KAELLEN
The war room was a maelstrom of controlled fury. Maps of the eastern border were spread across a massive oak table, their detailed topography scarred with angry red marks where Marius’s vampires had struck. My commanders, a dozen hardened Lycans with faces carved from stone and battle, stood in tense silence, their postures rigid with barely restrained aggression. The air was thick with the scent of ozone, old blood, and the raw, wild musk of wolves on the verge of shifting.
"They hit a civilian convoy," Ronan was saying, his voice a low, grim counterpoint to the crackling fire in the great hearth. "Three humans dead. Two more missing, presumed taken. It wasn't a random raid, Kaelen. It was a message. He's testing the Accords, seeing how far he can push before the Council officially intervenes."
I gripped the edge of the table, the hard wood biting into my palms. My knuckles were white. A cold, clear rage filled me, a familiar and welcome armor. This was a world I understood. This was a language I spoke fluently: strategy, territory, retribution. Out there, on the border, things were simple. There was an enemy, a threat, and a clear, violent solution.
But the rage was a thin veneer over something else. Something chaotic and hot that churned in my gut, a persistent, distracting hum beneath the cold clarity of my tactical mind. It was the bond. It was her. Iris.
Through the tether that now linked our very life forces, I could feel her. It was a constant, low-level static, a psychic itch I couldn’t scratch. I had felt her shock and pain when Isolde had made her move. A sharp, piercing agony that had lanced through me in the middle of Ronan’s report, so intense it had almost made me stagger. It was a violation, an attack on my bond-mate, and the primal, possessive part of my Lycan nature had risen up with a snarl, demanding I go to her, tear apart the source of her pain.
But the Alpha King, the strategist, had overruled the beast. The border attack took precedence. A threat to my people was a threat to my throne. A personal slight could wait. Or so I told myself. The truth was, I didn’t know how to face her. I didn’t know how to face the raw, untamed need she had unleashed in me with a single, accidental touch. The memory of her body pinned against the wall, the scent of her—honeysuckle and rain, a maddening, intoxicating combination—the feel of her trembling against me… it was a weakness. A vulnerability I could not afford.
"We double the patrols," I commanded, my voice a low growl that cut through the tension in the room. "No single units. All travel in packs of four or more. Ronan, you will take a contingent and track the missing humans. I want to know if they’re alive or dead. I want to know where they’re being held. Do not engage. Find their nest. Report back."
My commanders nodded, their expressions grim but resolute. They were my brothers, my pack, and they understood the language of violence without question. They were simple. Honest.
She was not.
As the meeting broke and my men filed out to carry out my orders, I remained at the table, staring down at the map but not seeing it. My mind was back in my chambers, with the witch who had turned my world upside down. The rules. I had given her the basic, crude version, but it wasn't enough. She was a creature of will and defiance. Simple commands would only inspire more rebellion. I needed to be precise. I needed to break her. Not physically, but mentally. To strip away her sarcasm and her independence until all that was left was the raw, powerful magic I could wield, and the compliant bond-mate the Council required.
It was a sound, logical strategy. The only strategy that made sense.
I left the war room and walked the familiar stone corridors of my stronghold. Every torch I passed, every guard who bowed his head, was a reminder of my duty, my responsibility. I was Alpha King. My life was not my own. My desires were a liability. And my desire for her was the most dangerous liability of all.
When I reached my chambers, the heavy oak door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open, my senses immediately on high alert. The room was empty. The fire in the hearth had been built up, casting a warm, flickering glow over the dark wood and furs. On the floor, near the hearth, was Isolde’s discarded shirt, a small, venomous piece of theatre I would deal with later. The balcony doors were open, the night air billowing the sheer curtains inward.
I found her there, standing on the stone balustrade, a slender figure silhouetted against the moon-drenched valley. The wind whipped her dark hair around her face, and she gripped the cold stone, her posture rigid with a tension I could feel through the bond as clearly as if it were my own. She looked like a gargoyle perched on the edge of a precipice, defiant and beautiful and utterly alone.
For a moment, I just watched her. I saw the woman in the Council Hall, proud and defiant even in chains. I saw the woman in my arms, her body arching with a mixture of pain and pleasure that had shaken me to my core. And I saw the woman Isolde had tried to poison with her lies, a vulnerability that made my protective instincts roar to life with a ferocity that terrified me.
I pushed the instincts down. They had no place here.
"Enjoying the view?" I asked, my voice cold and hard, deliberately breaking the silence.
She flinched, a small, almost imperceptible movement, but she didn't turn around. "It's a cage. No matter how pretty the view, it's still a cage."
"It's the safest place for you right now," I said, stepping out onto the balcony beside her. The night air was cold, but the heat radiating from her was a tangible presence, a constant, siren call to the beast within me.
She finally turned to face me, and the sight of her almost made me take a step back. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but they were dry. There were no tears. There was only a cold, hard fire in their depths, a banked flame of anger and humiliation. Isolde’s poison had done its work, but not in the way the Fae had intended. It hadn't broken her; it had forged her resolve into something sharper, more dangerous. She looked at me not as a victim, but as an adversary.
"Safe from whom? Your vampires? Or your ex-lovers?" she shot back, her voice laced with a sarcasm that was so sharp it could cut glass.
I felt a flash of my own anger. "Isolde's actions were her own. She will be dealt with."
"Will she?" Iris challenged, taking a step closer to me. The space between us crackled with unspoken tension. "Or will you just let her keep playing her little games? Leaving her… laundry… around for me to find?"
The jab was meant to wound, and it did. But I would not show it. I was the Alpha King. I did not bleed for witches or Fae. "This is not about Isolde. This is about you and me. And the rules of your new life. It seems my initial instructions were insufficient."
