Prologue
"A man with a very broad and muscular body, bore fresh severe gashes, battering, and bruises, stood in the hall filled with lifeless bodies – both his own people and enemies – lying on the floor, and blood was spilled, pooling on the floor and spattered on the walls."
"In front of him lay the bodies of his father and his love (his father's mate). His gaze was fixed on his father, whose face wore a mask of grim determination that offered no comfort. He watched as his father stumbled, dragging the limp weight of his body through a wet bloodstain toward his mate's lifeless form. The metallic tang of blood filled the air as he moved through the stain, his stomach churning, a sickening wave of nausea rising with every tug of the dragging body."
"His mate lay twisted, her eyes wide and staring, an unseeing grief frozen on her face. His breath hitched as he pulled her body through the slick, crimson bloodstain on the floor, toward the familiar shape of his mate. He gathered her body and held her in his arms, he could only stare – a profound, chilling numbness spreading through him as the woman he cherished, desired, was obsessed with, and was crazy in love with died in front of him, and he couldn't do anything. He was consumed by agony, his heart shattered into a million pieces as he watched the love of his life slip away before his eyes. Tears streamed down his face, grief etched deep into every pore, leaving him broken and hollow. The scream he couldn't utter echoed in his mind, trapped in a vortex of unbearable sorrow."
"He looked up at his son and he son looked unrecognizable, his clothes were soaked with blood, the deep red of the blood clashing violently with the pallor of his skin, his eyes were hollow and empty, his hands hung loosely at his sides with his wolf claws dripping with blood."
"His son ask him, "How do you feel now, seeing the woman you love died in front of you?" His voice was low, haunted, each word carved from pain. "This is how I felt when I saw my mother – lying lifelessly in her own pool of blood, her eyes frozen open like shattered glass, staring into nothingness. The air still reeks of it in my mind, metallic and sickening. I remember the crimson soaking into the dark floorboards like it was hungry, spreading like a living stain. Her skin was cold marble when I touched her cheek… and her scent, the wild lycan scent I'd always known, was just… gone." The father's gaze dropped, his fiery gold irises dimming under crushing weight. "Pain doesn't cover it," he rasped, voice cracking like old wood. "It's like being flayed alive, son. You know the lycan bond to a mate – it's primal, it's soul-deep. Losing her… feels like losing part of myself I can't ever get back. I hear her voice in the silence now – whispers of what-ifs that slice like claws."
"His son spat the words like venom, "After everything she did, do you still love her? She murdered the woman who gave birth to your child – my mother – she spilled her life like it was cheap wine on the dirty floors of our pack's stronghold. She and her coven tarnished your name in a single day, left it rotting like carrion for the vultures to feast on. They butchered half your pack like they were livestock in a slaughterhouse, turned you into a shadow of the wolf you once were – a weak, blind wolf stumbling after her poisonous whims. She lied to you, played with your feelings like you were a puppet on strings, and you fell for it like a predator craving the hunt. You abandoned your people, your wife, your son – me – all to chase the fire she lit in you. And what did you get in return? Betrayal. She turned on you like a rabid beast, splattered your precious red carpet with your own goddamn blood, slaughtered my mother right before my eyes… and you're still standing, breathing like the lycan you are." The father's face twisted into a snarl, his fiery gold irises burning with primal intensity, not shame. "I'd do it all again," he growled, voice like rocks grinding bone. "She was the storm I wanted to ride. Power doesn't come from pack bonds or morality – it comes from claiming what you crave. I claimed her. I wanted the darkness she offered, and I took it. You think I'm broken? I'm sharpened. I'm the wolf I chose to be. Your mother… was a casualty of what I pursued." His voice dropped to a lethal whisper. "I don't mourn her. I don't mourn anything. I exist to unleash what's in me. And if she hadn't fallen, I'd have found another path to burn everything to get what I want." His son sneered, "After all this she's done to you, you're still saying this? If this is the feeling of love or the mate bond, I don't want it. To me it's weakness. And I will never fall in love with anyone. I wouldn't let the mate bond control me. I promise I will never be like you. I wouldn't allow any woman or man to play me, and I will not soften my heart for anybody." His father smiled – a cold, knowing smile – and said, the hunger in you is the same hunger in me it'll find its target. The father gaze seemed to bore into ZHRA KIEL soul. The Lycon doesn't reject primal fire, son. We burn with it and sometime the ashes consume us."so my child. One day. And I won't be surprised if you don't keep that promise… because I once had the same vow, and he breathed his last."