The beginning.
1145 Words
Matteo had never believed in fate. He believed in leverage.
The first time he saw Diana, she stood at the center of the training field, her hair braided tight, her voice sharper than most warriors' blades. She wasn't like the other she-wolves who softened their power behind politeness. Diana was all bite and flame, and Matteo knew instantly she was the one.
Not the one to love.
The one to use.
He approached her the way a serpent might approach a sun-warmed rock: careful, deliberate, masking venom with charm.
"You're the Alpha's daughter," he said, voice laced with humble awe. "Must be exhausting, shining so bright."
She gave him a look, amused but distant. "And you're the runt who trains like he’s running from ghosts."
Matteo smiled. She already noticed him. Perfect.
He was nothing then. An Omega whose name held no weight, whose bloodline traced back to cowards and deserters. He had no land, no title, not even a wolf form worth respecting. But he had eyes—and a mouth that could drip honey or poison, depending on what the situation called for.
He played it slow.
Helped her during border runs. Laughed at her sharp wit. Stood beside her during full moons, pretending his heart beat a little faster every time her hand brushed his.
And when she let her guard down—when she shared stories about her mother’s death, about the burden of being heir to a kingdom that never rested—he nodded in the right places. Held her when she cried. Lied through his teeth with every whispered vow.
"You see me," she had whispered once.
He had kissed her then, sealing his place in her chest like a worm burrowing into sweet fruit.
What Diana didn't know was that every step he took toward her was mapped out.
He studied her like prey: her routines, her fears, her pressure points. He discovered how loyalty made her blind, how love made her pliable. He fed her validation, watched her hunger for it.
When the Alpha grew sick, Matteo was already in the family’s inner circle.
"You're the only one who believes in me," he told her.
She believed it.
He staged conflicts. Faked injuries. Stirred whispers of rebellion in nearby packs just to push her closer to trusting only him.
And when the Alpha died, Diana made him her second-in-command.
"You earned this," she told him, her eyes filled with belief.
He had. Just not honestly.
But power doesn't care for purity. It only bows to control.
He began to reshape the pack in small ways. New curfews. Select patrols. Whispered warnings about enemies Diana never questioned.
Because she loved him.
Because he made her feel necessary, adored, irreplaceable.
But he never loved her.
Her fire was a tool. Her title a ladder. Her body a distraction.
And when Roxanne arrived—scarred, cunning, born from a rival pack with a thirst for blood and conquest—he saw something Diana could never be: ruthless.
Roxanne knew she was being used. And she didn't care.
That was the difference.
Diana wanted love. Roxanne wanted a throne.
"She'd burn the world for you," Roxanne had said once, watching Diana from the shadows. "Poor thing doesn’t know you lit the match."
Matteo had laughed.
"She was always a stepping stone."
"She was your maker."
"Even gods eat their creators."
It was all so easy. Diana, ever the believer, didn’t see the rot beneath his smile. Not when he skipped strategy meetings to tend to Roxanne's wounds. Not when he claimed long patrols while her enemies were quietly spared.
She still kissed him with full faith. Still waited for a proposal that was never coming.
Until he gave her one. With a ring laced in lies and a ceremony timed to humiliate.
He made sure Roxanne was injured just enough. Made sure Diana would hear of it. Made sure his "choice" would seem like duty.
And when he left Diana at the altar, left her trembling before the pack, he didn't look back.
Because he never once saw her as a partner.
Only as the road he had to pave with softness and smiles to reach power.
"She was too bright," Matteo said to Roxanne later that night. "I had to be her shadow to survive."
Roxanne poured him another glass. "And now?"
He smirked.
"Now the sun’s set."
But even as he said it, the wind shifted.
Carried something bitter.
Something not yet buried.
And far beneath it all, in a place he could not see, a name began to stir in the water: Diana.
She would return.
Not as his shadow.
But as the reckoning he never planned for. The world was darkness, then pain, then nothing.
Diana drifted through cold water and broken dreams, her breath stolen, her body shattered. Death hovered close, whispering its invitation. She would have accepted.
But something moved against the tide.
Arms strong as iron pulled her from the river's grip. Fingers pressed against her ribs, coaxing breath back into her lungs. A voice—deep, firm, unfamiliar—cut through the black fog.
"Breathe. Come back."
She choked. Coughed. Gasped like a drowning wolf pulled from under ice. Her vision returned in fragments: a cave lit by fire, walls glistening with moss. A stranger's face hovered above hers, blurred by heat and pain.
He was tall. Broad. Raven-haired and sharp-jawed, with eyes the color of smoke before a storm. Scars lined his cheek like forgotten claw marks.
"You're safe now," he said, low and sure.
Diana tried to sit. Her body screamed. The stranger pressed a hand to her shoulder.
"You're not ready to stand yet."
"Who... are you?" she rasped.
He poured something warm between her lips. Her tongue tingled. Pain dulled.
"Call me Caelan," he said. "And you’re lucky the river delivered you to me."
She looked down. Her wrists were raw. Her leg twisted unnaturally. The memory returned like a knife:
Jareth’s voice. The push. The fall.
She flinched. Caelan saw it.
"They tried to kill you."
"They did." Her voice cracked. "But the river changed its mind."
Caelan studied her. "You’re not just a she-wolf, are you?"
Diana closed her eyes. Let silence answer.
He didn't press. Just wrapped her in furs and turned to stoke the fire.
She watched him move. Grace in strength. Solitude without fear. He wasn’t like Matteo—too polished, too rehearsed. Caelan carried something feral beneath his calm, something that neither bowed nor asked.
"Why help me?" she asked.
He glanced over his shoulder. "Because you shouldn’t die at the hands of cowards. And because I owe the river a debt."
Diana didn’t ask what that meant. She drifted into sleep with flames dancing behind her eyes, and a name pressed against her tho
ughts like a promise.
Caelan.
Not her savior.
- Writer
