# 5
1248 Words
I didn’t remember standing up.
One moment, the courtyard was shaking from the god-fragment’s backlash, stone cracking, wards screaming, shards of silver light still drifting down like celestial ash.
The next, I was being hauled bodily through the west archway, my feet barely touching the ground, half carried, half dragged by the enormous, terrifying, unfairly gorgeous stranger whose magic had nearly detonated the courtyard minutes ago.
Thane.
I was pretty sure that was the name he’d snapped at someone, right before he’d snarled at the wolves for circling too close, to me.
Heat still trembled over my skin where his hands had been. My stomach was doing confused, traitorous gymnastics. And I still couldn’t get his eyes out of my head, with those fractured gold-and-gray irises that had locked onto me like I wasn’t just another startled student in the blast radius.
No. Not like.
They’d known something.
Something impossible.
Something dangerous.
And the worst part?
Some quiet, treasonous part of me had known something too.
The archway spilled us into the inner halls of Stormfall Institute. The air shifted immediately, cooler, cleaner, reverent in that way places heavy with wards always were. Sigils glowed faintly along the vaulted ceiling, their light reflecting off marble floors polished to a mirror shine.
Students peeked out from corners and doorways as we passed.
Of course they did.
Anyone would stare if a six-foot-seven demi-god wolf with barely contained sunfire magic stormed through the institute dragging a random girl along like she’d fallen out of his fate personally.
One of the academy guards stepped forward, hand rising instinctively to his earpiece.
“Sir,” he began, trying for authority and failing, “Director Calen asked for....”
Thane’s aura flared.
Silver, white light erupted around him, hot enough that my hair lifted from my shoulders. The wards along the walls flickered in response. The guard staggered back like he’d been hit by a shockwave.
“R-right,” the man stammered. “I’ll, uh....notify him you’re coming.”
Thane didn’t respond. Didn’t even look at him.
His grip on my wrist tightened,.not painful, but fierce. Like he was anchoring himself. Or anchoring me.
I tugged, more on instinct than bravery. “Hey. Big guy. Demi-Godzilla. You can’t just kidnap people because you look good doing it.”
He stopped so abruptly I walked straight into his chest.
Again.
Fantastic.
I was going to develop matching bruises shaped exactly like his pectorals.
His eyes swept over me, scraped cheek, trembling fingers, dust-streaked clothes, the way my breath still hadn’t quite remembered its rhythm. There was no mockery there. No impatience.
Only fury.
And fear.
And something so intense it made my knees wobble.
“You could have been killed,” he said. His voice was low, rough, vibrating straight through my ribs. “That thing targeted you.”
“I don’t even know you,” I whispered.
His jaw flexed. “You will.”
My heart did a full somersault and landed somewhere near my ankles.
This was insane. Completely, cosmically insane.
I was a scholarship student with average grades and above, average thighs. I wasn’t chosen. I wasn’t special. My greatest accomplishment last semester was finishing an entire large pizza alone and only mildly regretting it.
Why me?
Footsteps echoed behind us, soft but heavy, disciplined. I turned just in time to see them.
Wolves.
Not students. Not guards. Warriors.
They moved like a single organism, eyes glowing molten gold, bodies radiating the kind of supernatural dominance that made my instincts curl in on themselves instinctively. Even their shadows stretched unnaturally long across the marble, bending like they refused to obey physics.
One of them stepped forward, a woman with braided white hair and a scar cutting from temple to jaw.
“Alpha,” she said. “The courtyard is secured. The fragment dissipated. Minimal casualties.”
Alpha.
The word hit harder than the explosion had.
Thane didn’t seem to hear her. He was still looking at me as if the world had narrowed down to my pulse under his fingers.
Her gaze dropped to where his hand still encircled my wrist.
She froze.
Like she’d just watched a prophecy come true.
Thane finally looked away. “Layla,” he said, except that wasn’t my name.
My stomach dipped in ridiculous disappointment before I realized he wasn’t talking to me.
“Yes, Alpha?” the wolf responded.
“Alert Director Calen we’ll meet in my office,” Thane said. Then, after a pause, voice tightening, “Tell him to pull the Null Blood files.”
Every wolf stiffened.
Every single one.
My stomach fell straight through the floor. “Null Blood?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
Thane didn’t answer.
He was already moving again, guiding me, gently now, but relentlessly, down a long corridor toward reinforced steel double doors etched with ancient runes.
Something sparked beneath my skin as we walked. Static, but deeper. Alive. Each brush of his arm sent another surge racing through me, hot enough to steal my breath.
Please let that be adrenaline.
Please don’t let this be what I think it is.
Inside his office, the lights flickered the moment he stepped inside, as if the room itself reacted to him. Papers rustled. Books shivered against shelves.
“Sit,” he said quietly.
I sat.
I hadn’t planned to, but my body obeyed as if the word carried weight. Not magic. Something else. Like gravity deciding where I belonged.
Thane paced once. Twice. Then he stopped, bracing his hands on the desk as if holding reality together by force.
“Your blood reacted before the fragment manifested,” he said. “I felt it.”
“My blood?” I let out a shaky laugh. “Pretty sure I just screamed and tripped.”
He turned.
His eyes were no longer gold-and-gray.
They were molten.
Alive.
Bright with something ancient and undeniable.
Bond-bright.
“You’re Null Blood,” he said. “And you’re my fated mate.”
The room spun.
Null Blood.
Fated mate.
Demi-god wolf.
Me.
“That’s, a no,” I rasped. “That’s not possible.”
But my body betrayed me. The sparks. The heat. The way my fear tangled with something achingly familiar.
“What is Null Blood?” I asked.
“It means you’re immune to divine magic,” Thane said. “Fragments. Curses. Relics. None of it can touch you. Humans like you are extinct.” His voice softened. “But you’re here.”
He stepped closer.
My pulse leapt wildly.
“Thane…” I warned, backing away.
“I won’t hurt you.”
I believed him. That was the scariest part.
“Look at me.”
I shook my head, eyes squeezing shut.
He crouched in front of me anyway, movements reverent. His fingers brushed my cheek.
Sunlight flooded my skin.
The bond hit like a star collapsing, violent, inevitable, absolute.
“You feel it,” he whispered.
“I don’t want this,” I said.
His breath hitched, pain flickering across his face.
“You have a choice,” he said softly. “But whether you accept it or not, I will protect you.”
A knock shattered the moment.
Layla stood in the doorway, eyes wide. “Alpha. The gods sensed the fragment. They’re demanding answers.”
Thane rose slowly.
“Stay here,” he said.
And then, quieter, almost reverent...
“My mate.”
The door closed.
And my world ended.
And began.
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