Dream
1546 Words
KAEL’S POV
Her voice was ruining me.
Every sound she made drove me closer to the edge of something I couldn't name and couldn't control.
I couldn't see her face.
The darkness swallowed everything except the feel of her—arched beneath me, trembling, her skin burning hot against my hands. Her back lifted off the bed. Her fingers twisted into the sheets. And the sounds that spilled from her lips—gasps, whimpers, breathless cries—unraveled me piece by piece.
I buried my face in the curve of her neck. My lips found her pulse point—hammering, frantic, alive—and I kissed a path upward until my gaze landed on something.
A butterfly birthmark. Small. Delicate. Etched into the skin of her nape like a secret meant only for me.
I pressed my lips against it, and she shattered beneath me.
"Ahh…"
A moan slipped from her tongue. Wrecked. Desperate. Driving me insane.
I drove deeper. Harder. The heat between us was suffocating—consuming everything rational until nothing remained but instinct and need and the overwhelming, maddening rightness of being inside her.
But suddenly, her moan fractured.
The pleasure twisted into something else. Something wrong.
Her voice was not a cry of passion anymore. Instead, I heard her whispering in my ears, pleading.
"Save me—"
The warmth beneath my hands turned cold. The body in my arms began to dissolve like smoke. I reached for her—snarling, clawing at the darkness—but my fingers closed around nothing.
"Please save me…"
Her voice echoed into silence.
And then darkness swallowed everything.
---
I woke with a violent snarl.
My chest heaved. My skin was slick with sweat. My hands had torn through the sheets and gouged into the mattress beneath, claw marks ripped through fabric and padding like a feral beast had taken residence in my bed.
Again.
That same goddamn dream.
Every night. Every time I closed my eyes. She was there—voice like honey and broken glass, body made for my hands, face swallowed by shadow.
And every night, she begged me to save her.
Then vanished.
I pressed my palms against my eyes and exhaled slowly through my nose, forcing the beast inside me to retreat. My wolf, Atlas, paced beneath my skin—agitated, restless, howling with a need I couldn't satisfy.
“Find her now!” Atlas was snarling at the back of my mind, restless and almost furious.
The command pulsed through my blood like a second heartbeat.
A heaviness settled over my body—not exhaustion, but something deeper. Something that had been growing since that night at the Summit and refused to leave. Like I had lost something vital and didn't know what it was.
The door to my chambers opened.
My beta, Luis stepped inside. His sharp features were tight with concern, though he masked it quickly behind his usual composure.
"You're finally awake."
I forced myself upright, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. My body protested, every muscle stiff, every nerve raw, but I ignored it.
I'd had worse.
"How long?"
"Only a day this time." Luis crossed his arms. "You collapsed after the council meeting yesterday. You almost went out of control and injured a member of the high council. Do you remember?"
I didn't answer.
Because I remembered exactly what happened.
The blood. The snapping bone. That council member's terrified face.
It was moment Atlas nearly tore his throat out because he had dared to speak to me out of line.
My hand clenched.
The bedframe cracked beneath my grip.
One month. That's how long this had been going on. Atlas fighting for control, his bloodlust growing more severe by the day, and blackouts stealing pieces of my life like a thief in the night when I fight him back.
And it all started the same way.
The night of the Summit.
I'd been in the ballroom. Surrounded by Alphas, council members, the usual parade of politics. I remembered their faces. Their voices.
Then nothing.
A void where my memory should be.
The next thing I knew, Luis and my guards were standing over me in the forest outside the Moonshadow territory. Unconscious and alone.
But I remembered fragments. A dark room. The heat. A woman’s body arching beneath me. And a butterfly birthmark.
Someone had plotted against me. Put a woman in my bed. Forced my body to respond while my consciousness was trapped beneath some sort of trick.
I hadn't touched a woman in years—by choice. By necessity. Not even for a mate I hadn't found and didn't want.
And someone had violated that.
And whether she was sent by an enemy or part of this scheme—I would hunt her to the ends of the continent.
"The search," I said, my voice low and hard. "Is there any lead?"
Luis's expression tightened. "None as of now. We’ve sent our best trackers. And they still have not yet found any clue."
My gaze darkened.
"Keep looking. No one will stop until we find that woman." I ordered in a dark tone.
Luis nodded, paused for a moment before he continued speaking.
"There's something else.”
My head snapped towards him.
“Yesterday, while monitoring the Moonshadow Pack's movements, our scouts picked up an omega fleeing their territory. He was acting terrified and suspicious. Our men captured him."
My gaze darkened at the mention of that pack.
Everything started there. That Summit. That night. Someone in that territory had breached my security, drugged me, and tried to make a fool of me.
If they were behind all of it...
I wouldn't let them off the hook.
"What did you get from him?"
"Not much. He's frantic, like a man about to lose his mind. He keeps mentioning the Summit yet doesn’t reveal more no matter what means we try."
The dungeon air was cold and rank with fear.
Guards pressed against the walls as I passed—necks bared, eyes averted. No one looked at me directly when I walked like this. They could feel it—the predator beneath the surface, coiled and ready to strike.
My gaze then landed on a thin and dirty man who was curled in the corner of the last cell, shaking.
When he looked up and saw my face, his face turned deathly pale.
"I didn't see anything!" The words exploded out of him, frantic, desperate even before I could do anything on him.
"Please…spare me! I'm just an innocent servant…I didn't see anything—"
I loomed over him. My eyes locked onto his.
"Why did you run from the Moonshadow Pack?"
The man’s whole body trembled. "They're after me…they're going to kill me—"
"Who?" I asked in a low commanding tone.
He clamped his mouth shut. His jaw tightened like he'd rather swallow glass than answer.
My dominance flared, crushing, absolute, inescapable. The air in the dungeon shifted. The guards near the door staggered back. The man’s spine snapped straight, his neck baring involuntarily, his wolf, if he even had one—submitting before his mind could process what was happening.
"Tell me everything," I commanded darkly. "Who is after you. And why."
His whole body froze but his mouth finally opened to speak.
"I saw… I saw our previous Luna being set up. I saw a crime!"
My brow furrowed, deciding to keep interrogating him in a dark tone. "What exactly did you see?"
The man’s body trembled, but I continued making my aura surge, pressing him.
"There were two people… dragging a woman down the corridor. Soon, I realized she was our Luna. She was unconscious and they were carrying her. They took her into a room at the end of the hall and left right after."
Atlas surged—a violent jolt of recognition hitting before my conscious mind could catch up. I forced the wolf down. Keeping my expression flat.
"What happened next?"
"Nothing… I don’t know." The man shook his head frantically. "I left. I didn't want to be anywhere near that room. I didn't see what happened after, I swear!"
My gaze darkened, a violent surge coiling in my chest as Atlas stirred beneath the surface, pressing against my control, demanding release.
I stared at the man. At the fear pouring off him in waves. I knew he was telling the truth. It seemed he really hadn’t seen what happened inside that room.
But he'd told me enough.
A woman dragged unconscious into a room, then with two people leaving immediately after.
That wasn't coincidence. That was a setup, on a pack’s Luna on top of it.
Someone wanted that woman in that room. Unconscious. Vulnerable. Ready to be used.
My mind turned when another thought surfaced, realizing something.
If that woman was connected to what happened to me that night.
Then this wasn't just about her.
My fists clenched.
"Where is this woman you’re talking about?" I asked, my voice dropping to something lethal.
The man flinched.
His whole body recoiled, shaking.
"Speak."
I growled, my patience almost running out. The command crushed down on him. His neck snapped back, bared completely, throat exposed.
"She's gone… They burned her alive."
- Writer
