The Alpa Who Cast Me Away

The Alpha’s Obsession

Kael Nightfell did not sleep.

Not since the moment Lyra Ashbourne had crossed the boundary stone. Not since the bond—his bond—had twisted and screamed inside him, refusing to let her go. The Alpha King sat in his private chamber, the city sprawled below like a blanket of shadows, but the lights and streets meant nothing to him.

All he could see was her.

Lyra. His mate. The one he had rejected.

His wolf prowled inside his mind, snarling, clawing at his control. She’s alive. She’s out there. Find her.

Kael’s fingers tightened around the edge of the mahogany desk. His golden eyes burned with an intensity that made even the strongest warriors of his pack uneasy. The rejection—his rejection—was a wound that refused to heal.

She should be dead.

The thought hit him with bitter force. Every instinct in his body screamed that she should not have survived. The boundary stone, the Moonborn prophecy… all of it had been dangerous, and yet here she was. Alive. Untamed. Powerful.

And far away from him.

Mine.

The word echoed in his mind, and his wolf growled, a low, threatening sound. Kael’s jaw tightened. I rejected her to protect my throne. To protect my pack. But the truth clawed at him relentlessly. He had rejected her because he feared her power—because he feared the way she made his blood burn and his mind ache.

Now, the distance was unbearable.

Kael rose from the desk, long strides taking him to the floor-to-ceiling windows. He pressed a hand against the glass, staring down at the city streets below. Somewhere in this sprawling labyrinth of steel and concrete, Lyra Ashbourne was alive. She was shifting, discovering her power, and perhaps—God forbid—growing stronger than he ever imagined.

Not stronger than me, he snarled, though even he wasn’t sure if that was true.

Kael’s phone buzzed on the desk. He ignored it. Messages from his generals, his pack, even the council—all meaningless. Nothing mattered but the ache in his chest, the constant pull of the bond he had tried to destroy.

She is mine.

Kael’s wolf howled inside him, hungry and insistent. It demanded release, demanded pursuit. The Alpha King’s mind raced, thoughts splintering between strategy, obsession, and a raw, unspoken desire he had fought for months to suppress.

He had rejected her. He had denied fate itself.

And yet…

He could not stop thinking about the silver-black glow beneath her skin, the way she had survived the impossible, the defiance in her eyes when she had walked away from him.

Kael’s lips curled into a dangerous smile. “Find her,” he whispered into the darkness of his room. “And when I do…” His hand clenched into a fist. “She will remember who I am.”

Because he would make her remember.

The hunt had begun.

Far away, Lyra Ashbourne shifted in the empty warehouse Darius had taken her to, muscles trembling as the silver-black glow pulsed beneath her skin. She had begun to understand the magnitude of what she could do. She could sense the city, the energy of it, the lives moving through it. She could sense danger. And she could feel him.

Kael.

Her heart skipped. Fear and something darker, hotter, surged through her chest. She clenched her fists. She would not kneel. She would not submit. Not to him.

Not yet.

But the bond pulsed, insistent, undeniable.

And both of them knew—whether they wanted it or not—their fates were bound together.