Chapter 18 Kael (POV)
608 Words
She smiled like she’d just robbed fate at knifepoint and left it bleeding in the street.
It was… refreshing.
I stood still, letting her talk, letting her posture sharpen with that lazy confidence. Most people, when faced with a threat, begged. Or bluffed. Or broke.
This woman?
She charged a fee.
My men watched her the way wolves watched an unfamiliar blade. Some with suspicion. Some with grudging respect. One with thinly veiled hostility. Even Johnson had gone quiet behind me, studying her like he was trying to decide whether she was prey, ally, or an oncoming storm.
But my attention stayed on her.
The way she carried herself didn’t match her size. Or her age. She moved like someone who’d survived more than she should have, and learned to enjoy it out of spite. Her eyes, those strange tri-colored eyes, slid over the crowd as if they were scenery, not people.
And when she looked up at me—
My wolf shifted.
With interest.
Her face was mostly concealed, veil wrapped tight, but her eyes—
Goddess.
One was lilac threaded with piercing aqua, sharp and alert, like a blade already halfway drawn.
The other was silver, true silver, and sharp white bleeding into brilliant purple, pale and luminous, unnatural in a way that set every instinct on edge.
They did not match.
They were not supposed to exist together.
And beneath her right eye, stark against her skin, was a black crescent moon, curved like a brand.
Not paint.
Not ornament.
A mark.
Thoren went utterly still.
Then leaned forward.
Her scent calms me, he rumbled low, satisfied, deep in my mind. I want her.
The word hovered unspoken.
Mate.
I shut it down immediately.
I’d seen beautiful women. I’d seen dangerous women. I’d seen women who used charm like bait and softness like a lie.
But this one wasn’t performing.
She wasn’t trying to win.
She was simply… taking.
Coins. Control. Space.
And she did it without a tremor.
When her maid suggested love, my men reacted like the world had cracked open.
I didn’t.
I didn’t even correct it.
Because the maid was wrong.
This wasn’t love.
This was something far more dangerous.
Curiosity.
The kind that makes a man step closer to the edge just to see how deep it goes.
She tried to read me.
I felt it — faint, deliberate — like fingers testing a locked door.
It didn’t reach me.
Not because I was stronger than her.
Because I’d learned long ago that the safest thoughts were the ones no one could touch.
Her mismatched eyes narrowed when she failed.
Then she smiled.
Like my silence amused her.
Thoren stirred again, restless now.
She can’t read you, he murmured. She doesn’t like that. It’s cute.
She is not prey.
She is not weak.
She is dangerous.
She accepted the offer too quickly, and I respected her for it.
Fearful people hesitated.
Clever people calculated.
Predators committed.
“Fine,” she said, like she was doing me a favor.
She was playing with fire.
And she knew it.
As she turned away, veil shifting with the breeze, those eyes vanished from view — lilac, aqua, silver, white, purple — burned into my senses like a warning I didn’t intend to heed.
Don’t let her slip away.
I watched her walk. Watched the crowd part without understanding why.
A rare weapon.
Not yet drawn.
Not fully awakened.
But already sharp enough to cut.
And for the first time in a long time, I wanted to see what happened when she finally stopped pretending to be harmless.
- Writer
