Vyra

My mouth clamped shut without any convincing.

The Alpha stalked forward, swallowing up the space I put between us in two easy steps.

I looked up at him, wondering how the fuck I could get out of this. He peered down at me, shifting from tundra cold to white hot within seconds, his upper lip curled back from his canines.

Of course, I figured he'd be angry if he found out that I snuck around. But this? Was he hiding something else in the dungeons?

Seren questioned, accused, and delivered my sentence all at once. "It was late when I realized you left your room. I stayed awake, thinking eventually you'd eventually return. Until you didn't. I tried to scent you but...you were gone. I went everywhere looking for you, I even woke up Titus. He couldn't pick up on anything. It was like you bloody disappeared."

Deflect. Deflect. Deflect. I couldn't let him know I cloaked my scent.

"I stay up late to read in the library often. Sometimes I'm unable to sleep and I roam the halls. I thought I wasn't a prisoner here." I played indignant, crossing my arms over my chest.

My nightgown shifted with the movement, and his attention slipped before snapping back.

"Why lie, Vyra?" He purred, looking absolutely vindicated to have caught me in one.

Does he know or not?

"I was in the library, reading. I'm telling the truth."

Seren laughed in disbelief, his head falling back as rested his hands on his hips. It drew attention to the V his lower muscles formed, and I chastised myself for even looking.

He's really fucking mad. I swallowed, my eyes falling to his obscenely sculpted torso once again. I willed my eyes to remain on his face.

"You're not. I couldn't find you. It's not-" He clenched his jaw and took a deep breath, calming a fraction. "Until I caught your scent, again at your friend's door. But you were no longer there."

I shrugged, my tone somehow convincingly impassive despite my internal struggle. "And?"

It was like adding wind to a wildfire. The fairly subdued male erupted in a string of curses, pacing around before swiveling back to me.

"And? In the middle of the night Vyra?" He threw his hands up, more expressive than I'd ever seen him in frustration. Preparing to defend my choice, I was shocked back into silence as he rambled, "Was it not days ago you yourself reminded me it's against the law to take a consort? Even if you have no loyalty to our code or our bond, what about Sonya? How would she fair catching you in his bed?"

He appeared so disgusted and deceived on her behalf, an inappropriately timed laugh bubbled up in my chest.

I slapped my hand over my mouth, suffocating it. His face paled, completely distraught over the supposed betrayal of my friendship.

My laugh escaped anyways, a bright sound. I couldn't find it in myself to stop, and only got worse when Seren became increasingly baffled.

"You find this funny? I thought you cared for your friends."

"Yes, because it's not true." I stopped giggling just long enough to wipe away a stray tear.

I haven't laughed like that in years.

"You've lied to me several times now. What is the truth?" My amusement died when he started towards my door. "I will pay Sonya a visit and tell her myself if you cannot."

"Fine." I quickly answered, desperate. I couldn't let him ruin their night because I didn't want to get caught in a lie. He stopped, trailing back to stand before me. I ignored my lapse in heartbeat. "You've got it all wrong here. I did something worse than what you suspected."

His brows furrowed in suspicion. "And that is?"

"I went to Petir's room to get the key for the dungeons. You were avoiding me and Titus would have to ask for permission, so I took it upon myself. We weren't, I-I wasn't-" Ducking my chin, I hid my flame-red face.

The Alpha drew closer, warming the front of my body.

"Then why is his scent right," Seren whispered, his fingers grazing under my chin and angling my face up for perusal. My body staggered at his touch, withdrawn from it for days, as his eyes honed in on my parted lips, "here?"

I remained frozen for those few moments, where he stared at my mouth without pretending to look elsewhere.

Seren was perceptive and elusive, he searched and gave nothing away of what he plundered.

Not tonight. There was a vulnerability that seeped from him like smoke, with his inability to hold back, his chaotic disposition when he barreled through my door. My eyes moved up his form, over veins and valleys, bronze and summertime.

