Elara POV
Kaelen, the Alpha of the Shadow Fang Pack—a ruthless corporate tyrant and a bloodthirsty warlord—stood utterly still.
His golden amber eyes locked onto mine.
I saw his chest heave. I knew he was experiencing the exact same biological explosion.
The Moon Goddess, the creator of all werewolves, had designed this.
This was the Recognition. We were fated mates, two halves of the same soul destined to be together from the moment of birth.
Kaelen descended the rest of the stairs slowly, with the deliberate gait of a predator stalking its prey.
He stopped right in front of me. The cedar and dark chocolate scent was so intoxicating I felt an urge to bury my face in the crook of his neck.
He raised his large hand and roughly grabbed my chin, forcing my head up.
The moment his skin touched mine, a violent shock of pure electricity shot up my spine.
I gasped, my knees trembling from the intense pleasure of the mate bond.
But Kaelen did not smile. His eyes darkened with a pure, unadulterated hatred.
He leaned in, sampling the air around my neck.
His upper lip curled in disgust. He smelled the scent of the Blood Moon Pack on me, the scent of his sworn enemies.
Then, his eyes scanned my fragile frame, sensing my weak, pathetic Omega energy.
I saw the realization strike him. The Moon Goddess had given the most powerful Alpha in the country a useless, enemy Omega for a mate.
To a proud Alpha, this was the ultimate humiliation.
“Kneel,” he said.
His voice was a low, rumbling growl. He used the Alpha’s Command.
It was an ancient, primal vocal frequency that carried absolute authority. Lower-ranking wolves had no physical ability to resist it. It stripped away all free will.
My body moved on its own. The tendons in the hollows of my knees felt as if they had been severed, and the dull thud of my bones striking the marble floor reached my brain a moment before the pain.
Tears of humiliation welled in my eyes as I looked up at my fated mate from the ground.
“You think you can replace the bride?” Kaelen announced, his voice echoing through the silent hall for all his guards to hear. “This political marriage is a joke.”
He looked down at me as if I were a piece of refuse.
“You will never be my Luna. The Luna is the mother of the pack, an equal leader. You are nothing but a lowly prisoner.”
I felt something inside my chest cavity swiftly collapse, like an old leather lung being drained of its last breath, taking all my foolish hopes down with it into some deep and sunless water.
The guards seized my arms and dragged me toward a dark hallway, and the last thing I saw was Kaelen turning his back.
The message was clear: in his world, I was already a ghost.
