Draven – First Person POV---

I hadn’t slept.

Again.

I sat in my office, fingers pressed to my temple, trying to read the same sentence for the fourth time. A report from the southern border. Something about patrol rotations. It didn’t matter. None of it could hold my attention, not since she arrived.

I’d kept the door closed. Told Corra not to bring her to me. There was no need for introductions. No use pretending this was anything more than politics and prophecy.

But the silence in this house…

it wasn’t the same.It was heavier now. Watching me. Breathing with me.

No. Not silence. Her.

Her presence hummed through the walls like low thunder. My wolf, always lurking just beneath the surface, was more alert now. More alive. He paced inside me. Tense. Agitated. Listening for her.

It was unbearable.And familiar.

---

I closed my eyes, and without meaning to, I went back.To that night.

The blood. The screams. The girl.

I’d tracked the rogues by scent. I wasn’t even supposed to be there. It was just instinct, something primal that pulled me east of the river. I found her crumpled on the ground, bleeding, barely breathing.

And I lost control.

My wolf took over before I could stop him. He tore through the rogue like it was nothing. Then turned to her. She smelled like fear and moonlight and something else I still couldn’t name.

And I bit her.

Claimed her.

Not because I knew her. Not because I wanted to. But because my wolf did.

By the time I shifted back, she was gone.

I thought she had died. I didn’t look for her. I told myself it was better that way.

---

But now she was here.

That same scent calm and maddening had returned. It crept under the door, curled around my lungs, made it hard to think.

I stood suddenly, pushing the chair back hard enough to scrape the floor. I didn’t care. I needed air. Space. Something to get her out of my head.

I stepped into the hallway.

And stopped.

She was there.

Not far ahead, walking slowly, her hand brushing the wall like she didn’t belong to it.

She didn’t see me at first. But then she did.

She turned. Met my eyes.

And I… froze.

---

She looked exactly how I remembered her, only now I could see her fully.

Small. Pale. Fragile. But not weak.

Her eyes held something I didn’t expect. Not fear. Not awe.

Sadness.

She looked at me like I was a storm that had already passed through her.

And for a moment… I couldn’t breathe.

She was smaller than I remembered, standing in the glow of the hallway torch like something pulled from a memory I didn’t want to admit I had. Her hair was the color of dusk—soft, quiet, unremarkable to anyone else, but it caught the light like silver silk. Her posture was straight, but not proud. She wasn’t trying to impress me. She wasn’t trying anything at all. And that somehow made her harder to look away from. She didn’t bow. Didn’t speak. Just looked at me with those eyes,wide, steady, a little tired. Like she’d already lived through something I hadn’t seen. My wolf stirred, restless, wanting to close the space between us. But I held back. I always held back. Still… there was something about her, something I hadn’t expected. No scent of ambition. No false confidence. Just quiet, stubborn grace that didn’t ask for permission. She didn’t look like a Luna. She looked like a girl the Moon had shaped for someone else, and somehow sent to me instead.

The bond tugged at me then. Hard. Sharp. My wolf surged up so fast my fingers curled into fists.

Go to her.

Touch her.

Speak.

But I didn’t.

I did the only thing I knew how to do.

I turned my back and walked away.

---

Corra found me a few hours later in the war room. I was staring at the map of the territories, not seeing any of it.

“She arrived safely,” she said quietly.

I didn’t answer.

“You saw her, didn’t you?” she asked.

Still, I said nothing.

“She deserves to know why she’s here.”

“She knows,” I said flatly. “She’s not stupid.”

Corra stepped forward. “And you’re not heartless. So stop acting like you are.”

My jaw tightened. “I never asked for this. The Council forced it. The Moon forced it.”

Corra didn’t blink. “Whether you speak to her or not… the bond already has.”

She left before I could reply.

---

I stood in front of the mirror in my room later that night.

The same reflection I’d seen for years stared back cold, tired, marked by the crown and the choices that came with it.

But my eyes… they were different tonight.

They burned gold.

My wolf was close. Closer than he’d been in weeks. Clawing at the inside of me. Whispering her name.

I pressed my hand to my chest.

I could still feel her.

Not just the mark I’d left.

But her.

Her scent hit me before my eyes even found her, soft and wild, like crushed petals and pine after rain. It was faint, but it laced the air with the same heat that had overtaken me that night. I remembered the way she’d looked sprawled on the forest floor—bleeding, shaking, her breath shallow and quick. My wolf had surged forward, not to kill… but to claim. And I did. I didn’t see her face, but I remembered the taste of her skin, the way her body arched when my teeth sank in, the startled sound that left her lips. a sound I hadn’t stopped hearing since. I told myself it was instinct, a moment of madness. But now, standing just down the hall from her, with her eyes fixed on mine and her pulse fluttering like I could feel it in my own throat… it didn’t feel like madness. It felt like hunger. Like memory coming back to life. She looked at me, not with fear, but something worse, understanding. And I hated it. I hated how still she was. How my wolf went silent, watching her like she already belonged to him. I should’ve walked away the second I smelled her. But some part of me, the part I’ve fought to chain down for years, wanted to take that moment again and finish what I started.

---

I hadn’t meant to be in her territory that night. I hadn’t planned to leave my own borders. I was restless, angry, really. Calia had been pressing me again about making things official, and the council wouldn’t shut up about alliances, Luna rituals, bloodline heirs. I needed air. Needed to run. I shifted at the edge of my estate and let instinct guide me, not thinking, not caring. My wolf pushed east, across unfamiliar land, ignoring every warning in my head. Then I caught it,her scent. Faint at first. Sweet, earthy, fragile. It wasn’t fear that drew me in it was the purity of it. Like nothing had touched her yet. No war. No lies. No corruption. And then I saw her. Small. Cornered. Bleeding. There was nothing exceptional about her, and yet… she stunned me. She looked like prey, but didn’t beg. Her eyes were wide, but clear. She was terrified, but silent, like she knew even fear was a waste. When the rogue lunged for her, I didn’t think. I tore it apart like it had insulted me. And when I turned to her bood on my fur, breath shaking my wolf knew. She was his. Mine. I’d never felt it like that before. The need to mark. To touch. To bite. Not just to protect but to claim. I remember pressing my muzzle against her neck, her scent exploding into my lungs, and then my teeth found her skin. She gasped. Her body flinched. But she didn’t fight me. And when I pulled back… she was gone. I never saw her face. I convinced myself it had been nothing. That she had died. That it hadn’t meant anything. But now she’s here. And every time I breathe, I taste that night again like my wolf never let it go. Like I never did.

And that scared me more than anything.

Because I knew what it meant.

The Moon may have chosen her…

But I never did.