At the end of my journey, I discovered silver birch withering. He was truly hurt by what he thought occurred tonight.

I didn't understand it, not for the life of me.

Affronted by the idea I would be okay betraying my friend, he reprimanded me on her behalf. He hadn't taken another woman since he found out I was his mate.

His words were harsh, his touch gentle. His actions and beliefs, open-minded, a docile rebellion staving off the violent reign of his father.

Who was Seren Umbra?

The fact I didn't know put me at a disadvantage. He had told me himself, to learn my opponent. To be unknown, would be a rival without weakness.

"If I was in his bed for hours, wouldn't his scent be everywhere?" I disputed, smacking his hand away from my chin. "Why do you even care at all?"

Without cutting out our beating hearts, we all but rejected the bond. Though the bond didn't like the idea of him and Mena, I wouldn't stop it, even if she wasn't with TItus.

Couldn't.

"It's agonizing." His eyes drew to my lips, offended. "It keeps me awake at night."

He never liked my scent. It wasn't a good enough reason for his behavior. Was it the bond making him possessive?

My foot tapped on the stone floor impatiently, "Shouldn't you be livid I went into the dungeons? What if I was plotting against you?"

"Do you want me to be?" Seren lifted his dark brow, taunting me. A true Lycan commander when he dealt me his threat, tone acidic. "Go into the dungeons again without my knowledge and I'll have you punished. From now on, Titus will stand outside your door so you can't leave at night. For any reason."

I ground my teeth together painfully, missing the taste of a certain person's blood filling my mouth. "Well, that isn't fair."

"I'm only giving you what you asked for." He took a step closer to me.

I followed him forward, voice raising sharply. We were lucky no one lived close beside us. "You haven't answered my question. Even though I wasn't, why do you care if I was with Petir? Or anyone for that matter?"

His expression coiled, preparing to strike to shield himself.

"You haven't answered me. It seems like we will both fall asleep to the torment of secrets between us." The Alpha turned away swiftly, shaking his head. Was he running away again? His muscles bunched along the entire built curve of his back, the endless of his shoulders. He mumbled gruffly, "goodnight Vyra."

He was halfway to the golden door that led to his room when I sprung into action.

"No, no! You don't just get to just leave." His face was bewildered when I blocked him, placed my hands on the center of his bare chest, and roughly pushed. Sheer shock had him falling back several steps. I didn't stop there. "You barged into my room, late into the night, like you have any right or reason to question me." I pushed him again, too vexed to be surprised he gave way.

"If I want to meet someone late into the night, I will. If I want to come back to my room covered in another Lycan's scent, I can." I used all the force my body could muster to throw him, not noticing the change in his gaze. His back hit the mantle of the fireplace, and I retreated. Breathless, I branded him with a glare. "If I want to have someone take me right in this room next to you, I will gladly do it. I am not yours, not as long as I fucking live."

Colors, objects, my sure-footing melted like wax across my vision as I was thrown by my waist against the mantle.

With a gasp, the air rushed from my lungs. The world dimmed as his body surrounded me, both of his hands resting on the mantel by my head. He leaned back into his hips so his face was level to mine.

My back flattened against the fireplace, gripping the walls frantically to find the small blade I'd placed in between the wooden trim, slipping it into the ties at the back of my nightgown. A contingency.

Moonlight rippled across his skin, turning him to marble. Shadowed, impossibly carved, and cold. His eyes glowed faintly, piercing my flesh and tearing through each layer I built up to keep him out.

"Make no mistake, Fatis Amare. It doesn't matter if I do not want you, nor you I. Against all odds, fate threaded our souls together in sacred union. We are mates," tilting his head to the side, he regarded every corner of my face, expression crumbling with finality, "you are mine."

He's lost his mind.

We remained close, his soft breaths causing loose strands of hair to flutter across my face. He regarded me so brazenly, bracing himself, and I stared resolutely back at him.

I am done with this mess. Alpha or not, life or death, bonded or bound. I am my own.

