He ground his teeth against the ache unfurling inside him, fighting it back one heartbeat at a time.
Then she inhaled—slow, shaky—and he felt it like a tremor through his own body. The tension between them stretched thinner, finer, like the bowstring they both gripped. His mouth hovered only a hair’s breadth away from her temple. If she turned, even slightly, his lips would graze her skin.
The thought seared through him, fraying what little restraint he had left.
Reiya released the arrow. The string snapped against her fingers, and she flinched—just barely—but he was already there, catching her hand before she could lower it.
He shouldn’t have.
Shouldn’t have let his thumb sweep over the delicate ridge of her knuckles, shouldn’t have held her like that—like he was testing something, waiting for the moment she might pull away.
But she didn’t.
If anything, she leaned back. The soft press of her against him—subtle, unthinking—sent a raw, aching hunger curling through him. He could wrap his arms around her, pull her flush against him, bury his face in the curve of her neck, inhale the almond and orange blossom scents, and devour . . .
He wrenched himself back, clearing his throat, steadying his voice.
“Again,” he said, forcing himself into detachment, into control. “Draw slowly. Let your body align with the bow.”
Reiya adjusted, her fingers trembling slightly as she pulled the string taut. He caught the small hitch in her breath, the subtle quiver in her stance before she steadied herself. She was trying—fighting against her own inexperience, against hesitation, against the tension thrumming between them.
The effort, the will to master something foreign, sent a pang through him. She wanted this. The control. The knowledge. The power to carve her own path.
And gods save him, he wanted nothing more than to help her find it.
He tried to quiet his thoughts, but the longer he watched her—the bow heavy in her hands, the faint tremble of strain in her arms—the more something twisted tight inside him. He remembered that weight, the stubborn ache of it. How, once, the bow had felt unforgiving in his own grip too.
He’d been much younger than Reiya was now, crouched low in Tremore’s ancient woods, the earth damp and biting cold against his knees. The canopy above swallowed the daylight, and every lungful of air he took tasted of pine and moss.
One arrow. One chance.
He’d waited for hours, muscles locked rigid from stillness, tracking the doe through the trees. A clean shot meant everything. A clean shot might earn him what he wanted most—a look of approval, a scrap of pride that his mother hoarded like a miser’s gold.
Her voice had curled through his memory even then, soft and merciless.
‘Hesitation is weakness. A true Alpha acts. Always.’
‘Do not fail me more than you already have.’
Alarik had exhaled slowly, bowstring tight against his fingertips, the arrow’s tip aligned perfectly with the doe’s heart. His world had narrowed to a single breath, a single pull?—
—and then Kaelen had stepped into his sightline.
The golden-haired boy moved like he belonged to the forest itself, all unthinking confidence and effortless light. Only six at the time, he didn’t see Alarik, didn’t see the poised arrow aimed just past him. All he saw was the creature standing before him, alert but unafraid.
Kaelen reached out, voice soft, coaxing. And the doe—the one Alarik had tracked so carefully—lowered its head.
It let the boy touch it.
So oblivious. So trusting.
Something inside Alarik wrenched so hard it felt like his chest might split apart.
The bowstring dug into his fingers. His whole body taut, trembling now, not from effort—but from something darker. Rage. Grief. A hollow ache clawing at the inside of his ribs.
He’d spent hours perfecting his stance, his focus, but none of it mattered. Kaelen hadn’t needed to hunt. He’d simply existed, and the world bent for him.
Like it always did.
