The palace gardens were closed to the public that evening. No servants walked the outer paths. No patrols passed the edge of the forest. And yet, Seraphina moved freely, her cloak trailing behind her like mist as she stepped off the stone path and into the soft grass where roses grew wild and untamed.
The moon had not yet risen.
But something was rising in her.
She felt it first in her skin—a tingling at the back of her neck, as though the air itself recognized her. The trees stood still. The night wind stopped moving.
And across the gardens, just beyond the last arch of stone, he was there.
Half-shadow, half-man. Unmoving.
Watching.
The Lykan King.
He didn't step forward. Didn't speak. He didn't need to.
She could see him clearly now. Not his face, not fully. But his shape.
He stood with the stillness of a predator, tall and broad like Kael—but more... feral. There was a violence in his silhouette, as though he had never learned to sit on thrones or speak in measured courtly tones. His shoulders bore no cloak, only furs, and his boots were dark with soil. A creature of the wild brought into the quiet garden of her waiting.
His presence didn't demand attention the way Kael's did.
It stole it.
Seraphina did not flinch. She simply tilted her chin, letting the soft starlight catch her cheekbones, her lips.
The king in the dark tilted his head slightly, like a beast who's caught a rare scent and is not yet sure whether it's prey—or prophecy.
She took a step toward him.
He did not move.
She took another.
Still, he watched her.
And then—just as she crossed the moonlit patch between them—he vanished.
Not with sound, not with speed.
He simply was no longer there.
Seraphina stood at the edge of the trees, staring into the dark. Her heartbeat was steady, but her blood was warm.
He had seen her.
Not just with his eyes—but deeper. As if he had known her before her body ever existed. As if his wolf had waited lifetimes to scent her again.
She stood there until the moon rose high and white behind her, washing her skin in silver.
"Let them come," she whispered into the dark. "Both of them."
Then she turned back toward the palace, feeling the invisible heat of two kings pulsing just beneath the surface of the night.
One ruled in gold.
The other ruled in silence.
But neither would rule her.
---
Kael Draven stood at the edge of the war room, jaw clenched, hands behind his back.
He hadn't slept.
The scent reached the city just after dusk—unmistakable, primal, older than borders or bloodlines. Earth. Smoke. Rain-drenched pine. Not carried by messenger. Not accompanied by a flag. Just there, like a silent declaration.
The Lykan King had arrived.
No envoy. No request for audience. No formal challenge.
Not yet.
Just presence.
Kael's generals whispered behind the thick stone doors. Courtiers feigned calm, but the tremble in the younger ones' scents betrayed them. The Eastern Realm had not seen a Lykan on its land in over twelve years—not since the last treaty was signed with fresh blood and barely buried corpses.
Kael turned sharply from the window. "He didn't send word. Didn't approach through the gates. No formal crossing."
The steward flinched. "He passed through the Black Pines, Your Majesty. On foot."
"Alone?"
The steward nodded once. "Yes, sire."
Kael's jaw flexed.
Lykans didn't come alone. They didn't need to. They were a pack within themselves—larger, stronger, instinctual, bound to a wilder law. A Lykan King walking into his court alone was not a courtesy.
It was a challenge.
Kael's eyes drifted to the map on the wall. Strategically, nothing had changed—yet. But beneath the stone and scrolls, something was shifting. In the rhythm of the land. In the mood of the palace.
And, most dangerously, in him.
Since Seraphina arrived, his wolf had not been still. It stirred beneath his skin at night. It pressed behind his teeth during council meetings. It watched her every move.
Kael hated the pull. Hated the way she stripped him of detachment without even trying. Hated the fact that she stood before him without submission, without fear.
And now this.
A second king. A second threat. A second set of eyes to see what Kael had begun to need.
Seraphina.
Kael moved through the stone corridor without another word. The guards didn't follow. They knew when the king walked like that—measured, tight—it was better not to speak.
He didn't know where he was going.
Until he was already standing outside her chamber door.
He didn't knock.
But he didn't enter, either.
He could smell her on the other side—clean skin, warm breath, something ancient curling around her like a spell. He closed his eyes for just a moment.
And that's when he felt it.
Not a physical presence, but a shift.
There was another scent now.
Wolf. Not his.
He opened his eyes.
The Lykan King had already reached her.
Somehow, Kael knew—she had let him.
He stepped back from the door, fists clenched at his sides, every part of him held together by thread.
This wasn't a political game anymore.
This was war.
Not over land.
But over her.
The moon hung low, swollen and silent, casting a silver sheen over the palace's eastern balcony. Seraphina stood barefoot beneath its light, her cloak discarded, her skin pale and bare to the night's cold breath. The stone beneath her feet remembered wars, prayers, and secrets—but tonight, it bore something new.
She wasn't waiting.
She knew.
He would come.
And he did—not from the hall, not from the doors. He emerged from the shadow between two stone columns, soundless. Like he'd always been there, simply choosing now to be seen.
The Lykan King.
He was not dressed in velvet or gold. His clothes were dark and practical, shaped to the body of a warrior, not a ruler. His arms were bare beneath a furred cloak, muscles roped and scarred from real battle—not ceremony. His presence wasn't sharp like Kael's. It was weight, slow and deliberate.
He stepped into the light.
And Seraphina saw him.
Tall, even taller than Kael, with dark brown hair falling loose around his face. His features were harsh, deeply cut, more beast than beauty. But his eyes—
Gods.
His eyes were silver. Not pale like hers, not gold like Kael's.
Pure silver, glowing faintly in the dark like the moon reflected in a still lake.
He did not bow. He didn't speak.
Neither did she.
She looked at him, and he looked at her, and the silence stretched like string pulled between two blades—tense, glittering, sacred.
Finally, she said quietly, "You shouldn't be here."
"I know," he said. His voice was low, raw, almost hoarse. Like stone grinding against stone.
"And yet you are."
He stepped closer. "I smelled you in the wind three nights ago. I tried to ignore it. Thought it was a ghost."
"It is," she replied. "A very old one."
Another step. "When I found you, I didn't recognize myself."
Another. "Not my body. Not my wolf."
His scent reached her now—wild pine, smoke, and winter. It curled around her like instinct. Like memory.
"You came here for something," she murmured, watching him carefully.
He shook his head once. "No. I came here because I couldn't stay away."
Silence again.
Then she asked, "Do you know what I am?"
He stared at her for a long moment.
Then, slowly, he nodded. "You're the beginning of the end."
She didn't deny it.
Instead, she took a step toward him, so close now she could feel the heat off his chest, the quiet quiver in the air where their skin almost touched.
"I'm not here to be claimed," she whispered.
"I didn't come to claim you," he murmured, voice nearly reverent. "I came to kneel."
Something ancient stirred in her bones.
And somewhere far above them, the moon dipped behind a cloud, as if it, too, was holding its breath.