Elara's feet carried her up the grand staircase, each step heavier than the last. The echoes of the dinner's chaos—Diana's shattered glass, the Alpha's furious roar, the bond's searing afterglow—still rang in her skull. She was a ghost floating through her own home, the weight of countless stares clinging to her skin.
She didn't make it to her door.
"Elara. A word." Diana's voice was a silken whip, stopping her in the dim hallway.
Her sister emerged from the shadows, her composure rebuilt into a mask of icy calm. "It seems your… condition requires new accommodations. For your safety, of course."
Elara said nothing, her eyes fixed on a point past Diana's shoulder.
Diana smiled, a cold, perfect curve. She beckoned a young maiden, Livia, who was hovering nearby, her face pale. "Livia will be stationed outside your door tonight. Her only task is to ensure you remain in your room. To focus her commitment…" Diana paused, reaching to gently adjust a stray hair on the trembling girl's head. "…if you are not inside when the door is opened at dawn, Livia will answer for it with her life. Her head will be presented to Father. Do we understand each other?"
The threat, delivered with gentle precision, stole the air from the hall. Livia's eyes, wide with terror, darted to Elara, pleading silently.
A new kind of cold seeped into Elara's bones. This wasn't just her captivity anymore. Her defiance now carried a death sentence for an innocent. The fragile plan in her suitcase withered to dust.
"We understand," Elara whispered, the words tasting of ash.
"Excellent." Diana gave a final, dismissive glance. "Rest well, sister. You have a big day tomorrow."
Elara turned the handle and slipped into the pink-hued sanctuary that was now a prison cell. The door clicked shut. She stood with her back against it, listening to the faint, shaky breath of the girl condemned to guard her on the other side.
Her gaze fell to the closet, to the hidden suitcase full of stolen freedom. The 'dream' neon sign cast a soft, mocking glow. Escape was impossible. She was shackled not by locks, but by the terrifying, tender weight of another's life.
-----
The night air, thick with the scent of crushed gardenias and pack anxiety, did little to cool the fever burning under Kaelan's skin. Every step away from the Nightfang villa was a physical rebellion, his muscles screaming as if tethered by hot wires to the shrinking figure inside. Orion, his wolf, was a rabid thing clawing at the inside of his ribs, howling a single, maddening note: Go back.
He would rather chew off his own leg.
"Move," he gritted out, the word slicing through the murmurs of the lingering pack members who scattered from his path. His two personal guards, Jax and Rhen, fell into formation without a word. They were shadows given substance—brothers with matching impassive faces and shoulders that blocked out the moonlight. They didn't ask questions. They simply created a moving perimeter of pure menace, their presence clearing a wide berth across the manicured lawn toward the circular driveway.
The pack's response to the bond-snapping spectacle had been a volatile cocktail of shock, glee, and outrage. Kaelan had felt every glance like a physical slap: the pity from the elders, the calculating looks from rival Alphas, the naked hatred from Diana. But worse than any of it was the phantom pull, a hook lodged deep in his sternum, reeling him toward the omega's scent—jasmine and midnight frost, now inexplicably mingled with the ozone crackle of a forming star.
His mind replayed the moment on a vicious loop: the searing pain, the blinding light that had connected him to her, the way her wide, horrified eyes had locked with his and seen not just her bully, but… something else. Something that made his stolen celestial memories stir like restless ghosts.
"The car is ready, Heir Kaelan," Jax stated, his voice a low rumble as they reached the drive.
And there it was: the Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600. Obsidian Black. It wasn't parked; it was anchored, a slab of sculpted darkness and silent wealth. Under the villa's porte-cochere lights, its surface didn't shine so much as swallow the illumination, promising velvety oblivion within. Silas, his driver, stood statue-still by the open rear door, his gaze scanning the turbulent crowd with detached vigilance.
Kaelan's escape. His sanctuary.
As he moved toward it, a spasm of agony—sharp and sweet—lanced from his bond-mark, a fresh, invisible brand over his heart. He faltered, his breath hitching. Rhen's hand was instantly, discreetly under his elbow, the support firm and invisible to onlookers.
"Do not stop," Kaelan snarled, shrugging him off, the humiliation fueling his fury. He could feel her distress, a distant echo through the bond, and it enraged him that his own body was a traitor, tuned to her frequency.
He all but fell into the back seat. The door closed with a whisper-soft thunk, sealing him in. The world outside became a muted, tinted tableau. The roar of blood in his ears was louder than the fading voices.
The interior was a temple of cold calm. Nappa leather the color of moonless midnight, ambient lighting a glacial blue, the air chilled and scented faintly of sandalwood and ozone. It was the exact opposite of the chaotic, heated emotion threatening to dismantle him.
"Home. Now," he barked at the partition.
Silas gave a single, slight nod reflected in the rearview. The powerful engine engaged with a subdued purr. Through the soundproofed glass, Kaelan saw Jax and Rhen melt into a following black SUV, a second shadow to his first.
As the car glided away from the villa, Kaelan finally let his mask crack. He slammed a fist into the seat beside him, the impact absorbed by the decadent padding, making no sound. He tipped his head back, gulping the cold, sterile air.
