Bound to My Enemy's Alpha

Kael Draven

Kael’s Pov

Kael Draven had been called a lot of things in his life, Alpha, Regent, monster, his father's son but he had never once, in his twenty-nine years, been called unsteady.

He was unsteady now.

He stood in the empty clearing long after his hunting party had shifted back and gone quiet around him, waiting for an order he hadn't given yet, and stared at the rock face a stranger had scaled like gravity was a suggestion rather than a law. The moon was sliding toward the morning.

The scent she'd left behind faint, wrong, impossible... was already fading from the air, and something in his chest was fading with it, but not completely gone instead it was replaced by a physical ache behind his ribs.

"Alpha?"

Rurik's voice, low and careful. Kael didn't blame him for hedging his bets. Fury, he knew how to handle Kael. This, whatever this was, none of them had a name for.

"Track her," Kael said. His own voice came out steadier than he felt, which was its own small victory.

"Her scent is thin, but it's there."

"And if we find her?" Rurik unsure asked.

"Bring her to me," he said as he inhaled her flowery scent once more.

Rurik didn't argue, he motioned to the remaining hunting party as they sniffed the air and all ran toward the same direction. Rurik stood as he waited for Kael.

“Join the others. I’ll be fine”

Rurik paused for a second before taking on his wolf form. His grey fur with shades of black swayed in the wind as he joined the others.

Kael stood alone in the clearing. He could still feel the faint pull towards her and the hurt settled deep in his heart.

She ran from me.

That was the part that wouldn't sit right. Wolves didn't run from a confirmed mate bond, not truly, not for long. The pull was supposed to be a tide, not a war. She'd fought it like her life depended on it.

Taking a few steps away from the rock dissolved into the forest dark shadows.

The Duskmoor stronghold rose out of the hills the way it always had, high windows lit gold against the night, a place built for war generations ago that had learned, slowly and at great cost, to also be a home.

Kael crossed the courtyard still shirtless, still faintly wolf-eyed, and didn't bother pretending to the night guards that nothing had happened. They'd smell it on him regardless. The restlessness, the excitement, he didn’t even try to hide it.

He found his mother awake, which didn't surprise him. She rarely slept anymore, not properly, not since the sickness had settled into her bones like something that intended to stay.

She sat in the high-backed chair by the window that had been hers for thirty years. The chair was made of steel and cushioned with the fur of rogue wolves. At its edges were amethyst, amber, sapphire, emerald and a moonstone which sat at the top of her throne.

The queen was wrapped in a shawl too heavy for the season, watching the tree line like she could see all the way to Duskmoor's border from here.

Maybe she could. His mother had always seen further than she let on.

“So, what seems to have gotten you excited?” she said as she tried to fake a smile.

Though she was old and frail, Kael always knew the Queen of the Silver Crown was one who never backed down from a fight. All his years growing up, the kingdom always sang about her praises and deeds. Feared by both man and wolf. She extended her lands to the extreme waste lands. Chasing out her kingdom’s enemies and any other fae creatures.

"You found something," she said, before he'd crossed half the room.

"A wolf. Unmarked."

“Unmarked”

“Yes, a wolf with no sigil or allegiance”

“So, an unsworn dared enter into our territory. It's not the first time, young wolves tend to be mischievous. As you were when you were little” she smiled.

“But that’s the thing. This was no ordinary omega. It out ran my hunting party and is currently on the loose.”

The queen’s gaze now rested solely on Kael.

“I see. So, a spy then?”

“I really doubt that. The wolf seemed more confused than an enemy”

“Send out a search party and bring her to me” the Queen said as she got up from her throne.

“Yes, my Queen,” Kael said as he bowed his head and waited for the queen to leave, before he left.

He didn't sleep that night, though his body screamed for it. He sat instead at the war table in his study, a map of Duskmoor's borders spread before him, and stared at the stretch of unclaimed land along the eastern ridge — buffer territory nobody bothered to patrol, too worthless to fight over, too remote to matter.

He thought of the way she'd looked at him, not with the awe or hunger most wolves carried when they first felt a bond snap into place, but with something closer to fear.

He thought of the scent that had clung to the clearing after she'd gone, familiar in a way that made no sense, an itch at the very back of his memory he couldn't reach, like a name on the tip of his tongue that refused to surface.

The scent kept drifting in and out of his mind.

Where could she be from? What scared her?

Slowly, his claws began to sprout, they caused a dent on the war table. He needed to calm down. Only with a clear mind could he solve all the mysteries.

Suddenly, the door to the war room swung open and Rurik rushed in panting.

“It’s about the girl.”