Scarlett’s POV

My palms are slick against the champagne flute, the crystal so cold it burns.

I’ve heard the stories whispered in the healing academy corridors—Elias Knight, the Lycan who tamed three rogue packs with a single roar, who once made an Alpha kneel by staring him down for seven minutes straight until the man pissed himself in front of his own pack. Stern doesn’t begin to cover it. They say he can smell weakness the way sharks smell blood.

Killian’s hand presses the small of ...