She let out a short, bitter laugh. "Oh, goodie. More rules. Do they get more creative? Or is it still just 'obey me in all things'?"
"Rule one," I said, my voice dropping to a low, menacing growl, ignoring her taunt. "You will not leave this stronghold without my explicit permission and an escort. The bond prevents you from leaving my immediate vicinity, but I do not trust you not to cause trouble within these walls."
"Cause trouble?" she scoffed. "I've been here less than a day and the only trouble I've seen is the one you and your… past… have dragged to my door."
"Rule two," I continued, stepping into her personal space, forcing her to back up against the balustrade. I needed to see her flinch. I needed to reassert my dominance, to remind myself which one of us was in control. "You will not engage with Isolde. You will not speak to her. You will not react to her. If she approaches you, you will walk away. She is a non-entity to you."
Her chin lifted, her eyes flashing with a defiant fire that was both infuriating and, damn her, intoxicating. "Or what? You'll punish me? You've already done that. Your bite on my neck is a pretty constant reminder of who's in charge here."
The mention of the bite sent a jolt through the bond, a hot, sharp spike of awareness that was echoed in her own sudden intake of breath. She felt it too. The memory. The pleasure. The shame. It was there between us, a third, volatile presence in our conversation.
"Rule three," I said, my voice rougher now, the control I was fighting for beginning to slip. I leaned in closer, my face just inches from hers. I could see the fine tremor in her lower lip, the rapid pulse beating in the slender column of her throat. "You will not perform any magic without my supervision. Your power is volatile, untrained. It is a weapon, and you are a child playing with a loaded gun. You will not risk my people, or this stronghold, with your recklessness."
"My recklessness?" she hissed, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. "I'm not the one who started a war over a broken treaty from a century ago! I'm not the one who bound a person to him against her will! Don't you dare talk to me about recklessness!"
Her anger was a palpable force, a wave of heat that washed over me, feeding the embers of my own desire. This was what Isolde could never give me. Not just submission, but a challenge. A fire to match my own. The thought was a betrayal, a weakness, and it made my anger burn hotter.
"And the final rule," I snarled, my control finally shattering. I reached out and grabbed her arm, my grip tight on her soft skin. I needed to hurt her, to push her away, to remind us both what this was. "You will not lie to me. About anything. Your past, your magic, your intentions. The bond will know. And if I sense a lie from you, the punishment will make Isolde's little games feel like a lover's caress."
Her eyes widened, not with fear, but with a fresh wave of fury. She tried to yank her arm free, but my grip was like iron. "Let go of me."
"Or what?" I mocked, my voice low and dangerous. "You'll cast a spell? Go ahead. Show me this recklessness you deny."
For a moment, I thought she would. I felt a surge of power build within her, a chaotic, uncontrolled burst of raw energy that tingled against my hand. Her eyes glowed with a faint, silver light. The air around us grew heavy, charged. She was going to do it. She was going to attack me.
But then, something shifted in her gaze. The raw, unthinking fury was replaced by a cold, calculating intelligence. She saw the trap. She saw that attacking me would only prove my point. It would justify my rules, my control. She stopped fighting, her body going still in my grasp. The power receded, sinking back beneath her skin.
"No," she said, her voice suddenly quiet, but laced with a steel that was far more dangerous than her shouting. "I won't give you the satisfaction."
She looked me straight in the eye, her gaze unwavering. "You want a compliant pet, Kaelen? You want a weapon you can point and shoot? You've bound yourself to the wrong witch. I will not be cowed. I will not be broken. You can lock me in this room, you can set your rules, you can brand my skin. But you will never own my mind. And you will never own my soul."
It was the most defiant thing I had ever heard. It was a declaration of war, spoken not with a shout, but with a quiet, unshakeable resolve that hit me harder than any physical blow could have. For the first time, I wasn't looking at a captive, or an asset, or even a convenient political tool. I was looking at an equal. A queen in her own right, even if she didn't wear a crown. And the realization was terrifying.
I let go of her arm as if I'd been burned, stepping back to put a safe distance between us. The night air felt suddenly cold against my overheated skin. My carefully constructed strategy, my neat little plan to control her, had just been shattered by a few well-chosen words. She hadn't used magic. She had used her mind. And she had won this round.
I turned away from her, staring out at the moonlit valley, struggling to regain the icy composure that was my shield and my weapon. I could feel her eyes on my back, a physical weight. The bond hummed between us, no longer a simple tether, but a complex, volatile battlefield of wills.
"The rules stand," I said, my voice rough, devoid of the cold authority I had wielded moments before. I sounded… tired. And that was a weakness I could not afford to show. "Learn them. Live by them. It will make both our lives easier."
I didn't wait for a reply. I couldn't. If I stayed in her presence a moment longer, I didn't know what I would do. The urge to crush her, to claim her, to break that defiant spirit and remake it in my own image was a physical ache, a hunger that warred with a new, equally powerful impulse: to see what she would become if I let her shine.
I walked back into the room, leaving her alone on the balcony. I didn't look at Isolde’s shirt. I didn't look at the bed where I had almost lost all control. I went to the small, concealed bar in the corner of the room and poured myself a glass of whiskey, the amber liquid a cheap substitute for the control I had just lost.
I brought the glass to my lips, my hand surprisingly steady. I could still feel her on my skin, hear her words echoing in my mind. *You will never own my mind. And you will never own my soul.* She was right. The bond owned our bodies, their needs, their pains. But it couldn't own a will that strong. And for the first time since this whole nightmare began, a chilling thought pierced through my rage and my frustration.
What if I was the one who was caged?