I was not supposed to want her.
From the moment I left the greenhouse, drenched in moonflower scent with her golden eyes seared into my skull, I understood that I had done something irrevocably wrong. It was not wrong in the way of a broken rule; it was wrong like a curse taking root, like a wildfire racing across dry woods and refusing to be contained.
I could not stop thinking about Raena Duskborn, the she-wolf with stormlight in her gaze and old scars laddering her hands. She was not mine, and she could never be mine. We were not merely different; we were forbidden in ways written into bone and blood.
Our packs had been at odds since before I was born. The Hollowmoor wolves, my bloodline, ruled the northern territories with silence and precision, valuing order and control above everything else. We did not take mates for love; we forged alliances like treaties, and my ancestors built dynasties rather than relationships.
Raena’s pack, the Ashfangs, embodied everything we were taught to fear.
They were wild and lawless, with tempers forged in coal-hot fire and loyalties sworn to the storm. Her grandfather had killed mine during a border skirmish that nearly shattered the entire region. I grew up on stories of blood feuds and vengeance wrapped in the ceremonial language of tradition. I was taught never to speak their names aloud and never to meet their eyes without expecting violence to follow.
Raena herself was the Alpha’s daughter, born from war and raised in rebellion, a walking and breathing reminder of what we were meant to destroy without hesitation. And yet my resolve began to fracture.
When I saw her in that greenhouse, I felt her as much as I saw her.
It was more than the brush of skin or the way her scent curled around my throat; I felt her rage, her sorrow, and her brutal control, as if she lived one second from shattering and still never permitted herself to fall. That was what I hated most: the way she looked at me like she wanted to scream and sob in the same breath, and yet refused to tremble.
Her voice did not shake even when mine did, and she refused to run when every instinct told her to flee. I could not stop thinking about her no matter how hard I tried.
I tried by training until every muscle throbbed with exhaustion, meeting with elders until their counsel turned to static, and sparring with betas until my knuckles ached from repetition. They paraded she-wolves before me, each one perfectly bred and perfectly willing to submit, as though compliance could ignite desire. None of them carried her wildfire. None of them smelled like mint and ash after summer rain. None of them haunted my hours the way she did.
When sleep would not come, I surrendered to the night and went walking. The woods behind Hollowmoor stood dense and familiar, wrapped in patient shadow and old silence. I had known every trail since I was a pup, yet tonight I refused the well-worn paths and let my feet decide. They carried me away from duty, away from tradition, and away from the comfortable lies I had swallowed since my first shift.
You are an Alpha of Hollowmoor; you do not bend, you do not burn, and you do not bond outside the bloodline. I repeated the mantra, but something inside me had already begun to bend, and the cracks only widened with every step. Perhaps the one breaking was simply me.
The moon hung low and pale, watchful as a sentinel, while the wind carried secrets through the trees with a voice I almost understood.
My wolf stirred beneath my skin, restless and pacing, its breath hot against my bones. Heat rose again in waves, because the cycle crept near, and everything always sharpened before the full moon—emotions honed to blades and instincts clawing for release. The night felt precarious in a way that promised consequences.
Raena was a danger sharpened to a point, and I knew that desire could cut deeper than any knife. Even so, I found that I could not turn back, at least not yet, not while the forest itself seemed to draw me forward.
That was when I heard it: a voice, low and unguarded, singing from somewhere deeper among the trees.
I stopped in the path and felt stillness settle over me like frost. The song rose like a lullaby pulled from the bones of the forest, drifting across the night like strands of silver smoke. It was the kind of sound that made the heart ache without understanding the reason. No one sang like that anymore, and certainly no one dared to sing so far within these woods. This was not a voice that belonged to just anyone.
I moved carefully, pushing through the branches while my breath stalled somewhere between my ribs and my regret. With each step the voice grew clearer—higher, sweeter, and lonelier—until I broke through the last line of alder and finally saw her.
Raena stood in the river with the water rising to her waist, and her skin caught the moonlight until she looked carved from starlight and cold flame.
Her dark hair tumbled loose and wet down her back, tangling where it met her shoulders. Those shoulders were bare and strong, gleaming with river water, and she was—gods have mercy on me—completely naked in the current.
My lungs forgot how to work, and the night sharpened around the edges as though it wished to hold its breath with me. She did not see me immediately, not while she sang to the sky as if the world could spin without her consent.
For one suspended heartbeat I forgot the blood feud, the laws, and the legacy that had been hammered into me since birth. I forgot everything except the person standing in the river and the impossible quiet that fell between notes.
I knew I should have looked away, because honor demanded restraint, yet I took one more step forward in spite of every commandment carved into my bones, and a hidden branch cracked beneath my boot.
She turned at once, and her eyes locked with mine across the water. In that instant the forest stilled, the river seemed to hush, and the entire world narrowed to the golden weight of her gaze.