Aldric Kane's POV
For three hundred years I have been nothing.
Not dead. Not alive. Suspended in a space between existence and void. Trapped in darkness so complete that I forgot what light looked like. Forgot what breathing felt like. Forgot what it meant to want anything.
I remember the moment it happened.
My sister's face as she spoke the words that would destroy me. Tears streaming down her cheeks. Her hands shaking as she completed the spell. She was crying because she loved me. Because she was willing to sacrifice the only person she loved to save me from myself.
The curse took effect like a door slamming shut.
And for three hundred years there was nothing but darkness.
Then something breaks.
It starts as a crack. A single line of light cutting through the endless black. A scent that reaches me across impossible distance. A presence that shouldn't exist suddenly becoming real.
It pulls me.
The pull is so strong it tears through three hundred years of magical binding like it's nothing. The curse shatters. The darkness explodes into fragments.
I wake gasping.
My lungs burn like I've been drowning. My body convulses as air fills my chest for the first time in centuries. I'm on the ground somewhere. Cold stone beneath me. But I don't care about any of that.
I care about the presence that woke me up.
For a moment I don't understand what's happening. The world is different. There are buildings that shouldn't exist. Machines making sounds I've never heard. The forest has changed. The air smells wrong. Everything is wrong.
But her scent cuts through all of it like a blade.
I push myself up on shaking arms. My body is weak. Three hundred years of no movement will do that. But weakness doesn't matter when your mate is waking up somewhere out there in the world.
I can feel her.
It's not something I can explain. It's not sight or sound or smell though I can smell her now, taste her on the air. It's something deeper. Something that exists at the core of what I am.
She's waking up.
She's terrified and confused and her power is rising like a wave that's about to crash. I can feel every second of her transformation. I can feel her pain. I can feel her broken heart from a rejection that wasn't her fault.
And I can feel the exact moment she senses me in return.
The connection between us snaps tight. It's like being pulled by invisible chains. Like the entire universe is screaming at me to move toward her. Like every cell in my body knows exactly where she is and will burn if I don't get to her.
I start moving through the forest.
I don't think about stealth. I don't think about strategy. Three hundred years of waiting means I'm past the point of patience. The curse breaking means I'm past the point of caring about anything except finding her.
The closer I get, the more real the connection becomes.
I can feel her fear and confusion mixing with the power that's awakening inside her. I can feel her wolf stirring for the first time in its life, recognizing me even though her human mind hasn't caught up yet. I can feel the broken mate bond from someone else like a scar on her soul.
Someone rejected her.
I file that away. I'll deal with that later.
Right now there's only one thing that matters. Getting to her. Claiming her. Making sure she knows that she belongs to me and I belong to her and nothing in this world or the next is going to separate us again.
I emerge from the trees in front of a small cabin hidden deep in the forest.
And I see her.
She's standing on the porch. Young. No more than twenty-one. With eyes that burn silver like the Blood Moon itself. Her scent hits me like a physical force. Like the entire world just became real for the first time in three hundred years.
Every part of my being recognizes her.
Not just as my mate. As the other half of my soul. As the reason I woke up. As the reason I survived three hundred years in darkness waiting for her.
The world narrows.
Everything else disappears. The cabin is nothing. The forest is nothing. The old woman stepping onto the porch with a knife made of pure magic is nothing.
There is only her.
I take a step forward.
The old woman moves in front of Iris and the knife glows brighter. Magic crackles around her like she's been holding back her power for so long that finally releasing even a fraction of it burns.
"If you take one more step, I will cut that connection and trap you both in magical binding," she says. But her voice is shaking because even she doesn't know if she can actually do what she's threatening.
I know she can't.
I'm too old. Too powerful. Too much. But I also know that hurting her would hurt Iris. And I would destroy myself before I caused her pain.
I stop moving.
I look at the grandmother with eyes that have seen three hundred years of darkness and tell her the truth.
"I have no interest in hurting her," I say, and my voice comes out rough from three hundred years of silence. "But I am not leaving this place without my mate."
Behind the grandmother, Iris is staring at me.
She's recognizing something in me. Not my face because she doesn't know my face. Her soul is recognizing my soul. The connection between us is screaming so loud I can feel her knees getting weak.
She nearly falls.
"Don't listen to him," the grandmother says, but Iris isn't listening to anything except the call of something ancient inside both of us.
"Who are you?" Iris whispers.
I move my gaze to her and everything inside me goes still.
She's beautiful. Not in the way humans measure beauty. In the way destiny measures it. In the way souls measure it. She's powerful and terrified and absolutely certain on a level she doesn't understand yet that she knows me.
"I am Aldric Kane," I say, and speaking my own name after three hundred years feels like remembering who I am. "I have been waiting for you since before you were born. I have been sleeping and dreaming of your existence. And now that you're awake, I'm never going to let you go."
The grandmother steps forward, blocking Iris's view of me.
"You're not taking her," she says, and there's real power in her voice. Ancient power. But it's nothing compared to what I carry.
"I'm not asking permission," I respond.
I take another step toward the porch and the grandmother's magic flares but it doesn't stop me. Nothing could stop me now. Three hundred years of waiting means I'm past the point where anything matters except claiming what's mine.
Iris steps around her grandmother.
"Grandmother, wait," she says, and her voice is shaking. "I want to know who he is. I want to understand what's happening."
The connection between us is so strong now that I can feel her heartbeat synchronizing with mine. I can feel her power recognizing my power. I can feel the moment her soul accepts what her mind is still trying to process.
She's mine.
And I'm hers.
And there's nothing in this world or any other that's going to change that.