Mate. The word was a curse. His mate was the muted, scorned thing he'd spent years looking past, the weakest link in a rival pack. A political null. An embarrassment. And now she was etched into his soul.
His clenched fist tingled, remembering the shock of their contact at the cliff. The memory-flash of another life, of starlight and sacrifice and her face—not fearful, but devastatingly determined—swam before his eyes. The guilt from that stolen memory was a poison older than his bones.
His tablet, secured in the console, lit up with a discreet notification. A map. A blinking blue dot at the Nightfang villa. The pack's shared security feed. His father's doing, no doubt. Tracking the asset.
His eyes were drawn to a second, fainter pulsing light just leaving the villa grounds, heading on a different route. Labeled simply: E. Nightfang. Vehicle 3.
They were tracking her, too. Of course they were. She was no longer just an omega; she was a strategic variable. A problem to be contained.
Kaelan stared at the two pulsing dots on the screen, diverging into the night. One was him. One was her. Separate, but now forever linked on every screen, in every calculation, in the very fabric of his being.
He reached forward, his finger hovering over the partition control. He needed to tell Silas to turn the car around. He needed to run until his lungs burst. He needed to tear the whole world down.
He did nothing. The Mercedes-Maybach carried him smoothly, silently, into the dark, a king in a cage of his own unraveling destiny, the bond a live wire pulling taut across the miles.
As soon as the car reached Frostmaw territory, Kaelan didn't wait for Silas to open the door. He shoved it open himself, stumbling onto the gravel of the grand courtyard as if the luxurious cabin had become a poison chamber. The moment he crossed the ancestral border wards, the physical pressure in his chest lessened from a raging inferno to a constant, sickening ache. The distance helped, but it was a shallow relief. The bond was a living thread, and he could still feel its wretched pull, taut and humming, stretching back toward Nightfang land.
He strode toward the stark, modern lines of the Alpha House, his guards Jax and Rhen falling away as he crossed the threshold. The familiar scents of iron, pine, and cold stone did nothing to settle him.
"Finn!" The name ripped from his throat, a command and a plea.
His second-in-command was already there, leaning against the granite frame of the study doorway, a crystal tumbler of amber liquor held loosely in his hand. Finn's ice-blond hair was perfectly in place, his expression one of weary comprehension. "The whole forest heard the howl, Kaelan. And the rumors are already flying faster than ravens."
"It's a mistake," Kaelan snarled, pouring his own drink with a violently shaking hand, the decanter clinking against the glass. "A flaw. A… a curse. My wolf has gone insane." He knocked the liquor back, but it couldn't burn away the phantom taste of jasmine and stardust on his tongue. He paced like a caged beast, a low growl rumbling in his chest. "That nothing. That pathetic, wolf-less omega."
Finn watched him with detached, analytical eyes. "The bond does not make mistakes, Heir. It only reveals truths."
"Do not preach bond-lore to me!" Kaelan whirled, slamming the empty glass onto the mantel. A hairline fracture splintered through the crystal. "It is a biological error. One that has destroyed a vital alliance and made me a laughingstock." He pressed the heel of his hand hard against the center of his chest, as if he could physically dig out the connection. The ache pulsed in response, a sickening echo of her fear and confusion. It made him want to retch.
"Then we treat it as a political problem," Finn said smoothly, his voice a calming counterpoint to Kaelan's storm. He took a slow sip. "The facts remain: you are promised to Diana Nightfang. That union secures the western territories and ends three generations of skirmishing. The bond with the omega is… an inconvenient complication. One we can sequester and manage."
"Manage how?" Kaelan spat.
"You deny it," Finn stated, as if it were the simplest equation. "Publicly and absolutely. You reaffirm your commitment to Diana. The Alpha Council will convene; they will want stability above all else. We present this bond as a weak, aberrant pulse—a result of the omega's delayed, dysfunctional first shift. It confused your wolf momentarily. Nothing more. You master it, you suppress it, and you fulfill your duty." Finn's pale eyes held Kaelan's. "Marry Diana as planned. The omega will be silenced or shipped off to some remote outpost. In time, the bond will fade from disuse. A footnote."
The plan was clean, strategic, and cold. It appealed to the part of Kaelan that was all calculation and legacy. It offered a path back to order, to the future he had been bred for.
Yet, even as he nodded curtly, a sharp, inexplicable pang—not of pain, but of pure, undiluted loss—lanced through him, so profound it stole his breath. It was her despair, leaking through the bond from a locked room miles away. For a fraction of a second, he saw not the scorned omega, but the determined, star-lit woman from the cliff memory, and felt a crushing urge to go to her.
He clenched his fists until his knuckles were white, strangling the feeling. "Make the arrangements," he gritted out, turning his back to Finn to stare into the cold fireplace. "And summon the Council."
Finn gave a shallow, satisfied bow. "It will be done."
As Finn left, Kaelan remained, feeling more imprisoned than the omega in her pink room. The bond was a chain, Finn's solution was a cage, and the ghost of a love he couldn't remember was the lock on both.