POV - Elara
I ran up the library stairs with Maya screaming in my arms, not because of the soldiers downstairs, but because memories were crashing into me like waves trying to drown me.
The library doors were still shaking from Kieran's roar. The warrior's footsteps thundered below us. But my mind had gone somewhere else—somewhere I'd spent three years trying not to go.
Eighteen years old. The Blackthorn castle library, three years ago.
I locked the reading room door and set Maya on the window seat, whispering for her to be quiet and hide behind the curtains. She obeyed, scared and puzzled. Every sense I had wanted to stay with her, but my legs were moving on their own, carrying me to the window. I had to see him. I had to know if it was real.
The memories were so clear now, sharp enough to cut.
That day at eighteen, I'd been working in the main library of the Blackthorn castle. Nobody noticed me. I was just another omega, sorting books and filing papers. Invisible. That was good. Invisible meant safe. Invisible meant the strong Alphas and their mates didn't hurt you.
I'd heard the bells calling everyone to the Great Assembly. All pack members were forced to attend the monthly meeting where Alpha Kieran Blackthorn announced laws and discussed territory business. Nobody wanted to go. Everyone was afraid of him.
"You're coming too," my friend Sara had said, grabbing my arm. "No hiding in the library today."
I'd tried to protest, but the bells meant forced attendance. I filed into the Great Hall with a hundred other pack members, trying to stay unseen in the crowd. Kieran stood at the front on a raised stage. Even from across the room, he was hard to ignore.
He was huge. Dangerous. Beautiful in a way that made your heart hurt. At twenty-seven years old, he already ruled the Northern Territories with total power. The stories about him were everywhere: he'd crushed rival packs, he never smiled, and he had one rule that everyone knew—he touched a woman once and never again. One night only. That was his way.
Everyone said he was ice. Frozen. Untouchable.
I'd never been close enough to him to care. He didn't know I existed, and that was perfect.
Until my smell changed.
Omegas' scents grow when they turn eighteen. It happens overnight—one day you smell like yourself, and the next day you smell like a woman. That morning, I'd noticed the change. My skin felt electric. Everything smelled sharper. I felt stronger but also more exposed, like someone had turned down my invisibility shield.
I should have stayed home. I should have known something would happen.
Kieran was talking about territorial limits when his voice suddenly stopped mid-sentence. It was so sudden that the whole room went quiet. He'd stopped while talking. The Alpha never stopped.
His head turned slowly. I watched it happen in real time. His nose flared. His entire body went rigid like someone had shocked him. His silver eyes—cold and detached just a second before—started scanning the crowd with predatory focus.
My stomach dropped.
He was looking for something. Someone. And I realized with horror that I was holding my breath.
His eyes kept looking, moving across rows of people, until they locked directly on mine.
The world stopped.
Everything else went. Two hundred people in the room, and I was the only person he could see. His face changed completely. Confusion broke through his famous ice. Then hunger. Then something that looked like pain.
"Who is that?" he asked, pointing at me.
Everyone turned to look. I felt their stares like arrows. Sara grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my skin.
"The omega librarian, sir," someone answered uncomfortably.
Kieran stood up slowly, like an animal rising from rest. "You. Come here."
I was shaking so hard I could barely stand. Alpha commands weren't suggestions—they were something in your bones that made you follow. I walked through the crowd toward the platform, every step feeling like I was going toward a cliff I couldn't see.
"What is your name?" he asked when I reached him.
"Elara, sir," I whispered.
He stepped down from the stage and walked toward me. The crowd backed away. He stopped directly in front of me and leaned down, his nostrils flaring as he smelled my neck.
His entire body shook.
"What are you?" His voice sounded broken. Confused. Like he was looking at something impossible.
I didn't know how to answer. I was just an omega. Just unseen. Just regular.
"I... I'm sorry, sir. I don't—"
"Dismiss the assembly," he ordered, his eyes never leaving mine. "Now."
Everyone rushed toward the doors. Sara paused, looking at me with fear in her eyes. But she had to follow. Within minutes, the room was empty except for me and the most powerful Alpha in the Northern Territories, who was staring at me like I'd just destroyed his entire world.
"You're going to tell me everything," Kieran said. His voice was rough. "Every single thing about yourself. Because something about your smell is breaking every rule I've built my entire life around."
That's when I should have been afraid. That's when I should have run.
Instead, I felt hope for the first time in my life. Because he was looking at me like I was special. Like I counted.
"Tomorrow night," he said. "After dark. Where do you sleep?"
I told him. I told him everything he asked. And when he finally let me leave the gathering hall, my legs barely worked.
That night, he came to me. No warning, no reason. Just a man made of power and desperation, who held me like I was the only thing in the world saving him from drowning.
For three months, I lived in a secret dream.
A roar burst from downstairs, shaking the entire building again. The reading room's windows shook. I snapped back to the present, tears running down my face.
Three years. Three years I'd tried to forget what his touch felt like. Three years I'd tried to believe our link was a mistake. Three years I'd told myself that Cassian's gentle love was enough.
But it wasn't enough, because my body remembered. My wolf remembered. Some part of me that I couldn't control had been waiting for him this whole time.
Another crash downstairs. Cassian screaming something I couldn't hear. The fighters were fighting him. I could feel the fighting happening below us through the floor.
"Mommy?" Maya whimpered from behind the curtain.
"It's okay, baby," I lied. "Mommy's here."
But I wasn't there. I was three years in the past, lying in his arms while he told me things he'd never told anyone else. I was feeling his heartbeat under my hand. I was believing in forever.
The library door smashed open downstairs. I heard it burst off its hinges.
Then Kieran's voice, raw and angry and broken: "FIND THEM! SHE'S HERE! I CAN SMELL HER EVERYWHERE!"
Footsteps thundered toward the stairs.
My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might burst. This couldn't be happening. Not like this. Not with thoughts of his love crashing into me at the same time as his rage.
"Elara!" His voice was underneath the footsteps now, coming closer. He was on the stairs. "I KNOW YOU'RE UP HERE! I'M GOING TO FIND YOU, AND THIS TIME, YOU'RE NOT RUNNING AGAIN!"
The reading room door handle shook. Someone was trying it from the other side.
Maya screamed.
And then everything went completely silent.
The footsteps stopped. The yelling stopped. Even the sound of Cassian fighting stopped. For three heartbeats, the entire library was silent.
Then I heard something that made my blood freeze even harder than before—something worse than the roar, worse than the threats, worse than the violence.
A voice I'd never heard before, old and strong and ancient, spoke from downstairs: "Stand down, Alpha Kieran. The child has triggered the prophecy bond. If you break down that door, you'll spark magic that will kill all three of you before sunrise."
Three.
The voice had said three.
I covered my mouth to stop myself from yelling.
Because suddenly I knew. The soul-bond Cassian had been afraid to tell me about. Kieran looking for three years. Maya drawing a man she'd never seen. And something old waking up in the magic around us.
This wasn't just about me and Kieran anymore.
This was about something much big
ger and much more dangerous.
And it was already too late to stop it.