THE RISE OF THE WOLF KING

Chapter 1

Chapter One

A Crown of Sunlight

Enrique’s p.o.v

On the morning I became Alpha, my mother threatened to have me crowned without trousers.

“You have until I count to three, Enrique.”

Her voice carried through the carved oak door and into my bedchamber with the force of an Alpha command. It was impressive, considering the command did not technically belong to her.

Yet.

I stood in front of the tall bronze mirror, wearing nothing but black trousers and an open linen shirt, and smiled at my reflection.

“You have been counting to three since I was five,” I called back. “You have never once reached it.”

“One.”

I glanced toward the door.

My younger brother, Ian, lounged across the foot of my bed, helping himself to the sugared figs meant for my breakfast. His dark hair was still damp from his bath, and the formal jacket Mother had chosen for him was already wrinkled beneath his shoulders.

“She sounds serious this time,” he said around a mouthful.

“She always sounds serious.”

“Two.”

Ian sat up. “Should I open the door?”

“If you value your life, you will not.”

He grinned. “I value seeing you dragged into the courtyard half-dressed more.”

I snatched one of the decorative pillows from the bed and threw it at his head. Ian ducked, laughing as it struck the stone wall behind him.

Beyond the open balcony doors, Dios del Sol was already awake.

Morning sunlight poured over the Sierra Madre and painted the mountain peaks in shades of gold. Our territory rested in the valley below them, surrounded by thick forests, rushing rivers, and steep cliffs that protected us from the packs beyond our borders. From where I stood, I could see nearly every corner of the land that would belong to me before the moon reached its highest point.

The pack house sat at the center of the valley, built from honey-colored stone gathered from the mountains generations before I was born. It was not a castle, though my father liked to pretend otherwise. Its towers were too short, its walls too warm, and its courtyards too crowded with children, warriors, servants, dogs, chickens, and old women who believed themselves entitled to everyone’s business.

Black-and-gold banners hung from every balcony. Each bore the crest of Dios del Sol: a wolf’s head rising inside a blazing sun.

Below, pack members hurried across the courtyards with baskets of flowers, barrels of wine, bundles of firewood, and enough food to feed twice our number. Long tables had been arranged beneath the olive trees. Musicians argued while tuning their instruments. Warriors climbed ladders to hang garlands from the pillars, and children darted between their legs, stealing fruit whenever no one was looking.

The scent of roasting meat drifted upward, mingling with warm bread, crushed citrus, cinnamon, smoke, and mountain air.

All of it was for me.

By sunset, I would no longer be merely Enrique Raúl Soto, son of Alpha Lorenzo.

I would be Alpha Enrique of Dios del Sol.

My wolf stirred beneath my skin at the thought.

He had been restless since before dawn, prowling through my mind with enough pride for both of us. The power waiting inside me felt too large for my body, pressing against my ribs and humming through my blood.

I had spent eighteen years preparing for this day.

Now that it had arrived, everyone else appeared more frightened of it than I was.

The door swung open.

My mother entered before she reached three.

Luna Nikita Soto was dressed in a flowing gown the color of dark wine, with gold embroidery climbing from the hem like flames. Her thick black hair had been braided into a crown and pinned with small golden flowers. At forty-five, she was still beautiful enough to silence a room, although the expression on her face suggested she was considering murder.

My sister Maggie followed behind her carrying my ceremonial jacket.

“I told him to dress,” Ian said immediately.

“Traitor,” I muttered.

Mother looked me over. “Your shirt is open.”

“I am aware.”

“Your boots are not fastened.”

“I had noticed.”

“Your hair—”

“Is perfect,” Maggie interrupted.

Mother turned to her.

Maggie lifted one shoulder. “It is. If you keep fussing, you’ll make him uglier.”

“I do not believe that is possible,” Ian said.

I threw another pillow. This time, it struck him squarely in the face.

Maggie laughed as she crossed the room. At twenty, she had inherited our mother’s elegance and our father’s talent for looking unimpressed. She wore a fitted golden gown with loose sleeves, and her dark curls had been twisted away from her face. A thin scar crossed the underside of her chin, a reminder of the first time she had challenged me to climb the northern watchtower.

We had both been children.

She had reached the top.

I had fallen into a goat pen.

“You are enjoying this far too much,” I told her.

