Chapter 4 up

“Don’t move.”

His hand closed around my wrist before I could react. The contact was brief—just long enough to ignite the same heat as before. I drew in a sharp breath, not from pain, but from a recognition I refused to accept.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“Stopping you from making this worse,” Aethern replied coldly.

He pulled me toward the stone table at the side of the chamber, where ancient symbols were carved into an imperfect circle. The air was thick with the bitter scent of herbs. One by one, black candles were lit, their flames trembling as if uncertain they wished to exist.

“You’re going to sever it?” I asked. My voice almost carried hope—and that realization made me angry with myself.

“If I can,” he said. “Now be silent.”

He sliced the tip of his finger—not deep—and let his blood drip onto the carved stone. I held my breath. Alpha blood was never used for trivial rites. The pulse at my wrist intensified, answering a call that had not been spoken aloud.

“What’s the risk?” I asked.

“For you?” He didn’t look at me. “You could faint. Or forget. Or—”

“For you,” I cut in.

He froze. The candle flames flickered violently.

“For me,” he said quietly, “I could lose something that must never be lost.”

I didn’t ask what. The answer was frightening enough.

He began to chant in an ancient tongue—older than the palace itself, older than the laws carved into its foundations. The air pressed down on me. The symbols on the stone table grew warm. I bit my lip, fighting the sensation spreading from my wrist to my chest, like threads being pulled tight against my will.

“Stop,” I said when the room tilted.

“Not yet.”

“Aethern—”

His name escaped me without title. Without permission.

He flinched. His voice faltered for a single second—long enough for a fine crack to run through the circle with a soft, brittle sound. The candle flames dimmed, then flared again in the wrong color.

“Do not call me that,” he said, lower now, more dangerous.

Too late.

The heat exploded—not burning, but binding. My knees gave way. I collapsed, and he moved faster than I could see, catching me before my head struck the stone. For one suspended instant, I was held against him—

—and the world seemed to hold its breath.

We both went rigid.

His heartbeat thundered beneath my palm. Perfectly synchronized with mine.

“Let me go,” I whispered—not because I wanted to leave, but because I knew I should not stay.

He did.

Too quickly. As if afraid of what another second might bring.

“It can’t be severed,” he said at last, his control clearly strained. “Not this way.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, pulling myself upright with the table’s edge.

“It means…” He exhaled slowly. “We are bound.”

The word sounded like a sin on his tongue.

“Not fully. But enough to feel each other.”

I let out a short, bitter laugh. “So my clan truly sent you a mistake.”

“No,” he corrected sharply. “They sent a trigger.”

The door burst open. A guard rushed in and dropped to one knee. “Your Majesty. The Council of Elders has assembled. They demand answers. There are rumors—”

“I know,” Aethern cut in. “Seal the hall. No audience.”

“And the Omega?” The guard glanced at me.

Aethern stepped between us without hesitation. Instinctively. “She stays here.”

The guard swallowed. “The old laws—”

“—do not bind me,” Aethern finished. “Go.”

When the door shut, I realized something that stole my breath: he had not said the offering.

He had said she.

“You’ll protect me?” I asked quietly.

He studied me for a long moment. “I will control this.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Silence expanded between us.

“I will protect what becomes dangerous in their hands,” he said finally. “Including you.”

I nodded. That wasn’t a promise. It was strategy.

But as I turned toward the door, the pulse at my wrist flared again—warm, insistent, as if refusing to be denied. I stopped at the threshold.

“If this bond becomes complete,” I asked without turning around, “what happens?”

“War,” he answered without hesitation. “Outside—and inside me.”

I opened the door. “Then we share the same enemy.”

Behind me, I heard his breath hitch—just once.

The only sign that the cursed Alpha King was beginning to understand the truth he hated most:

This bond was no longer a weakness.

It was a threat.

And neither of us could walk away from it now.