The road to the capital was lined with ash trees, bare and brittle from the early frost, their limbs clawing at the morning mist like skeletons begging to be remembered. Seraphina didn't flinch as the wind cut through the wool of her cloak. She walked barefoot, her feet silent against the cracked stones, leaving no trace but a faint silver glow in her wake—visible only to those who believed in old gods.
They said she was blessed. Others said cursed. She was both. She was omega, yes—but not the kind bred for submission or softness. She was of the Moonblood line, born under an eclipse, marked with a crescent at the nape of her neck and silence in her soul.
No guards accompanied her. No horses, no servants. Just her.
The great gates of Highcourt loomed ahead, carved with iron wolves and moons stacked like a forgotten calendar. The soldiers who stood at the post stiffened when they saw her approach—slow, unbothered, head high. One reached for the hilt of his blade.
She raised her hand once.
And the wind around them stilled.
"Name and purpose," the other barked, though his voice trembled.
"Seraphina," she said simply. Her voice was low and lyrical, like something remembered from a dream. "I was summoned."
The soldier looked down at the parchment in his hand—her name was there, scrawled by the king's scribe, underlined twice. No title. No house. Just that: Seraphina.
The gates creaked open.
Inside the capital, the world was already stirring. Merchants shouted about spices and silk. Alphas and betas paraded their mates on polished leashes. Courtiers whispered beneath veils. But none of them mattered. Her presence made heads turn, conversation drop, wolves inhale as if catching a scent they couldn't name but couldn't forget.
A heat curled in the air—not sexual, not primal. Sacred.
By the time she reached the palace steps, her presence had been felt by every highblood in the city. Even the king himself.
Behind the tower window, Alpha King Kael Draven leaned forward. He couldn't see her clearly, not from this height. But something in his blood stirred. His wolf, long quiet beneath the armor of crown and control, twitched awake.
He didn't yet know her name.
But already, he wanted her.
---
The grand hall stilled the moment she stepped inside.
Seraphina's entrance wasn't loud, nor gilded in fanfare. But it made the palace feel suddenly too small. She moved like smoke—unhurried, intangible—trailing behind her a hush that made seasoned betas fidget and noble-born omegas drop their eyes.
From the dais, Alpha King Kael Draven stood.
He didn't mean to. His body rose before his mind could tell it not to, as if recognizing something older than pride, older than protocol.
He had summoned her. But now that she was here, he couldn't quite remember why he believed he'd be the one in control.
She walked alone—no guards, no matron to vouch for her rank. Just a cloak the color of storm-soaked ash, and the mark of the moon at the nape of her neck, partly hidden by her braid. The royal hall had never felt so still.
He had read the reports:
A girl in the Northern Province who healed a pack's wounded Alpha with nothing but her hands.
A seer who whispered her name in sleep.
A child of the Moonblood line.
Impossible, Kael had thought.
And yet here she was.
"Seraphina," he said, tasting the name like it might bite him back. "You were summoned. And you've arrived without escort. Why?"
"I don't need an escort," she replied, calm and soft, but not submissive. "Your summons wasn't a threat."
Around them, murmurs stirred like wind through dry grass.
Kael descended the steps, slow and composed, though something in him—the wolf part—was pacing. Her scent wasn't overtly arousing, wasn't cloying like most omegas. It was barely detectable.
But it pulled.
It was as if the scent had buried itself in his bones and was now echoing there.
He stopped before her, studying every detail: the high arch of her cheekbone, the paleness of her eyes, the perfect stillness of her breath. She did not bow.
"What are you?" he asked.
"A mirror," she answered. "Look long enough and you'll see what you are."
His wolf stilled at that. Not bristling. Not growling.
Waiting.
Kael had summoned her under the guise of protection, of political interest. But the truth had never left him: fertility in the capital had waned. Omega heats were becoming erratic. Packs were unraveling. Something sacred was breaking in the bloodlines, and the people could feel it.
So when the seer had spoken her name—Seraphina—and the scrolls had matched it to an extinct bloodline, Kael had ordered her brought here. Quietly. Before another kingdom did.
She wasn't just rare.
She was essential.
And possibly catastrophic.
He turned to his steward without looking away from her. "Prepare a wing. Private. No staff. No attendants."
A gasp cut through the courtiers.
Kael ignored them.
He wasn't sure whether he wanted to keep her as an ally or a prisoner. But one thing was certain—he wouldn't let her out of his reach. Not now. Not when his instincts were whispering the same thing his ancestors once bled for:
This omega was the beginning of something dangerous.
She turned and walked toward the arched corridor, her feet silent against the marble.
And Kael watched her go, every inch of him aware that something irreversible had just walked into his kingdom.
He hadn't just summoned an omega.
He had summoned a goddess.
---
The corridor that led to her private wing was quiet, too quiet for a palace known for its endless footsteps and clashing voices. The silence wasn't emptiness—it was intentional. Designed. Protective.
Or maybe isolating.
Seraphina paused before the ornate silverwood door. The lock clicked open without her touch. As she stepped inside, she noted everything at once: the untouched fire in the hearth, the decanter of wine left unopened, the silk sheets turned down with unnatural precision.
No scent. No warmth.
The room had not been lived in, just prepared.
She crossed to the window, where the palace grounds rolled out like a chessboard of power: watchtowers, guard wolves, council halls. From here, everything looked orderly. Peaceful.
But the wind told another story.
It carried the scent of tension. Of something coming.
Seraphina closed her eyes and rested her palm against the glass.
She had not come here just because of the summons. She had not obeyed the king's will—not truly. She had come because the visions had grown louder. Her blood had begun to stir weeks ago, her dreams flooded with a voice that didn't speak in words but in pull.
Something wanted her here.
Something old.
And now that she was here, the air around her felt alive with watching eyes—some mortal, some not.
She turned her head slightly, feeling it: the prickle of being observed.
Not from within the palace.
From beyond the wall.
Far off, hidden behind the veil of the forest shadow, someone—something—was watching her.
A wolf.
Not Kael.
Older. Wilder.
She opened the window. The scent hit her hard—raw forest, storm-soaked fur, and something darker: command without words.
Lykan.
The Lykan King had arrived.
Not announced. Not escorted. Not summoned.
He had come of his own will.
And somehow, she knew: he had not come for the throne.
He had come for her.
Seraphina shut the window softly and turned back toward the bed. She sat, spine straight, gaze steady.
They would both come.
Kael. The Lykan King.
And when they did, neither would leave unchanged.