“I have waited eighteen years to see someone place a crown on that oversized head.”

“It is not oversized.”

“It has been blocking my sunlight since the day you were born.”

She held out the jacket.

The garment was heavier than it appeared, made from black leather softened with oil until it moved like cloth. Golden thread traced the shoulders and cuffs, forming flames, wolves, and the ancient symbols of our bloodline. The Soto sun had been stitched over the heart. A short mantle of black fur rested across the shoulders, fastened with two golden clasps shaped like wolf heads.

It had belonged to my grandfather.

Before him, it had belonged to his father.

My amusement faded as I touched the crest.

For the first time that morning, the weight of the day settled over me.

Mother noticed.

Her expression softened as she came closer. She adjusted the collar of my shirt before closing its final buttons.

“You look like him,” she said quietly.

“My grandfather?”

“Your father, when he was young.”

I glanced toward the mirror.

The man staring back at me no longer looked like a boy who spent his nights drinking with warriors or racing his wolf through the forest simply because Carlos claimed he was faster.

I was tall, though my father remained convinced I had another inch left to grow. My shoulders had broadened from years of combat training, and old scars crossed my chest and arms beneath the linen. My skin was warm brown from the sun. Black hair fell in loose waves around my face, refusing every attempt Mother had made to tame it. My jaw had sharpened over the past year, and the dark stubble along it made me look older than eighteen.

But it was my eyes that belonged to the Soto line.

Amber, like sunlight trapped in honey.

The eyes of every Alpha who had ruled Dios del Sol before me.

Mother rested her hands against my cheeks. “Power will reveal every hidden corner of your heart, mi hijo. The good and the ugly. You must decide which parts of yourself you feed.”

“I know.”

“No.” Her thumbs brushed beneath my eyes. “You believe you know. That is the arrogance of being eighteen.”

Maggie made a sound of agreement.

I gave her a warning look.

Mother continued as though neither of us had moved. “Your father has made mistakes. His father made others. You will make your own. But if you remember that the pack does not exist to serve its Alpha—that the Alpha exists to serve his pack—you will always find your way home.”

“I will make you proud.”

“You already have.”

The words struck harder than I expected.

Before I could answer, she pulled me into her arms. I held her tightly, breathing in the familiar scent of lavender and cedar that had followed me through every year of my life.

Maggie joined us a moment later.

Then Ian wrapped his arms around all three of us from the side, nearly knocking Mother off balance.

“I am still eating the figs,” he announced.

Mother laughed against my shoulder.

For a little while, I forgot about the hundreds of people waiting below. I forgot the crown, the vows, and the power that would become mine when the moon rose.

I was simply a son standing with his mother, sister, and brother on the final morning of the life I had always known.

A fist struck the open door.

“Is the future Alpha decent?”

Carlos Anthony Rivera Sr. stepped into the room without waiting for an answer.

My best friend wore his formal Beta uniform, though he had somehow made it look disrespectful. The black collar was open at the throat, his gold sash hung crookedly across his chest, and his dark hair had already escaped the leather cord at the nape of his neck.

At eighteen, Carlos was only two months older than I was, a fact he mentioned whenever he wished to pretend he possessed greater wisdom. He was nearly as tall as me and broader through the chest, with brown skin, sharp features, and a smile that had convinced half the young women in Dios del Sol to forgive him for something.

A faint bruise darkened his left cheek from our last training match.

I had put it there.

He had not stopped complaining about it.

Carlos examined me. “You look terrified.”

“I am trying to imagine spending the rest of my life listening to you.”

“As your Beta, I will offer guidance only when necessary.”

“So constantly?”

“From the moment you wake until the moment you beg the Goddess to take your hearing.”

Father appeared behind him.

The room fell silent.

Alpha Lorenzo Soto did not need to raise his voice to command attention. He carried authority the way other men carried swords—comfortably, and with the certainty that he knew how to use it.

His formal robes were black and deep red, fastened at the shoulder with the golden sun of Dios del Sol. Silver threaded his dark hair near the temples, and the neatly trimmed beard along his jaw had grown more gray during the past year. At fifty, he remained one of the strongest wolves in the valley. The straightness of his spine and the hardness of his stare warned that surrendering his title did not mean surrendering his teeth.

