The mating ball had been designed to impress a king.

Crystal lights hung from the rafters of Crimson Fang’s grand hall. Music rolled through the room. Every unmated wolf in the pack seemed to have found a reason to stand where Kael might see them.

He noticed none of it.

Orion was making that impossible.

“She is not here.”

Kael accepted a glass he had no intention of drinking.

“You have said that eleven times.”

“Because you are still here.”

Rhys stood beside him, watching the crowd.

“He is right about one thing.”

Kael looked at him.

Rhys shrugged.

“If your mate were in this room, I doubt your wolf would be this angry.”

Orion snarled approval.

Kael regretted inviting either of them into his life.

Across the room, Marissa laughed too loudly at something one of the visiting wolves said.

A moment later, she drifted closer.

Again.

“Alpha King,” she said, “you have barely spoken to anyone tonight.”

“I have spoken to everyone I need to.”

Her smile held.

Barely.

“The purpose of this gathering is to help you meet available wolves.”

“So I was told.”

She stepped closer.

“I would hate for Crimson Fang to disappoint you.”

Orion recoiled.

“Make her leave.”

Kael kept his tone polite.

“I am not disappointed, Luna Marissa.”

Her smile returned.

Then he added, “The security records were very informative.”

It disappeared again.

Rhys coughed into his glass to hide a laugh.

Before Marissa could answer, Orion surged.

Not angry this time.

Alarmed.

Kael’s head snapped toward the doors.

“What?”

His wolf had gone rigid inside him.

“Mate.”

The word came low.

Then louder.

“Mate.”

Kael set the untouched glass down.

Rhys noticed immediately.

“What is it?”

“She moved.”

“Your mate?”

Orion roared.

“Danger.”

The first alarm horn shattered the music.

Everything stopped.

One heartbeat of perfect silence.

Then the hall exploded.

Someone screamed.

A glass hit the floor.

Warriors rushed toward the exits while civilians turned the other way, confusion colliding with instinct.

“Rogues!” a guard shouted from the doorway. “Southern border!”

Kael was already moving.

Orion slammed against his control.

“Mate is there.”

“You do not know that.”

“I KNOW.”

Derek stood near the center of the hall.

Still.

Kael stopped.

“Which defense line is responding?”

Derek straightened.

“Warriors are first response. Deltas are second. If the rogues get through them, leadership will engage.”

Kael stared at him.

For a second, he thought he had misunderstood.

“You are waiting?”

“The first line is trained for this.”

Orion’s fury crashed through Kael.

“Coward.”

Kael agreed.

His aura rolled outward.

The room quieted around it.

Even panicked wolves froze.

Kael walked straight toward Derek.

“An Alpha does not wait for his warriors to bleed through two lines before deciding the danger is worthy of him.”

Derek’s face tightened.

“This is how Crimson Fang organizes defense.”

“And months ago two civilians died inside those defenses.”

The words hit hard.

Derek went still.

Kael pointed toward the doors.

“You will lead.”

The Alpha pressure behind the command was not subtle.

Derek’s knees almost bent.

“Yes, Alpha King.”

“Now.”

Derek moved.

Gavin and Noah followed.

Kael turned to Rhys.

“Get the Royal Guard with us. Everyone else helps secure the civilians.”

Rhys nodded.

Marissa called after Derek.

Kael did not hear what she said.

Orion was too loud.

“Faster.”

Kael ran.

The southern border lay beyond the ceremonial grounds, through a thick stretch of forest.

Blood reached him first.

Then steel.

Then screaming.

Orion pushed against him hard enough to blur the edges of Kael’s control.

“She is fighting.”

Kael’s pulse changed.

“How can you know that?”

“I FEEL HER.”

They ran faster.

***

Elara had skipped the mating ball.

No one had been surprised.

She had spent enough of her life standing in rooms built around other people’s expectations.

Instead, she had gone to an old southern training path after the last pup left her cabin.

The place was quiet.

Usually.

The first rogue came over the ridge without warning.

Elara heard it before she saw it.

Astra snapped awake.

“Left.”

Elara turned.

The wolf hit the ground where she had been standing.

Her knife went into its shoulder.

It twisted, snarling.

A second rogue appeared behind it.

Then five more.

Elara’s stomach dropped.

“Attack.”

“No alarm yet,” Astra said.

Which meant the rogues had reached too far inside before being seen.

Again.

Elara ripped her knife free.

“Then we make one.”

She mind-linked the nearest patrol.

“ROGUES. SOUTHERN RIDGE. MOVE.”

The first wolf lunged.

Elara met it head-on.

By the time the official alarm horn sounded, two rogues were already dead.

More poured through the trees.

A southern patrol arrived from the west.

Three warriors.

Then six.

Not enough.

“Elara!” one shouted.

“Behind me!”

She hated how natural the command felt.

Hated how quickly everyone obeyed.

But there was no time to argue about whether a civilian had the right to lead.

A rogue tore into one of the younger warriors.

Elara cut it off.

Another came from the side.

Astra fed strength into her legs.

Elara moved faster than a human should.

Not enough to reveal them.

Enough to survive.

The southern line collapsed inward.

“Fall back ten yards!” Elara shouted. “Keep the injured behind us!”

Warriors dragged two wounded wolves away.

Elara took position in front.

A second blade appeared in her hand.

Rogues circled.

Blood darkened the ground.

Astra growled.

“There are too many.”

“I noticed.”

“We may need more.”

“Not yet.”

A rogue charged.

Elara killed it.

Another.

Then another.

Behind her, someone whispered, “How is she still standing?”

Elara ignored him.

Because through the noise, Astra suddenly went silent.

Not battle-focus silent.

Different.

Elara felt it too.

A pressure in the distance.

Massive.

Approaching fast.

Astra’s attention snapped toward the trees.

“Oh.”

Elara blocked a set of claws.

“Oh what?”

Astra did not answer.

The forest erupted with approaching wolves.

Derek’s scent.

Gavin.

Noah.

Foreign wolves.

And one presence that made every instinct inside Elara tighten at once.

The rogues attacked again.

She had no time to understand it.

“Hold!”

***

Kael broke through the tree line.

Then stopped.

The battlefield spread before him.

Bodies.

Blood.

Wounded Crimson Fang wolves.

And at the center of it all stood a woman in human form.

Two blades in her hands.

Dark hair pulled away from her face.

Blood across one shoulder.

Rogues lay dead around her.

Behind her, injured wolves were still alive because she had planted herself between them and the enemy.

Orion stopped breathing.

Kael did too.

The strange scent that had haunted him since entering Crimson Fang suddenly hit with enough force to lock every muscle in his body.

Silver rain.

Moonlight.

Blood.

The woman turned toward another attacking rogue.

Orion surged forward with a sound Kael had never heard from him before.

Not rage.

Recognition.

“THERE.”

“Mate.”

Orion’s voice hit Kael like a blow.

For one second, the entire battlefield disappeared.

The rogues.

The blood.

The shouts.

All Kael saw was the woman standing in front of the wounded.

Elara Voss.

The name from the investigation.

The daughter of the only tw

“He is our mate.”

Astra repeated it.

Elara hated that the words did not change.

The battlefield blurred around her.

Healers moved between the injured. Warriors dragged rogue bodies into rows. Royal Guards restrained the one prisoner they had mana