2 - His Command
1799 Words
Kaelen
The central clearing, the heart of the Blackwood pack lands, no longer mourned.
It pulsed.
Gone was the grief-choked air of the previous night. In its place: anticipation. Lust. Hunger.
Kaelen stood at the center of it all, the firelight wrapping around him like a lover, shadows dancing over his bare skin, and the dark leather armor stretched tight across his powerful shoulders. Around him, the pack moved with unfamiliar energy—unrest masked as ceremony. Even the wind seemed to vibrate with barely contained instinct.
It was working.
He had expected resistance to the trials—expected mutters, perhaps even rebellion. But the promise of survival had sunk its claws in deep. The wolves wanted direction. He was giving it to them.
But not without cost.
From the corner of his eye, Kaelen spotted movement along the edge of the circle. Lucia.
Of course.
She lingered on the fringes, never quite blending in, yet impossible to ignore. Jeans and a black shirt clung to her slender frame, stark against the ritual silks and hides the others wore. Human clothes. Human body. Human scent.
And still, his wolf stirred at the sight of her.
She had drawn the attention of more than just him. Eyes lingered too long. Males sniffed the air, unsettled by whatever shift had taken place in her. A deeper scent. A darker thread in her aura.
Power. Not just gentleness anymore.
Kaelen’s jaw tightened. She was not theirs to scent.
The trials hadn’t yet begun, but the tension was already spiking. Women preened and postured, painted and adorned in symbols of bloodline and fertility. The males circled like spectators at a bloodsport, some seeking mates, others merely sizing up competition.
Kaelen did neither. He already knew who he wanted. And that made this entire performance feel like a lie he had to keep telling—to them, to her, to himself.
Then she caught his eye.
Lucia’s gaze clashed with his across the firelight. Her expression was unreadable—part wary, part wounded. He felt the burn of it like a wound reopening, raw and inconvenient.
She looked away first, but not fast enough.
Ragnar sidled up beside him, sharp-eyed and loose-limbed, too perceptive for his own good.
“She’s glowing,” he murmured.
Kaelen didn’t look at him.
“You sure you want her at the edge of all this? She doesn’t even belong in the circle.”
“She stays.”
Ragnar arched a brow. “Alpha’s orders?”
Kaelen didn’t respond. He couldn’t explain the way his instincts snarled at the thought of Lucia leaving. Couldn’t admit—out loud—that her presence grounded something in him even as it threatened to unravel everything else.
“Stay close and keep an eye on her.”
Ragnar grinned but didn’t argue. “Yes, Alpha.”
Kaelen had to grit his teeth as he watched his second-in-command saunter away, the crowd parting for him like water. Women paused their stretches and conversations as he passed, turning to watch him with hungry eyes, longing for just a scrap of his affection.
He scoffed. Not that they would get it. Ragnar f****d his way through the pack indiscriminately, but the only woman who kept his interest was their human healer.
Kaelen watched as his Beta approached Lucia from behind, clearly unable to simply stand by. He grabbed her by the waist and spun her, her small squeal of surprise earning envious glances from the surrounding women.
“You need to hone your reflexes, sweet bird. Any big bad wolf could take a bite with you spacing out like that.”
“Shut up.”
He had to turn away from the sound of Ragnar’s laughter and Lucia’s feigned annoyance. There was a time when she had been comfortable with him, too. Until the day that he turned his back on her.
The cheers rose, echoing through the trees like the heartbeat of something ancient and primal.
Kaelen stood still, letting the pack’s energy move around him, through him, like a current. The trials had been designed to measure strength, fertility, and discipline. On the surface, that’s what the crowd saw—tradition, necessity, spectacle.
But beneath it, he saw something more dangerous.
Desperation.
His gaze followed the contestants as they began to slow their movements, the final rounds now done. Two of them stood apart—different in bearing, yet equally formidable.
Anya was fire. She moved like she was born to lead—quick, ruthless, and unapologetically proud. Her braided hair gleamed like obsidian, the red paint on her thighs still fresh with the mark of her bloodline. A warrior’s daughter, born from generations of battle-tested alphas. She fought with a hunter’s precision and seduced with the ease of someone who had never needed permission.
She didn’t just want a place beside Kaelen—she expected it.
And the pack respected her for it.
She would be a strong mate. Strategic. Ambitious. Capable of bearing powerful offspring. He’d seen the calculations in the eyes of the elders as she passed them—Anya was everything their dying bloodlines craved.
Then there was Serena.
