"Rain Stabler, daughter of the fallen Stabler family, once the betas of Gorion City?"
The old woman’s voice rang sharp and cold, cutting through the suffocating air. She looked down her nose at me, her sharp features carved with disdain.
"Yes, Madame," replied the delta at my side. His tone was clipped, devoid of warmth. "She is fit to be your son’s wife. This arrangement will serve its purpose."
The woman’s upper lip curled as she studied me with thinly veiled disgust. Beside her, her husband’s gaze bore into me, more calculating than cruel. I could feel the weight of their scrutiny, every glance a judgment. Fear crawled up my spine as I thought of their son—the beast I would soon be bound to. Yet something deeper, darker, warned me that rejection would be far worse than the fate awaiting me in that tower.
"Cursed blood," the old man muttered. His lip twitched with contempt. "Why bind our line to another weakling? Why pair one cripple with another?"
His words burned.
The woman’s eyes flashed in anger which shocked me.
"Alaric is not weak!" she spat.
"Then where is he now?" the old man roared. "Locked away! Hiding! Ever since he turned four, he has brought nothing but shame on this house!"
With a ferocious snarl, he hurled his goblet against the marble floor. The shattering glass echoed like gunfire, and I flinched. His hand shot out, pointing at me, a trembling finger full of malice.
"Take her. Marry her to Alaric. And if this fails," he threatened, "I will kill him myself and be done with this curse!"
A tremor raced through my body, my knees threatening to give way. I felt the walls closing in, my breath shallow. But the woman’s sudden movement drew my eyes—so swift it was almost supernatural.
Before I could react, she was in front of me.
Her eyes glowed red.
Red. Not the golden hue of our kind. But… we’re Lycans…
A sharp gasp escaped my lips, my heart thundered against my ribs. My mind raced with the impossible truth. Lycan eyes don’t turn red. She is cursed, too.
Or perhaps I was hallucinating.
"You’ll never obey my son," she hissed. "You will never listen to his temptations. You will never break the rule. If you do…" Her nails dug into my arm. "You will die. And death, girl, is not an option. I need you alive. My son will not survive if you die. Do you understand?!"
Terror swelled in my chest. The delta at my side shifted.
"You have no choice, Miss Stabler," he whispered. "Death or servitude. Risk your life, or lose it now."
The silence followed us as the shaman and I crossed the forest. The path grew darker with each step, the trees twisting into shapes like grasping hands. Wind howled between the trunks, a mournful, haunting sound. I felt the weight of unseen eyes.
We stopped at a door of ancient stone, cold and unmoving. The shaman placed her hand on the carved surface.
"Listen closely," she murmured. Her eyes glimmered with warning. "The creature within is cunning. When I bind your soul to his, his blood will crave you. He will want you. Do not yield to him."
Her words burned into me, heavy as iron.
"Temptation is death."
Every step up the spiral staircase felt heavier than the last. Shadows thickened, pressing in around me. The air turned cold. My breath hitched as something sharp scraped my neck.
I reached up, my fingers brushing the wet warmth of my own blood. A thin crimson thread floated from my wound, twisting, shimmering in the darkness. It stretched forward, reaching…
I stopped.
At the center of the room lay a bed carved from stone, draped in dark velvet.
He was there.
Naked but for a thin cloth at his waist, his chest rising and falling with a rhythm far too slow. His body was a vision of impossible perfection, carved muscle and golden skin. But a darkness hung over him, a terrible, suffocating power.
A wound on his wrist dripped with blood. It joined with mine, a glowing red thread that pulsed between us.
A voice—deep, commanding—filled my mind.
"Help me!" it cried. "Wake me, mate. Free me from this prison!"
I clutched my head, shaking. The voice was everywhere, a desperate, suffocating plea.
"I need you," it groaned. "I need to see you. To hold you. To kiss you."
Terror gripped my heart. My lips trembled.
"Kiss me," the voice whispered again, low and sinful.
I clenched my fists, refusing the lure. My heart may have been broken by Aidan’s betrayal, by August’s coldness—but my first kiss, my virginity, would never be for this… beast.
"Who are they?" the voice roared. A growl, vicious and furious tore me. "Who are the men who fill your thoughts when you are mine?"
My breath caught. He could hear me.
"Let me rise, mate," he snarled. "Let me tear them apart. I’ll end them both."
“But you’re cripled. You’re weak!” speak my mind.
My legs buckled beneath me.
"You don’t understand. I’m no mere wolf."
A cold, dark smile filled his laughter.
"I am hybrid," he hissed. "Lycan and vampire. I kill with claws or with fangs. Choose your poison.”
I couldn’t breathe. My body shook with the truth of it.
That’s why they called him a beast.
And that’s why every woman before me had died tragically.