"No. You've been handed everything you've ever wanted, unable to fathom that someone as low as me doesn't want you; a young prince, given a shiny new knife he plans to discard, and is somehow confused he can't wield it. Why should I value our bond, when I have never been valued in this pack for a fucking thing?" I stuttered, my voice raspy with its plea, "must you take everything from me?"

Crazing this entire night, there were too many cracks to fill in with gold.

"Vyra, I don't want to-" The Alpha faltered, his arms going slack as he caught the moisture that threatened to spill from my eyes in the faint light. "Fuck. I don't know what I'm doing."

Silver wavering, the Alpha dithered at my display of despair. He let out a harsh breath, eyes downcast before rising and catching on something past my head.

Jolting back, he nearly wore the same expression on his face when I pushed him the first time. Haunted, broken. His tone, silky and thin, a spider's web. "You kept it?"

Looking at him always came with tragedy. I studied the fine lines, the scar above his lip that I gave him. Bones that shaped proudly from his nose, chin. Jaw whetted by adulthood, and graced by violence. A decadently shaped mouth, too provocative for a feared leader.

He narrowed his crystalline eyes at me, brows dark, and low, broadly angled. They added such a softness to his face, when he wasn't hell bent on acting ruthless.

It left my chest a hollow thing, ready to cave at the slightest push.

I wondered what he looked like when he was asleep, alone. If he was capable of consuming me whole.

What did he look like, when he saved me? When we were just children, and he was going against his beloved father's every wish to keep me alive?

Something thawed in me at the thought.

"It's the only thing out of pure kindness I've received. A small, beautiful thing that blooms in the dead of winter, persevering. It came from you, Seren, not Alpha Umbra." My mate. Those words never passed my lips, as spite burned bitterly in my throat, jilted by what could have been. "I shouldn't have. It was a facade, an offering for the grave you'll send me to."

He snapped, launching forward.

Bracing myself, I pointed my blade at his chest, hoping it wasn't the last thing I ever did.

The Alpha had his hand wrapped around the back of my neck, locking me in place.

He looked down first, a fervent smile creeping across his face. I thought in my haste, I must have dropped the knife.

I was surprised to look down and see the point of it stuck in his naked chest, dark red spreading from the wound and trailing like ribbon along the dips of his abdomen. My hand shook as his blood trailed to my fingers, the hilt slippery.

The silence swelled between us; the void after a lightning strike and the inescapable crack of thunder.

"What do you want from me, Seren?"

His eyes drifted back up to me, taking in my fear.

His touch went soft, silver eyes melting from ice to autumn rain, his fingers curling into the base of my hair and tugged. Gently, slowly.

My neck fell back, lips parting with astonishment. He inched closer, wrenching the knife with his free hand out of my own and let it fall to the ground and clatter.

Within seconds, he replaced the blade, spreading the long length of his body against the entirety of my front. Heat spread like flames from his flesh to mine, threatening to swallow me. Blood soaked my dress, making it sheer and stick to my skin. Every hard plane of his body fit into the soft contours of mine, like we were created to be intertwined.

I wasn't the only one who noticed.

He sharply focused on my mouth, his strong nose brushing against mine. His exhales became my inhales, I could no longer tell who was breathing, whose heart beat with ferocity, who was left bleeding.

Closer, and closer.

"Tell me no." The Alpha begged, on the brink of collapse. His hand tightened in my hair, craning my head further back so that my lips aligned with his. If he moved any closer...my heart plummeted to the ground. "Tell me you don't want this."

I should have pushed him away, told him he was crazy. Picked up that knife, and finished the job.

I think I lost my mind too.

"I can't." My voice echoed in the insignificant space between us, danced across his awaiting lips, doing more damage than a weapon ever could.

His face contorted, grimacing in pain. I thought he finally felt the wound, came to his senses, and would end me for my insolence.

Something far stranger, far more earth shattering occurred.

Seren kissed me.