The concept felt as foreign as the planet she’d be visiting tomorrow. Tess had structured her entire life around productivity and achievement, not fun.
“I should get going. Early morning tomorrow.”
The parking garage beneath their building felt cavernous in the evening quiet. Tess’s footsteps echoed as she made her way to her practical sedan, her mind already racing ahead to the logistics of interplanetary travel and the situation she’d be facing.
What will Nova Aurora look like? Where will I stay? What kind of medical facilities do they have? Why had their own healers failed to identify King Voran’s condition?
The Northern Dominion must have sophisticated medical knowledge if they’d managed to keep their king alive for a decade of decline. What could she possibly offer that they hadn’t already tried?
Fresh eyes on a problem they’ve been too close to.
That had to be it. Sometimes the most complex medical mysteries required someone with no preconceived notions and no attachment to traditional approaches. Her expertise in systemic failures combined with her unconventional interest in shifter physiology might provide exactly the breakthrough they needed.
The drive through Chicago’s evening traffic gave her time to process everything and recenter herself to face the unknown. Skyscrapers glowed against the darkening sky, familiar and comforting in their predictability. Tomorrow, she’d be looking at an entirely different skyline—if Nova Aurora even had cities like Earth.
Before long, her apartment building rose before her, all glass and steel efficiency in one of Chicago’s newer developments. Tess steered her car toward the underground parking garage that felt like a sanctuary after the chaos of her day. She slowly maneuvered her small sedan into her familiar parking spot and cut the engine, the sudden quiet enveloping her.
Tess sat there for a long moment, and something deep in her whispered that this assignment would change everything. The sensation felt almost physical, like standing on the edge of a cliff with the wind pushing at her back.
Of course it’ll be life-altering. When I figure out King Voran’s illness, I’ll finally get that senior research position. Everything I’ve wanted.
The logical explanation satisfied her analytical mind, but the feeling persisted as she made her way to the elevator. As if the universe itself was holding its breath, waiting for her to step across some invisible threshold.
Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just a consulting job.
But her hands trembled slightly as she pressed the button for her floor, and her reflection in the elevator’s polished doors looked like a woman on the verge of something extraordinary.
TWO
KORRAN
The patrol reports lay scattered across the polished oak table in Korran’s private chambers as his mind wandered for the hundredth time that morning. Steam rose from his untouched cup of tea but the bergamot scent failed to penetrate the heaviness pressing against him. He had retreated to these private meals months ago, abandoning the formal dining room where his family once gathered. The excuse he told himself was practical—he needed the quiet to review his expanding responsibilities. But the truth cut deeper: he couldn’t bear watching his father struggle through another meal, couldn’t stomach the way King Voran’s hands trembled when he lifted his fork.
Korran’s fingers traced the edge of a manifest, his mind cataloging the endless duties he was responsible for now. Territory patrol schedules, trade negotiations with the southern clans, resource allocation for the winter, and countless council meetings. Each duty his father had once handled with effortless authority now landing on Korran’s shoulders, and each new responsibility a reminder of how much ground they were losing in the battle against his father’s mysterious illness.
And how much Malvek was watching my every move, waiting for me to stumble.
The head councilor’s increasingly frequent suggestions about his daughter Seraya had grown impossible to ignore these past few months. Beautiful, elegant, politically perfect Seraya with her sharp blue eyes and carefully modulated voice. Everything a future king should want in a mate—bred for queenship, trained in diplomacy, connected to the most powerful families in the Northern Dominion.
She’d make a strong queen.
His bear stirred uneasily at the thought, a low rumble of dissatisfaction that Korran had learned to suppress. The beast wanted what it wanted—his fated mate. But Korran had spent years learning to ignore those primitive instincts in favor of logic and duty.
Look where following instincts got Father.
The familiar resentment flared, sharp and immediate. His parents’ love story had seemed beautiful when he was young—the noble king who found his fated mate in a human woman, choosing love over political convenience. But adolescence had brought cruel clarity. The whispers. The speculation. The way other young bears looked at him with barely concealed disdain.
Half-human. Weak blood. Not a real bear.
He’d spent his teenage years overcompensating, pushing his body harder than any pure-blooded shifter, studying longer, fighting fiercer, proving again and again that he belonged. His mother had tried to tell him he didn’t need to earn his place, that he should embrace both sides of his heritage. But Queen Lysia hadn’t endured the sideways glances, the subtle challenges to his authority, and the constant need to prove his strength.
So Korran had chosen the path of least resistance—becoming the perfect bear prince, suppressing every human softness and every emotional vulnerability that might be seen as weakness.Duty first. Strength first. Clan first. The mantra had served him well and earned him respect and loyalty from those who’d once questioned his bloodline.
And now I can fix what Father’s choices broke.
Taking Seraya as his mate would silence the doubters once and for all. A purer royal bear bloodline, political stability, the kind of strategic alliance that strengthened kingdoms rather than dividing them. His father’s romantic idealism had brought decades of whispered doubts about the royal line’s strength. Korran could restore that confidence with one carefully calculated decision.
It’s the logical choice.
