Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by His Ruthless Father

The Wolf Beneath the Skin

That night, Lyra couldn't sleep.

She lay in the same bed she'd woken in hours earlier, staring at the stone ceiling, replaying the events of the day on an endless loop. The rejection. The attack. Kael's hands steady around her wrist in the dark tunnel. The way he'd stood between her and Selene without a moment's hesitation, like protecting her was simply instinct rather than decision.

She'd spent six years being invisible. Being protected by anyone, let alone the most feared Alpha alive, felt like a language she hadn't learned the grammar for yet.

A soft knock came at the door before it opened, and Kael stepped inside carrying a tray with tea and a small jar of salve.

"Your shoulder needs redressing," he said, setting the tray on the nightstand. "May I?"

She nodded, too tired and too sore to argue, and turned so he could access the bandage. His hands, for all their obvious strength, were gentle as he peeled back the old dressing and cleaned the wound beneath, his touch clinical and careful in a way that somehow made the moment feel more intimate rather than less.

"You should have run tonight," he said quietly. "In the tunnel. I told you to."

"I know."

"Why didn't you?"

Lyra considered the question longer than she meant to. "I've spent six years being someone nobody would fight for," she finally said. "I wasn't about to let the first person who did die alone in a tunnel because I ran."

Kael's hands stilled against her shoulder for a moment before resuming their work. When he spoke again, his voice had gone rougher.

"That was foolish."

"Probably."

"It was also," he admitted, so quietly she almost missed it, "the first time in a long time someone has fought for me instead of because they had to."

Something passed between them in the firelight, warm and dangerous and entirely inappropriate given who he was and who his son had been to her only hours earlier. Lyra felt her wolf stir beneath her skin, an unfamiliar warmth unfurling in her chest that had nothing to do with the fire and everything to do with the man kneeling beside her bed.

She told herself it meant nothing. She told herself it was simply gratitude, simply the aftermath of trauma making her cling to the nearest source of safety.

She didn't quite believe herself.

"Kael." His name felt strange in her mouth, too familiar for a girl who'd spent the day as a stranger in his house. "What am I to you? Really?"

He finished tying off the fresh bandage before answering, and when he finally met her eyes, whatever careful composure he usually wore had slipped, just slightly, revealing something raw underneath.

"Someone I have no right to want the way I'm starting to want you," he said. "And someone I intend to protect regardless."

Before Lyra could respond, a sharp knock at the door interrupted them, and one of Kael's guards appeared, breathless, his expression grim.

"Alpha," the guard said. "You need to see this. We found something at the edge of the territory."

Kael rose instantly, his expression shuttering back into the cold, controlled Alpha Lyra had first woken to. "What is it?"

The guard hesitated, glancing briefly at Lyra before answering.

"A body," he said. "One of Selene's rogue trackers. Someone got to him before we did, and they left a message carved into his chest."

"What message?"

The guard's throat worked before he answered.

"The Queen must not wake."