Chapter 1: And When The Wolf Remembers
“Who the hell let this ragged trash through my gates?”
Lira’s voice cut through the feast like shards of glass, sharp and loud enough to silence every laugh and clink of glass in the hall. She leaned into Kael’s side, fingers curled tight around his bicep like she was staking a claim right there for everyone to see, her chin tilted high, that fake sweet smile she’d copied right off me pulling at her lips.
I stopped dead in the doorway, one hand resting light on the hilt of my blade, the other hanging loose at my side, and laughed low and cold. The sound bounced off the stone walls, rough and unapologetic, nothing like the soft polite tone I used to keep for pack meetings. “Your gates? Last I checked, you don’t own nothing you didn’t steal from someone better. Not this hall, not that crown, and definitely not the man standing next to you.”
The whole room went dead still. Guards shifted their weight, hands drifting to the hilts of their swords. Servants froze mid-step, cups hovering in the air. Kael sat up straighter on that carved obsidian throne, broad shoulders tensing under his black leather coat, and his eyes locked right on mine—first sharp with anger, then confused, then something darker, hungrier, that made the hair on my arms stand up straight.
“You got some nerve rolling up in my territory talking like that,” he rumbled, voice deep and rough as gravel under heavy boots. He stood up slow, every movement heavy and deliberate, that cedar-and-wild-musk scent rolling off him thick enough to taste on my tongue—familiar, burning, the same smell that used to cling to my sheets, my skin, my throat long after we’d fallen asleep tangled together. “State your business before I have you thrown out in pieces. Or worse.”
“My business is with the man who forgot every vow he ever swore,” I shot back, stepping slow into the firelight so they all saw the jagged pale scar splitting my jaw, the worn leathers scuffed from a hundred fights, the look in my eyes that said I ain’t got nothing left to lose and everything to take. “And with the little rat sitting next to him wearing clothes and crowns and a face she copied off the person she stabbed in the back.”
Lira’s face twisted ugly, nails digging into Kael’s arm hard enough to leave marks. “You dare speak to the Luna like that? You don’t know who you’re messing with, stray. You don’t know who you’re talking to.”
“I know exactly who I’m messing with,” I said, tilting my head slow, and I saw Kael flinch like I’d struck him right across the jaw. “I know exactly what she took. Exactly who taught her every trick, every strike, every way to lie and look innocent while you do it. I know exactly who pulled her out of the gutters and gave her every chance she ever had.”
Kael started walking down the steps, slow and heavy, every step vibrating through the stone floor right up my boots. He didn’t take his eyes off me for one second, like he was trying to pull a memory out of thin air, like he knew my face but couldn’t place where he’d seen it. When he stopped just a foot away, heat rolled off him in waves—hot, familiar, burning right through my clothes to my skin, making my pulse jump fast and sharp against my ribs.
“Look at me,” he ordered, voice rough with something he couldn’t name, something that sounded like fear and longing all tangled up. “Look me in the eye and say that again. Say it slow.”
I held his gaze steady, didn’t blink, didn’t back an inch. “You heard me, Alpha. You let a thief take everything that was mine. Everything that was yours. You let her stand where I was supposed to stand, wear what I was supposed to wear, hold what was only ever meant for me.”
His jaw tightened so hard I saw the muscle jump under the stubble along his jawline. He leaned in close, breath hot and sharp against my ear, smelling of whiskey and wild wolf and all the nights we’d snuck out to run the woods bareback, drunk on each other and the moon. “Why does it feel like I already know you? Why does looking at you make my chest ache like I’m bleeding out slow? Why does every word you say feel like something I should have heard a long time ago?”
Before I could answer, Lira stormed down the steps and grabbed his arm hard, yanking him back half a step. “Kael! Don’t listen to her—she’s just some nobody scavenger looking for trouble! She’s lying! Guards—seize her! Now!”
Two big wolves stepped forward fast, hands reaching for my arms. I didn’t flinch. I just shifted my weight easy, blade flashing out half an inch so fast they didn’t even see me move, cold steel pressing light right to the lead man’s throat, right over his pulse point.
“Touch me and you lose the hand,” I said, calm as anything, no shake in my voice at all.
Kael barked out a sharp, shocked order and they froze mid-step, hands hovering in the air. He looked at the way I held that blade—wrist turned just so, stance light and deadly, weight balanced perfectly so I could strike or spin or run before anyone even blinked—and his eyes went wide, all the color draining out of his face.
“That stance…” he breathed, like he was talking to a ghost he’d thought was gone forever. “Only one person ever fought like that. Only one person ever held a blade that way.”
“Then you’re smarter than you look,” I muttered, sheathing my blade slow, never breaking eye contact.
He took a step closer, hand lifting like he wanted to touch my face, like he was drawn in against his will, then stopped like he was scared I’d burn him to ash. His fingers twitched at his sides, pupils blown black and huge, swallowing almost all the gold in his eyes, and I felt that old bond thrum deep in my bones—hot, wild, starved, screaming that it was me, it was always me, even when he’d let them make him forget.
“What’s your name?” he asked, voice wrecked, rough like he’d been screaming for days.
I smiled cold, sharp, and deadly, leaning in just enough that our breath tangled together.
“The name you don’t remember yet… but you’re gonna beg to say before I’m done.”
I tilted my head, letting my voice drop low and rough, only for him to hear.
“And you better hold on tight, Alpha. ‘Cause I ain’t here to walk away quiet this time. I ain’t here to let you forget me again.”
Just then Lira screamed and lunged at me, claws bared, eyes wild with rage—
[END OF CHAPTER 1]
