His Darkest Craving

First Blood

The formal dinner was a performance.

I had known that walking in. Every summit dinner involved careful seating arrangements designed to force alliances and fracture others; food that no one actually tasted because they were too busy watching the room; wine that loosened tongues; and sharp eyes waiting to catch everything that spilled out.

What I had not known was that protocol would seat me directly beside Kael Blackthorn.

I found out thirty seconds before it happened, when the summit master gestured to the chair on my left and said his name with the particular reverence people used when they were slightly afraid of what they were referring to. I sat without reacting. Unfolded my napkin. Reached for my water glass with a hand that was completely steady.

He arrived exactly on time. Of course he did.

He pulled out his chair with the economy of movement that seemed to define everything about him: no wasted energy, no performance, and no acknowledgement of the room’s collective intake of breath as the two of us were placed side by side at the same table. He sat. Glanced once at the place setting. Then he turned his attention forward with the expression of a man who was already several steps ahead of wherever everyone else thought the conversation was going.

He didn’t look at me.

Somehow, his lack of eye contact felt worse than if he had looked at me.

The first course arrived. Around us the other Alphas filled the air with the usual summit conversation: territorial disputes dressed up as diplomacy and old grievances wearing the costumes of current policy. I engaged where I needed to and held my silence where I didn’t. Beside me, Kael said nothing whatsoever. Not a word to the Alpha on his right. Not a word to me.

Just that silence. The silence was loaded and deliberate, somehow louder than everything else at the table.

I lasted until the second course.

“You haven’t touched your food,” I said without looking at him.

A pause. Brief and measured. “Neither have you.”

His voice was precisely what I’d expected: low, controlled, with an edge underneath it like cold metal. The kind of voice that had learned to keep everything it meant just below the surface.

“I’m watching the room,” I said.

“So am I.”

I turned to look at him then. He was already looking at me, had probably been looking at me the moment I spoke, and had simply been patient enough to wait until I turned first. Something about that irritated me in a way I couldn’t entirely explain.

“You’ve said approximately twelve words since this summit began,” I said. “Is that a strategy or a personality deficiency?”

Something moved at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. Something colder and more intriguing than a smile. “Twelve words is generally twelve more than most conversations require.”

“And this conversation?”

He considered me for a moment with those unreadable dark eyes. “Still determining.”

“Let me help you determine faster,” I said. “My pack needs an alliance with a northern territory before the season turns. I’m not interested in games or politics or whatever performances the rest of this table is running. I came here for one thing, and I intend to leave with it.”

“I know what you came here for.”

The certainty of it stopped me. It was not arrogance; it was something more precise than that. It was as if he had already anticipated this conversation and all its details.

“Do you,” I said flatly.

“You held your eastern border for thirty-seven months with a force a third the size of what came against you.” He reached for his wine glass with the unhurried ease of someone who had never been nervous about anything. “You didn’t come here because your pack is weak. You came here because you’re intelligent enough to know that even the strongest position has a ceiling.”

The accuracy of it landed somewhere uncomfortable. I kept my face still. “And what does Kael Blackthorn do with that information?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Yet,” I repeated.

He looked at me over the rim of his glass. Something in that look made my wolf press forward again, that same restless urgency I’d felt when he raised his glass at me across the hall. It was as if she recognised something in him that I hadn’t yet noticed.

Then his hand moved.

I don’t know if it was the shift of reaching for something or simply the close quarters of the seating, but his fingers brushed the back of my hand where it rested on the table—and we both went absolutely still.

One second. Two.

He pulled away first. Reached for his fork. Returned his attention to his plate like nothing had happened at all.

But his jaw was tight. A muscle working once beneath the skin.

It wasn’t accidental.

And we both knew it.