Theron
Fifty years. Fifty years of a beast clawing at the inside of my ribs. Fifty years of a ceaseless, grinding roar in my skull. Sleep is a forgotten country I was exiled from long ago. My world is gray, a landscape of duty and guilt, each day bleeding into the next, marked only by the slow decay of my own sanity.
Then she steps out of the trees.
And for the first time since the Goddess cursed me, there is quiet.
The beast in my chest stops clawing. The fifty-year roar in my skull fades to a whisper. It is so sudden, so absolute, that I stumble a step back. My Royal Guard, Darius, puts a steadying hand on my arm.
“My King?” he asks, his voice low and concerned.
I don’t hear him. I can’t hear anything but the sudden, shocking silence in my own mind. My eyes are locked on her. A woman. A warrior. She stands behind the aging Alpha of this forgotten pack, her chin high, her hand resting on the hilt of a knife. Blood stains the side of her leather tunic. Her hair is the color of dark earth, braided back from a face that could have been carved from the mountain itself. Fierce. Unyielding.
And so painfully familiar.
Lyanna.
The name is a shard of glass in my throat. My wolf, a creature of endless rage and sorrow, stirs for a different reason. He doesn’t howl in grief. He… settles. He lifts his head, sniffing the air, a low hum of something akin to contentment vibrating through me. A feeling I had forgotten existed.
It can’t be. Lyanna is dead. I watched the light leave her eyes. I held her body until it grew cold. This is a trick. A new, exquisite torture from a cruel Goddess who is not yet finished with me.
Alpha Lycus of the Crescent Fangs steps forward, bowing his head in a gesture of reluctant respect. “King Theron. You honor our territory with your presence, though the circumstances are grim.”
I tear my eyes from the woman, forcing myself to focus on the Alpha. The effort is monumental. With my gaze off her, the roar begins to creep back in, a distant thunder. My jaw clenches.
“Alpha Lycus,” I say, my voice rougher than I intend. “The blight respects no borders. It poisons your lands as it does mine. I did not come for honor. I came for answers.”
“We have few answers to give,” the old wolf says, his eyes weary. “We have survived. That is all.”
“My scouts report the blight’s corruption is strongest here. That its source may be in these mountains.” I gesture to the map on the table, a useless piece of parchment. My true map stands behind him, watching me with eyes the color of a forest shadow.
I can feel her gaze like a physical touch. It doesn’t soothe. It burns. It is not the gentle gaze of Lyanna, full of moonlight and misplaced hope. This is different. This gaze is full of suspicion and steel. It challenges me. It assesses me. It finds me wanting.
And my wolf loves it.
*Ours*, he rumbles in my mind, the first coherent thought he’s offered in decades that wasn’t a scream of pain.
*Be silent*, I command, but there is no force behind it. The quiet she brings is too seductive.
“We can show you where we have seen the worst of it,” Lycus says. “Our hunters know these lands better than any map.”
“Your hunters,” I repeat, letting my gaze drift back to her. I cannot help it. It’s like a parched man seeing an oasis. “This one?”
I see a flicker of defiance in her eyes. Lycus glances back at her, a mixture of pride and fear on his face.
“My daughter, Willa. She is our lead hunter.”
Willa. Not Lyanna. The name is foreign, yet it feels right on my tongue. She is not a ghost. She is a living, breathing fire. Where Lyanna was soft moonlight, this woman is the heart of a forge. The resemblance is a cruel coincidence, nothing more. It must be.
But the silence she gives me is not a coincidence. It is a fact. A miracle. An addiction taking root after a single taste.
“The blight is a complex problem,” I say, my mind racing. I need to keep her close. I need to study this phenomenon. That is the logical, kingly reason. The man inside me, the beast, simply needs to breathe the same air she does. “It will not be solved in a day. I require a delegation from your pack to return with me to the capital. To advise my council.”
The Alpha’s eyes widen. “To the capital? My King, we are exiles.”
“And I am your King,” I state, letting a sliver of the royal authority I so rarely use anymore lace my voice. “The blight threatens us all. Old grievances are a luxury we can no longer afford. Your knowledge of these lands is invaluable.”
His son, a young man standing beside Willa, scoffs. “Our knowledge was not so valuable when your grandfather cast us out.”
“Finn,” Lycus warns, his voice a low growl.
I ignore the boy. My attention is solely on Willa. She hasn’t moved, hasn’t spoken, yet she commands the entire clearing. The roaring in my head has completely subsided again, just by the simple act of looking at her.
How is this possible?
Is she the cure? Or is she the final, killing blow of the curse?
I don’t care.
“I will need your best,” I say, my voice dropping, the words meant for Lycus but aimed directly at his daughter. “Your most skilled trackers. Your most experienced warriors. Those who understand the taint firsthand.”
Lycus bows his head again, a gesture of submission, but I can see the conflict in his eyes. To be brought back into the fold is what his pack has dreamed of for generations. But to send his daughter into the heart of the court that cast them out… it is a father’s nightmare.
“We will assemble a delegation, my King,” he says, his voice heavy.
“Good.”
I cannot let him choose. I cannot risk him leaving her behind. This quiet… I will not lose it. I will not return to the unending torment. Not now that I know relief is possible.
I take a step forward, closing the distance. I stop a few feet from her. I can smell the scent of pine and blood and something else, something wild and uniquely her. It’s intoxicating.
Her eyes narrow. She does not flinch. She does not bow. She meets my gaze head on, a wolf facing down a predator, unafraid.
She is magnificent.
“You will lead them, Willa,” I say. It is not a request.
The silence in the clearing is absolute. Her brother looks ready to lunge. Her father’s face pales. The members of my own guard shift uncomfortably behind me. A king does not single out a warrior of an exiled pack in such a way.
But I am not just a king. I am a man who has been screaming in silence for fifty years. And I have just found the one thing, the one person, that can make it stop.
She looks from me to her father, then back to me. A silent conversation passes between them. I see her give a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
“As you command, my King,” she says, and her voice is like gravel and honey. It does not soothe me. It rakes across my senses, awakening parts of me I thought had long since turned to dust.
I give a curt nod, turning away before I do something foolish. Something like reaching for her. Something like begging.
“We leave at dawn,” I call over my shoulder to Alpha Lycus. “Be ready.”
As I walk back toward my camp, Darius falls into step beside me.
“Theron,” he says, using my name now that we are out of earshot. “Are you well? You seemed… distracted.”
“I am better than well, old friend,” I murmur, a strange, unfamiliar feeling rising in my chest. It takes me a moment to identify it. Hope.
“That woman…” Darius begins, then trails off, unsure how to continue.
“Looks like her,” I finish for him. He is one of the few old enough to remember. “I know.”
“Is that wise? To bring a ghost into our court?”
I stop and turn to face him. “She is not a ghost, Darius. She is fire and steel. And for the first time in fifty years, the beast is quiet.”
He stares at me, truly seeing me for the first time in years. He sees the change. The flicker of life in eyes that have been dead for half a century.
I dismiss his concern with a wave of my hand. He does not understand. He cannot. He has not lived with the constant gnawing, the endless rage. He has not prayed for the release of death every single night.
I do not know if Willa is a blessing or a damnation. A cruel trick or a path to redemption. I only know that I cannot let her go.
She is my quiet. And I will chain myself to her if I must to keep it.
