PROLOGUE
The first time I heard of Kael was from my grandfather’s lips.
He told me about a being, the most powerful being in the world, our patron. He said that this being’s name was Kael Veyne, but to the other people around, he was called the Phantom Alpha— a wolf said to be cruel but yet the most powerful alpha to ever walk the Earth. During the Myrkr Stríð, a war that almost caused the extinction of all wolves, he alone fought against the dark forces and made a sanctum for all of our kind.
Garouihl.
But after that, he vanished, never to be seen again.
“Remember,” Grandfather told me once, voice heavy with a kind of devotion I didn’t understand, “Who we worship has strict rules, and we are devoted to following these rules, and though most fear him, we revere.”
“Revere?” I had asked, because I always needed to know more.
He smiled and bumped my nose. “Worship.” And then he leaned close, softer than a breath. “He is not mortal, nor is he a god. He is something far, far worse.”
Two years after this, Grandfather vanished as well.
The fridge stayed stocked, the lights stayed on, but I was twelve years old and alone. Cooking for myself. Burning myself. Crying more than I wanted to admit. Everyone at school whispered I was wrong, broken, an omega without a scent. They called me names. They looked at me like I didn’t belong.
So I decided to prove them wrong. To prove I wasn’t weak. To prove that the man in my grandfather’s stories was real.
That’s how I ended up on the floor that night, dragging a heavy bowl of water across the room, clumsy hands spilling half of it, my drawings of moon phases smeared across the tiles. My heart was pounding so loud I thought the whole world could hear it.
I didn’t mean to summon him. I didn’t even know the words. I just wanted… someone.
And when the scissors slipped and my blood hit the water, I got more than that.
Kael Veyne appeared.
The most beautiful man I had ever seen. He was not frightening— gods could be frightening. But he was not a god. He was something more, something worse, I remembered that, and yet in his presence, I felt only calm. He held my face while I cried, wiped my tears away, and pressed a kiss to my forehead as he promised me that one day, he would return.
For years, I told myself he wasn’t real. That he was a figment of my grief.
But Kael had marked me from the moment his eyes met mine.
And I had no idea the chaos our union would bring— not just to me, but to the world as we know it.