His gaze traveled from Ian’s wrinkled jacket to Carlos’s open collar, then settled on me.

“Everyone out.”

Mother squeezed my arm before obeying. Maggie kissed my cheek. Ian stole the last fig and followed her into the corridor.

Carlos started after them.

“Not you,” Father said.

Carlos stopped.

For once, he did not have a clever response.

Father entered the room and closed the door.

He stood in front of me for several moments without speaking. I had faced him in training circles, council chambers, and private arguments. I had watched him sentence traitors and bury warriors. I had seen him furious, grieving, and wounded.

I had never seen him uncertain.

He reached beneath his robes and withdrew a dagger.

Carlos straightened beside me.

The weapon was beautiful. Its black handle had been carved into the shape of a running wolf, while ancient words spiraled across the silver blade. I recognized it immediately.

Colmillo del Sol.

The Fang of the Sun.

Every ruling Alpha had carried it since Dios del Sol was founded.

Father offered it to me.

I closed my fingers around the handle.

The metal warmed against my palm.

“At moonrise, I will give you my title,” he said. “But this belonged to you from the moment you survived your first breath.”

Emotion tightened my throat.

I lowered my head. “Thank you, Father.”

His hand closed around the back of my neck.

“Do better than I did.”

I looked up.

There were questions I could have asked, but something in his expression warned me that he was not prepared to answer them.

So I nodded.

“I will.”

Father’s grip tightened once before he released me. He turned to Carlos.

“And you.”

Carlos lifted his chin. “Alpha.”

“Enrique will possess enough ambition to set the entire mountain range on fire. Your duty is to keep him from striking the match.”

“That sounds difficult.”

“It will be.”

“And if he has already started the fire?”

“Throw him into it.”

I stared at my father.

Carlos smiled. “I will serve with honor.”

“I somehow doubt that.” Father moved toward the door. “The procession begins at dusk. Until then, neither of you is to leave this house.”

The door closed behind him.

Carlos waited three heartbeats.

“Your father is a wise man.”

“You are not throwing me into any fires.”

“If the Alpha commands it—”

“I will be the Alpha.”

“Then I suppose I shall throw you into fires respectfully.”

I fastened the dagger to my belt, hiding my smile.

Carlos crossed the room and closed the balcony doors. Then he turned the key in the chamber door.

“What are you doing?”

“Ensuring privacy.”

“That answer has never ended well.”

He crouched beside the bed and reached beneath it. After several seconds of grunting and muttered curses, he dragged out a narrow wooden crate covered in dust.

I recognized the wax seal stamped across its lid.

My stomach dropped.

“Carlos.”

He looked up. “Yes, my Alpha?”

“Where did you get that?”

“Found it.”

“In my father’s private cellar?”

“The location is unimportant.”

“Carlos.”

“The lock was already broken.”

“Because you broke it?”

“Again, unimportant.”

He pried open the lid.

Six dark glass bottles rested inside, nestled in faded red cloth. Golden liquid glowed behind the glass, shimmering as though sunlight lived within it.

Enchanted wine.

Not the harmless ceremonial kind Mother served during festivals. This was old mountain wine, brewed by witches before our grandfathers were born. One cup made a wolf fearless. Two made him foolish.

No one with sense attempted a third.

I looked at Carlos.

He looked at me.

“We are being crowned tonight,” he said.

“I am being crowned. You are being appointed Beta.”

“Which is nearly as important.”

“It is not.”

“That sounds like the wine speaking.”

“We have not opened it.”

“Then perhaps we should.”

I should have refused.

I should have remembered my father’s order, my mother’s warning, and the hundreds of people expecting their future Alpha to descend the stairs with dignity.

Instead, I smiled.

Carlos pulled the cork.

The wine released a burst of golden sparks.

“To the future,” he said, handing me the bottle.

I lifted it toward the mountains beyond the glass.

“To the greatest pack the world has ever known.”

I drank.

Fire raced down my throat.

For one brilliant moment, I tasted sunlight.

By the time the coronation drums began to sound across Dios del Sol, Carlos and I had finished the first bottle, opened the second, and created a plan to conquer half the continent before my twenty-fifth birthday.

It was, as Carlos repeatedly assured me, an excellent plan.

Neither of us had yet realized that ambition was simply hunger wearing a crown.