have been imagination. The scent of midnight and shadow, of ancient power wrapped in deceptively fragile skin.
The vampire. His mate.
Alive.
His wolf went absolutely still, every predatory instinct locked onto that gossamer-thin trail. The urge to shift, to hunt, to pursue overwhelmed everything else. Only iron self-control kept him in human form, kept his pack from seeing the raw need that clawed at his chest.
"The wounded need tending," Kael forced out, his voice steady despite the chaos in his head. "Riven, organize patrols. I want to know if any vampires remain in our territory."
But not him, his wolf whispered. Never him.
"And sweep for survivors," Thalen added with predatory eagerness. "Any vampire left alive is one too many."
The words hit Kael like a physical blow. His hands clenched into fists, claws threatening to emerge. The thought of his pack hunting down the dark-haired vampire, of Thalen's claws tearing through that pale throat, sent murderous rage surging through the mate bond.
"No." The word came out harsher than intended, carrying enough Alpha authority to make several wolves drop their eyes in submission. "The priority is securing our territory and caring for our own. The vampires are scattered. They won't return tonight."
Riven's frown deepened. "Since when do we show mercy to bloodsuckers?"
Since I learned one of them is mine, Kael thought desperately. Since everything I believed about loyalty and duty became meaningless.
Aloud, he said, "Since tactical advantage matters more than bloodthirst. A wounded enemy tells us more about their plans than a dead one."
The explanation satisfied most of the pack, though Kael caught the calculating look Thalen shot him. His rival sensed weakness, opportunity. That would become a problem later.
For now, Kael focused on the gossamer thread of scent still teasing his senses. The vampire was out there somewhere, alive and breathing, carrying Kael's blood in his veins just as surely as Kael carried the memory of fangs and crimson eyes.
The mate bond pulled at him like a tide, demanding he follow, demanding he find the other half of his soul regardless of the consequences.
Instead, Kael turned his back on the forest and walked toward his den, every step a small betrayal of his wolf's desperate howling.
Behind him, the scent lingered on the wind—closer than it should be, as if his mate couldn't bring himself to leave either.