Chapter 2

Elara's POV

I opened my eyes.

For a moment, I stared up at the dark sky, unable to move. I was alive. Somehow. Far above the trees, the lights of Lucian's castle glowed on the cliff, distant and golden, not caring whether I had survived the fall.

“Perfect,” I muttered, then pushed myself up on shaking arms and screamed it at the sky instead. “What else are you going to throw at me, Moon Goddess?! What did I do to deserve this?!”

Tears burned my eyes, freezing halfway down my cheeks before they could fall.

Then I saw the moon. Full, and slowly bleeding crimson at the edges. A Blood Moon.

Far to the right, an orange glow burned above the tree line, and my stomach dropped straight through the snow beneath me.

The Fire Beast. Every wolf in the northern packs had heard stories about the monster that lived somewhere in these woods, and I'd never once needed to test whether they were true.

“No,” I whispered. “Not that way.”

Maybe the roar I'd heard while I was still falling had only been the wind. Maybe I'd imagined it entirely. Either way, I had no intention of finding out which.

I turned in the opposite direction. My dress was already stiffening with frost, freezing water pooling thick in my shoes, and the wind cut straight through me like it had teeth of its own.

Going home wasn't an option either. Celeste had already tried to kill me once. I wasn't foolish enough to hand her a second chance.

I had barely taken a few steps when something moved through the bushes behind me.

For one foolish second, relief flooded through me. Maybe one of Lucian's guards had followed. Maybe someone had seen me fall.

“Hello?” My voice disappeared into the trees. “Is someone there?”

The bushes rustled again, closer this time. Then something moved to my left, and whatever relief I'd felt a moment ago drained out of me just as fast as it had come.

A dark shape appeared between the trees. Then another. Then a third. Two—no, three—pairs of red eyes caught the red moonlight and held it, unblinking.

My blood went cold. These weren't guards.

They were rogues. Three of them, matted and starved, stepping out of the shadows one by one.

I took a slow step backward. “Nice rogues.”

The lead one's ears flattened.

“Very big, nice rogues.”

It lunged.

I screamed and ran.

Branches whipped my face as my frozen feet slipped in the snow. Behind me, heavy paws pounded the ground. A jaw snapped inches from my arm. I slammed into a tree, pushed through the pain, and kept sprinting.

Keep moving.

I didn't notice I'd broken through the trees until it was too late. Maybe some part of me had run straight for that orange glow without meaning to.

Either way, I stumbled into the clearing and froze.

At the center of a scorched clearing stood a giant black lycan, something closer to a monster. He was three times larger than any wolf, his fur pulsing with veins of pure fire. Massive, glowing iron chains held him to ancient stone pillars. He threw his body forward with a roar that shook the ground, fire bursting in every direction.

The Fire Beast? Were the rumors real?

A growl behind me snapped me back to reality. The rogues had followed me, but before the largest one could hit me, the Fire Beast roared.

A wave of living flame ripped across the clearing, swallowing the rogue mid-air. Another blast of fire cut down the other two in seconds, turning the surrounding snow into thick, blinding steam.

Then, dead silence.

I stood paralyzed. The rogues were gone, leaving behind nothing but scorched, blackened shapes in the snow.

My heart hammered against my ribs. He had killed them.

The Fire Beast had just... saved me?

Slowly, I turned back around, and two burning eyes were already waiting for mine.

My relief died on the spot.

The beast lowered his massive head, lips pulling back from fangs the size of my forearm. A growl rolled up from somewhere deep in his chest.

“No.” I took a step back.

His claws dug into the scorched earth.

“Wait!”

His body lowered, predatory, ready.

“No, no, no!”

He lunged.

I screamed, and the chains snapped tight with a crack like thunder, stopping him just short of me. His claws tore deeper into the earth, his whole body trembling like he was fighting something on the inside that had nothing to do with the chains.

“Run.”

The word came from the beast. Broken. Hoarse. Almost human.

“Run… before I burn you.”

I should have.

Every instinct I had should have been screaming at me to run. But instead of stepping back, something inside me pulled toward him.

Slowly, I raised my hand. The beast went rigid, his burning eyes tracking my fingers as I reached toward him.

Then my palm touched the side of his massive muzzle.

Flames curled around my fingers, sliding across my skin like warm water instead of fire. No pain. No burning flesh. My dress wasn't catching. Neither was I.

His massive lycan body shrank, muscles popping and snapping as the beast forced itself back into human form. Fur melted away, black claws shortened into fingers, and the iron chains slid down to bind his bare wrists, chest, and ankles.

The flames died out. He dropped to one knee, breathing heavily.

He was huge. Even on his knees, he was towering and dangerous. Wet black hair fell over his forehead. His broad shoulders led down to a sculpted chest covered in dark, curling tattoos that traced all the way down his hard abs to his hip bones.

A strange warmth curled low in my belly.

I pressed my thighs together without thinking.

What was wrong with me?

The heavy chains crossed over his bare chest, showing every hard line of his body. My eyes followed the ink lower and lower, until my mind finally caught up with what I was seeing.

He slowly lifted his head. Dark eyes locked directly onto mine.

“You can touch me?”