POV: Sylva
The first thing I felt was cold. The second was rage.
Sylva woke to darkness and the smell of pine and blood. Her wrists were bound behind her back, the rope rough and tight enough to chafe. Her head pounded. Her mouth tasted like copper.
The bastard drugged me.
Memory flooded back in fragments: the tent, the blade at her throat, the gold eyes burning in the darkness. She'd fought. She'd always fought. But he was stronger. Faster. He'd pressed something to her mouth—a cloth, sweet-smelling—and the world had dissolved.
Now she was here. Wherever here was.
She forced her eyes to adjust. Firelight flickered through gaps in rough log walls. A hut. Small. Primitive. The ground beneath her was packed earth covered in furs—a prisoner's bed, not a guest's.
And across the fire, watching her with those same gold eyes, sat the monster who'd taken her.
He was even more terrifying in the firelight. Broad-shouldered and scarred, his face all sharp planes and shadows. His torso was bare, wrapped in blood-stained bandages—good, she'd hurt him before the drug took hold—but he moved like the wounds meant nothing. Like pain was an old friend.
"You're awake." His voice was low and rough, exactly what she'd expected. "Good." I was starting to think I'd overdone it."
Sylva didn't answer. She tested the ropes binding her wrists. Tight. Expertly knotted. She'd need time and leverage to work free.
"I wouldn't bother." He leaned back against the wall, watching her with an almost amused expression. "Dax learned those knots from a sailor. They don't come loose."
"Then you'll have to untie me yourself." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "Unless you plan to keep me here forever."
"Forever?" He almost smiled—a terrifying expression on that hard face. "No." Just until your father's army arrives."
The words hit like a physical blow. Her father's army. Of course. This wasn't about her. It was never about her. She was bait. A pawn. A reason for war.
"You're a fool," she said flatly. "My father doesn't care about me. He'll march anyway, with or without your invitation."
Something flickered in his eyes—surprise, maybe respect. "You think so?"
"I know so." She held his gaze, refusing to look away. "I was never a peace offering. I was a provocation. He sent me to Isaac knowing your pack would react. Knowing you'd do exactly what you did." She laughed, a cold, bitter sound. "You played right into his hands, Alpha."
The title was deliberate—a taunt, a reminder of what he'd lost. She saw his jaw tighten. Good. Let him hurt.
"Is that so?" He leaned forward, and the firelight carved his face into something demonic. "Then we're both pawns. The difference is, I know how to stop being one."
"By kidnapping women?"
"By taking what I need." His eyes burned into hers. "Your father wants war. Fine. He'll get war. But he'll fight it on my terms. With my leverage."
Sylva's mind raced. She was leverage. A bargaining chip. If her father truly didn't care, she was worthless. Dead weight. And dead weight had a way of being... discarded.
"You're thinking," he observed. "Good. Smart people survive longer."
"I'm thinking you're an idiot if you believe my father will trade anything for me."
"Maybe." He shrugged, a casual movement that made his bandages shift. "But your father's warriors don't know that. They see their princess in enemy hands. They'll fight harder. Die angrier. Make mistakes." He smiled, and there was nothing warm in it. "Wars are won on mistakes."
Sylva stared at him. The arrogance. The cold, calculated brutality. And beneath it, something else—a flicker of the man he might have been before the moon broke him.
He's not just a monster, she realized. He's a broken one.
That made him more dangerous, not less.
"You're going to lose," she said quietly. "You know that, right? Your pack is divided. Your brother has the moon's blessing. And my father has a hundred warriors who will tear through these woods like fire."
"Let them come." His voice was soft, almost gentle—and somehow more terrifying for it. "I've lost everything already. What's a little more fire?"
The words hung in the air between them. For a moment, the hatred in his eyes flickered, and she saw it: the wound beneath the fury. The boy who'd been passed over. The heir who'd become a ghost.
She should have felt satisfaction. Instead, she felt... something else. Something she couldn't name.
The moment broke. He stood, moving toward the door with that fluid, predatory grace.
"Where are you going?" The question slipped out before she could stop it.
He paused, glancing back. "To win a war. Try to rest. Tomorrow will be... busy."
"You're just leaving me here?"
"I'm leaving you alive." His eyes met hers one last time. "That's more than most get."
He was gone. The door closed behind him, leaving her alone with the fire and the ropes and the chaos in her chest.
Sylva leaned back against the wall, her bound hands useless, her mind spinning.
"He's wrong about everything," she told herself. My father won't negotiate. The pack will fall. And I'll be dead before the moon sets again.
But even as she thought it, another voice whispered—smaller, quieter, impossible to silence.
He looked at you like you mattered.
She closed her eyes and tried to forget.
The ropes didn't loosen.
And neither did the memory of his eyes.