The days following Selene's birth blurred together. I returned to my duties with practiced precision, commanding the High Pack with ruthless efficiency, yet my thoughts always drifted back to the small figure that slept in the Ardyn chambers. Kaen protested quietly, urging me to act on the longing I had carried since my fifteenth moon.
She is not yours. Not yet.
Still, I found myself slipping into routines I would never admit to anyone else. I visited her daily, checking that her diapers were changed, that Mira had rested, that Lucan had not overextended himself. I even read to her sometimes, whispering tales of the moonlit forests, of ancestors and battles, of Alpha Kings who ruled with both heart and claw.
One night, as the moon reached its zenith, I knelt beside her cradle, watching her drift into sleep. The moonlight brushed against her hair, silver threads that reminded me of the nights when I had first felt the call of the Goddess.
"You are far too young to understand, little one," I murmured, tracing her tiny fingers with my own. "But someday… someday, you may. And when that day comes, I will not fail you. I will not fail her. I will not fail the Goddess's will."
Kaen's growl was low and approving. The pull grows stronger.
The Alpha inside me, a creature of hunger and power, strained against the law I had forced upon myself: to love her as a child, as Lucan's daughter, nothing more. And yet, even in those early days, I felt the first flickers of something dangerous, something forbidden. My heart clenched when she smiled at me, tiny and toothless, reaching for my face with hands too small to grasp anything but hope.
I reminded myself: she is not mine. She is not yet mine. She is only the daughter of my best friend.
But destiny does not care for reminders. The Goddess, silent and patient, had already marked her path. And I, Darian Vexen, Alpha King, would be forced to reckon with it one day.