If Anya was fire, Serena was deep water—still on the surface, but unfathomably vast beneath. She hadn’t drawn attention during the earlier rounds, not until the final test. While the others boasted and brawled, Serena had quietly outmaneuvered her opponents, showing not just strength, but adaptability. She was lean, graceful, and intelligent. And unshakably calm.
She didn’t try to win Kaelen’s favor. She never had.
But that, too, was its own kind of power. One that pulled at him more than he cared to admit.
They were both ideal candidates. Each brought a different edge, a different solution to the same problem.
And neither of them were Lucia.
Kaelen’s throat tightened. He shouldn’t have let his thoughts drift to her now. Not here, in front of so many watching eyes. But the scent of her lingered in the air—wild and soft and entirely wrong for this world—and something deep in his chest twisted like a snare being pulled tight.
A sound broke the rhythm of the clearing—a choked sob, small but sharp.
Kaelen’s head turned.
A young woman, barely of age, trembling, and on the verge of collapse.
Lucia was already moving, her steps small and graceful as she nimbly navigated through crowds that largely ignored her.
Her healer’s instincts were hardwired, as foolish as they were selfless. He watched the way she crouched beside the young girl—Myra, he thought—and the flicker of warmth in her face as she offered comfort no one else had. Not a wolf. Not one of them. But kinder than most.
That was the problem.
Lucia didn’t understand the danger of mercy in this place. She didn’t know when to stop.
With a low growl, he left his position near the center, his pack members jumping out of the way to let him pass.
One word shattered the air: “Leave her.”
Lucia froze, her moss-green eyes wide and doe-like as she noted the command. He wasn't fooled. Her lips were pressed tightly together, and he knew what that meant. She was annoyed at being interrupted.
The clearing stilled. Even the fire crackled quieter.
He stalked forward, the crowd parting instinctively at his approach. The firelight carved harsh angles into his features, but he kept his expression neutral. Dominant. Unyielding.
Lucia stood slowly, defiant but careful. “I was helping,” she said, voice steady.
He hated that he remembered the last time she’d said something like that—blood soaked through her sleeves, her eyes hollow after a failed birth she’d tried to salvage with too much of herself.
“Helping,” he repeated, low, “or pushing your limits again?”
The words hit their mark, and her rosy cheeks went pale.
Trying to save Eliza and her pup had nearly broken both of them. And the sting of the memory had not lessened as the weeks passed.
The crowd was listening. Watching. He couldn’t let the softness show, not here. Not now.
The color flooded back into her face, her scent thicker and more delicious with the sudden racing of her heart. Lucia’s voice cracked. “I know my place, Alpha.”
He almost flinched at the bitterness in that word. Almost. "Do you?"
His gaze flicked to Myra, and he moved his head, a visible dismissal. She took off running to take her place in the trials again, her tail metaphorically between her legs.
Instead, he stepped closer, the curtain of his long, dark hair giving them a moment of privacy.
Close enough to scent her pulse racing. His hands found her shoulders before he even thought to stop them—command by touch, as instinctual as breathing.
“You pushed too hard last time,” he murmured, his voice softer for her, hoping that she would understand what he meant. Frustration. Fear. Things he was not supposed to feel for an outsider. “Nearly died. I won’t have that again.”
Her breath hitched, but he didn’t loosen his grip. Not yet. Not until she looked at him, really looked.
"You need rest, so step back." The last part, he breathed right against her ear, "They will resent you for interfering."
She lowered her head submissively, but kept her eyes on him. They seemed to hold all the colors and shadows of the forest at night. Deep enough to fall into.
“As you command, Alpha,” she whispered.
The words should’ve satisfied him, but they only left him feeling hollow. This gulf between them had grown too wide. Were they at the point of no return, now? Would they never smile and laugh together ever again?
Kaelen stepped back, forcing his gaze to harden as he turned to the rest of the pack.
“The trials are complete,” he announced, his voice like iron against the hush. “The Moon Goddess has guided me. I have chosen.”
The crowd leaned forward.
“Anya and Serena.”
Cheers erupted. Relief, maybe. Recognition of strength and sensibility.
Anya stepped forward like she’d been crowned. Serena moved more slowly, more carefully.
“The selection of my primary mate,” he said, voice low, laced with something dark and final, “is yet to be announced. Until then… all will continue to prove themselves.”
The clearing was full of howls, the energy of the pack lively and stable once more. But Kaelen barely heard them. His attention was still tethered to the shadow just beyond the firelight.
Lucia was slipping away again. Into silence. Into absence.
He let her go.
But his wolf howled at the loss.
- Writer
