Chapter 4
1358 Words
Kael’s POV
She stayed.
The word stayed hanging inside of the silent room like a plucked bass string. I had offered her the a release. I had never offered any woman a choice before. I had never needed to. No woman had ever been brought to me this way, not by my own asking. Every woman who arrives cloaked in "diplomacy" or "tribute" leave the same way, untouched and unacknowledged. Elara’s the first woman I had ever summoned of my own accord. In most previous cases, the woman hurried out, equal parts terror and relief, an exit that always left me unsettled.
Elara did not stir.
She did not even blink.
I looked at her. Like really looked and I felt a surge of something that had been hidden for decades. Fulfillment. It was a dark, heavy weight in my gut, settled and certain.
"I want to speak with you," she said, her voice cutting through the oppressive atmosphere of the room. "Alone."
I felt how my eyebrows twitched. It was the closest that I ever got to a visible expression of shock. Behind me I could feel how tense my guards were.
They were not used to hearing a woman issue a command in the presence of the Alpha king. They waited. They thought that I was going to snap at her or laugh her out of the room.
"You heard her," I said, my gaze never leaving hers. "Leave us."
"My King?" Soren, my lead guard, hesitated.
"Now."
The door clicked shut. The heavy mahogany muffling the sound of their retreating footsteps.
Now the room was completely empty. The only sound that we could hear was the tick of the grandfather's clock. And the faint, frantic heat that was radiating from her body.
She was smaller than I remembered from the ceremony, but she felt twice as large. There was a confidence radiating off her that didn't match the "docile wife" persona Jaxon had tried to sell me. She wasn't just standing her ground; she was claiming it.
The silence stretched. It was thick and tactile. I did not move. I wanted to see what she was going to do with the space that I gave to her.
Most people choked on the silence I created. They filled it with apologies or mindless chatter. Elara just let it sit between us like a physical thing.
I wanted her.
The realization hit me even harder now. It was like a force of physical blow even though I kept my posture as rigid as a statue.
It was not just the curve of her throat. Or the way that the red dress had hugged her hips. It was the defiance.
All my life, I had spent it watching people bow, shake and scrape in my presence. I was the Alpha king and that also meant that I was a monster that was supposed to be feared. Or a prize to be won.
I had never been a challenge to be met.
She took a step toward me. Then another.
"You're amazed.” she murmured. Her voice was a low hum that seemed to vibrate against my skin. "By my confidence. By the fact that I’m not crying at your feet like Jaxon promised I would."
I didn't flinch. I didn't even breathe. "Jaxon promises many things he cannot deliver."
"I knew that you were going to call for me.” She continued to speak. Her eyes kept on searching mine, they were bright and with an intelligence that felt terrifying. She stepped into my personal space. The circle of air that I used to keep only for the ones that I intended to kill. “And I know you have thought about me everyday since the ceremony. You have not been able to get the image of me in that red dress out of your head. Have you?”
It was the truth. A jagged, annoying truth that had kept me awake for three nights.
I felt how the heat started to rise in my blood. It was a predatory instinct that was stirring but I was able to keep my mask perfectly in check. I looked down at her. My expression was a wall of stone.
"You are remarkably full of yourself." I said to her, My voice dropped an octave. "for someone who is likely just going to be used and discarded. Do you think a pretty face makes you an equal, Elara?"
She didn't recoil. If anything, she leaned in. The scent of her—something like crushed lilies and a storm brewing—filled my lungs.
"Then use me Kael," she whispered.
She didn't say Alpha.
She didn't say My King.
She just said my name.
Stripped of titles. Stripped of the armor I used to keep the world at bay. It sounded like a dare. It sounded like a sin. No one had dared to address me so directly in a century.
And somehow, I found that I liked the way my name sounded when she caught it between her teeth.
I reached out, my fingers hovering just inches from her jaw, refusing to touch her yet. "And what is in it for you? No one enters my den without a price."
"A deal," she said, her eyes locking onto mine with a sudden, sharp intensity. "I want a deal."
"What could you possibly want that Jaxon hasn't already given you? Jewels? Power? His head on a silver platter?"
"My daughter," she said. "If anything ever happens, if I ever come to you and tell you she is in danger, I need your word that you will act. No questions. No delays."
The flirtatious edge in her voice was gone. Completely. What replaced it was something quieter and far more dangerous, the kind of stillness that only exists in a person who has already imagined the worst and is trying to prevent it from happening again.
I stared at her.
I had expected greed. I had expected her to ask for titles, resources, or someone's humiliation served to her on a schedule. Women who want something to bargain always want something visible. Something they could hold.
She was asking for a promise.
Not even a guarantee. Just a word.
"You're not asking me to act now," I said slowly. "You're asking me to be ready."
"Yes." Her eyes held mine and didn't waver. "Just that."
Something about the precision of it unsettled me more than any demand could have. A woman who knew exactly what she needed and nothing more was a woman who had already thought through every way things could go wrong.
I studied her for a long moment.
"You have my word," I said finally. "When the time comes, say so. I'll move."
The tension in her shoulders didn't fully leave. But something behind her eyes settled, just slightly, like a door she had been holding shut could finally rest against its frame. Then she smiled. One that spread across her lips… and this time it was real.
"You really are as powerful as they say," she breathed.
She came even closer to me now. She closed up the final inch of the distance until her chest touched the fabric of my shirt. I could feel the heat of her and the way she was shaking with an energy that came suddenly.
She reached down. Her hand moved— certain and unhesitating. She let her hand rest against the mounting pressure that was in my trousers.
My breath caught.
A low growl already building up in the back of my throat.
I had spent my life as a king. But in this moment, under the touch of a woman, this woman who had so much guts. I felt like I was a man being led to his knees.
"Now," she whispered, her eyes dark with a hunger that matched my own. "Let's begin."
She did not have to ask me for it twice. I reached for her.
My hands closed around the nape of her neck and pulled her into the dark and inevitable heat of our first night together.
- Writer
