Valerius
From the obsidian balcony, they look like pieces on a board. My board.
The great hall seethes below, a turbulent sea of ambition and fear. I can taste their emotions in the air, a metallic tang that always follows my opening address. It is a necessary poison. Fear sharpens the senses. Ambition drives the will.
My eyes, however, seek only one piece.
There. By a pillar, half hidden in shadow. Phoebe of Silent Creek.
Even from this distance, I feel her. A quiet thrum beneath the cacophony of the hall, a pull on my very soul that has been a constant hum since the day I first felt her presence awaken miles away. My mate.
She is smaller than I imagined. More unassuming. Her scent is of pine and clean earth, a wild, pure thing in this perfumed cage of power. She carries herself with a stillness that is at odds with the frantic energy around her. She is not frightened. She is focused.
I watch as the Stormfang pup, Kaelen, postures before her. His words are insults meant to wound, to diminish. He calls her a stray. A mouse. He has no idea he is mocking a slumbering queen.
My hand tightens on the cold stone of the railing. The primal urge to descend, to tear the throat from the arrogant child who dares to disrespect her, is a roaring beast in my chest. I leash it. Barely.
Kaelen is a tool. A crude, blunt instrument, but a necessary one. She must learn to deal with his kind. She must learn to break them.
Then the Sunstone Beta's son approaches her. Liam. His scent is open, his intentions seemingly kind. He offers alliance. She accepts.
I do not like the way he stands so close to her. I do not like the way she looks at him with a flicker of trust. A hot spike of possessiveness, ancient and absolute, drives into my heart. He is a temporary shield, nothing more. He will serve his purpose and then he will fade. She will need allies, for now.
My attention returns to her as I move from the balcony into the deep shadows of my private gallery. I watch her through a pane of enchanted glass that shows me not just the hall, but the currents of magic within it. I watched her when I made my entrance.
I felt the exact moment my gaze found hers. It was not a glance. It was a collision.
The bond, a silver thread that has connected us since my first awareness of her, ignited into a chain of molten fire. I felt the shock of it reverberate through her. I saw the confusion war with a deep, soul deep recognition she could not possibly understand. Her breath hitched. Her hand flew to her throat, to the empty space where the amulet should be.
Good.
The amulet. Her mother's moonstone. A beautiful, tragic miscalculation.
Her mother, desperate to protect her child from a power she did not understand, bound Phoebe's dormant abilities to that stone. It was meant to be a shield. Instead, it became a cage, suppressing the incredible lineage that flows through her veins. A lineage of illusion, of mind bending power that rivals my own.
She has no idea who she is. She thinks she is a simple Creek-pup, a nobody from the edge of the world. She has no idea she is the last descendant of the guardians who once protected this very territory, whose magic is woven into the foundation of my pack.
To awaken her, I had to shatter the cage. I had to take the key.
The theft was a regrettable but essential cruelty. I found a pack on the brink of starvation, their Alpha weak and their people desperate. The Silent Creek Pack was an easy target for them, a raid that would go unnoticed by the wider world. I offered them a future. A promise of food, of protection, of a place within my territory. All I asked for in return was a single, specific necklace. They did not know its significance, only its value to me.
They delivered. I kept my promise.
And I sent the invitation.
I knew her pack Alpha, the cautious and weary Marcus, would see it as a trap. He would urge her to stay, to remain silent and safe. I knew Phoebe, with her quiet dreams of a world beyond her woods, would be torn.
But the ransom note. That was the final move in the gambit. That was what would turn her grief into fuel, her caution into resolve. It was the only way to ensure she would come. The only way to force her onto the board where I could protect her, and where the crucible of the games could burn away her doubt and forge her into who she was always meant to be.
This is not a mere competition. It is an awakening. A violent, dangerous, and necessary becoming.
She needs to prove herself. Not to me. I have felt the steel in her soul from half a continent away. She must prove herself to the dozens of Alphas and heirs watching. They will not accept a Luna from a forgotten pack. They will not accept a mate they perceive as weak. They will see her as a vulnerability, a target. I must make them see her as a power equal to my own. They must learn to fear her as they fear me.
I watch her on the enchanted glass as she finds her quarters. She walks onto the balcony, ignoring the silks and the luxury I provided. She does not look at the glowing gardens or the shimmering architecture. She looks at the stars. The same stars that shone on her ancestors.
Her expression hardens. The soft girl is gone. In her place is a she wolf with a mission. The bait was taken. The trap is sprung.
My beast paces within me, demanding I go to her. Demanding I claim her, mark her, tell her everything. Tell her that the ache in her soul is the echo of the ache in mine. That the dizzying pull she feels is the universe trying to right itself, to bring its two halves together.
But I cannot. Not yet. To interfere now would be to rob her of her own victory. It would make her my prize, when she is destined to be my equal. She must walk this path herself. She must win. She must unlock her own power.
And I must watch, from the shadows, a silent guardian. This game will test her strength, her intelligence, her resolve. It will also test my control to its absolute limit.
I look away from her image and gaze out at the sprawling, moonlit territory of the Iridescence Pack. My kingdom. Soon, our kingdom.
The games begin at dawn. Let the culling commence.
I will not let her fail.
