Chapter 2 Burning Eyes

As Aria's consciousness slowly returned, the cold air and the smell of wet soil welcomed her. Her head thumped. Though it hurt, she strained her eyelids open.

A rough wooden ceiling greeted her first sight. Though there was only pressure in the room, thin smoke from a nearby fire pit drifted indolently. The air felt weightier, thicker, like something unseen was pressing down on her.

She tried to sit upright but her limbs were fastened. Coarse rope left red welts where it dug into her ankles and wrists. Aria looked over the space. It was basic yet tough dark stone walls, shuttered windows, and a single heavy door.

Approaching footsteps. Deliberately heavy. Before the form came, a smell of frigid metal, earth, and woodland arrived. The gate opened with a moan.

Kael entered, towering and silent, silver eyes cold. Only tension and hatred permeated the space where she had met the man in the forest. There was no evidence of him.

He crept toward her slowly, each step compressing the air around them.

"You are finally awake," he said, his voice steel on stone.

Aria raised her chin. "Who are you really? What do you seek of me?"

Kael tightened his eyes. "You don't know who I am, but your father does."

She blinked. "My father? Gerrard is my adoptive father. "I am uncertain of my true parents."

Kael emitted a bitter, sharp cold chuckle.

Of course he didn't share you. Why would he tell the girl he used as penance for his sins the truth?

Aria stopped. "What are you talking about?"

Kael's eyes burned with a prehistoric fury. "Gerrard killed my father. Our Alpha. The captain of our crew. For us he was everything. Gerrard butchered him, too.

His knuckles clenched. Muscles stiffened. Aria's breathing stuck in her chest.

"I know nothing about that," she whispered, "but I had nothing to do with it."

Stepping near until his face was only inches from hers, Kael spat, "You have his blood," which is enough. I vowed to exact the price for whoever Gerrard defended a child, heir, or pawn.

Aria bit her lips, declining to look away. Years of grief were radiating from his silver eyes rather than reflecting moonlight.

"So what now?" she asked, her tone frigid. "You're going to kill me? Here? Like a coward?"

Kael jolted. He didn't respond, but the word struck deeper than a sword.

"I might," he said. But I am not going to provide you an easy death. You will first discover what loss feels like. The true definition of suffering.

Aria attempted to control her shuddering. She understood resisting now would be meaningless. She had to suffer. To expect. To look for the facts.

"I will not say sorry for something I did not do," she stated steadily.

Kael stayed quiet. One moment, something flickered in his gaze-perhaps even skepticism-uncertainty. But it was gone as fast as it appeared. He swiveled and approached the doorway.

"You're staying here. I'll decide your destiny later."

The door shut behind him and Aria was left alone in the quiet. Beyond the worry and uncertainty, however, it dawned on her that she was now part of their reality. A world of hidden secrets, blood, and grudges. Kael, with his blazing silver stare, was the most hazardous component of all.

Beyond the closed door, Rowan stayed immobile, fighting the turmoil within. He walked ahead, pausing next to the person he used to refer to as best friend and now referred to as Alpha.

"Kael," he whispered, "let her go." She is blameless.

"And you," he murmured, his voice quiet and heavy, "are my Beta and my friend." Still, you don't get to defend our adversary."

"She's not the enemy; she's just a human," Rowan insisted. You have awareness of that.

Kael remained mute before waved toward the guards guarding the entryway.

"Nobody gets access to that room without my approval. Not even the beta.

The guards nodded without hesitation. Eyes fixed on the door separating Aria from freedom, Rowan clenched his jaw.

Once more, he made an effort. Sinking his voice, talking not as Beta but as a friend.

"Kael... please. You know this is incorrect."

But only silence replied him. Silence and a look without room for compassion. Aria stayed locked within. And that night Rowan understood something persuasive: confronting the whole pack alone was more difficult than confronting a wolf whose heart had frozen over.

Gerrard watched far off in front of his destroyed house. Groaning in the nighttime wind, the once robust wooden door hung by a single hinge. He fell, his heart sinking.

He cried out, his voice gritty with terror, "Aria?" No replies.

He went empty from room to room throughout the house. Panic settled deep in his bones. Then he noticed it-a rusted dagger pinned to the doorframe of the back room.

He yanked it off and saw jagged handwriting. "Come to my cabin and give yourself if you want your daughter alive. -Kael, the fresh Alpha."

Gerrard's eyes dilated; his hand shook as he squeezed the paper in his palm. "Damn it..."

He had expected this day. Just not so soon. For Aria's sake, he had remained hidden from the gangs and remained in peace. For a calm existence she had never even known she had been given. She had been grabbed, nevertheless. Sacrificed for a battle she did not begin. She was baffled by blood.

Gerrard gasped, then inhaled deeply. Choice there was not. He would return for Aria. To the world he left behind. To Kael's cabin. To the den of a new Alpha even if it meant his own death.

Aria curled up in a frigid corner inside the stone tower. The walls provided no consolation. Her body ached, but it was the doubt that genuinely harmed her. How would they treat her? What was she involved for? Outside, the sky was completely black. Midnight hung like a curse.

Creek!

The door opened; Aria flinched; Kael entered, his face a vortex of shadows.

He walked ahead and tore the shackles from her wrists without comment. She raced toward the door when she was free, but Kael grabbed her arm. And then it occurred.

For both of them, a deep, heated jolt passed through them. Kael became motionless. His respiration caught. His gaze opened.

He murmured, "No." "Impossible." He backed off, aghast rather than angrily at Aria.

The silence thickened. Aria felt it too. Her chest burned and her heart pounded. Body locked in place, eyes directed at the man she hardly knew.

"What...what have you done to me?" she murmured.

Kael was silent. He just gazed at her, as though viewing a spirit from another lifetime. Or even anything destined. One word reverberated within Kael. Mate.