Chapter 5

The crowd held its breath.

Thorne's pack shifted uneasily behind him. They knew their Alpha's pride. They also knew the risk.

But Thorne had never been able to resist a chance to humiliate someone weaker.

"Fine," he growled. "You want to embarrass yourself in front of the summit? I'll give you thirty seconds."

Mira stepped back, giving herself room.

Her heart was hammering. She hadn't practiced the Lariat in years. Not since her father died. Not since the rogues had left her hands shaking too badly to hold a proper stance.

But her father's voice echoed in her memory:

"The Lariat isn't about strength, Mira. It's about nerve. Make them flinch first, and you've already won."

She settled into the stance.

Thorne mirrored her, grinning. "Ready when you are, little girl."

Mira breathed in. And moved like water.

Thorne lunged.

Mira sidestepped—barely a whisper of movement—and her palm brushed his wrist. One.

He snarled and spun, claws extending. The crowd gasped. But Mira was already gone, twisting under his arm like smoke through fingers. Her fingers tapped his shoulder blade. Two.

Thorne's face went purple.

This wasn't a fight anymore. It was a lesson. And every Alpha in the room was watching.

He abandoned all pretense of formality. No more ritual stance. No more measured strikes. He came at her with full Alpha aggression—fast, furious, desperate.

Mira's heart soared.

There. The opening her father had always talked about. The moment rage replaced reason.

She dropped low, swept past his outstretched arm, and pressed her palm flat against his chest—right over his heart.

Three.

Silence.

Mira stepped back, breathing steady, and inclined her head. "The match is mine, Alpha Thorne."

The crowd erupted. Not in cheers—Alphas didn't cheer for a woman humiliating one of their own—but in murmurs. Shocked whispers. The sound of reputations crumbling.

Thorne stood frozen, his chest heaving, his face a mask of barely contained fury.

For a long moment, Mira thought he might actually honor the bet.

Then his expression curdled.

"Witchcraft," he spat. "Tricks. No true wolf fights like that."

Mira's composure didn't crack. "A Sterling fights like that. And you agreed to the terms."

"The terms." Thorne laughed—ugly and sharp. "You think I'm going to kneel? For you? For a mule who couldn't even keep her own husband?"

The temperature in the room dropped.

"I won the challenge," Mira said quietly. "Fairly. In front of your peers. A real Alpha keeps his word."

Thorne's eyes glittered. "A real Alpha doesn't take orders from a barren fraud."

He pulled out his phone.

Mira's blood turned to ice. "What are you doing?"

"Calling Adrian." Thorne's thumb hovered over the screen. "Let's see what he thinks of his Luna sneaking around summits, challenging Alphas, using her dead daddy's tricks to—"

"No."

Mira lunged for the phone.

But Thorne was faster. He snapped his fingers, and his two subordinates closed in—one grabbing her arms, the other stepping between her and their Alpha. Mira struggled, but their grips were iron.

"This is assault," she hissed. "Release me."

Thorne smirked. "This is politics, little Sterling. And you just lost."

He raised the phone to his ear.

Suddenly, the room went dark.

Not lights-out dark. Something deeper. Something ancient. A shadow that had weight and will, pressing down on every wolf in the hall like the hand of God.

Every Alpha dropped to one knee.

Not by choice. By force.

Thorne's phone clattered to the marble floor. His subordinates released Mira instantly, their faces pale, their wolves cowering in their chests. Even Mira—especially Mira—felt her knees buckle. The blood vow in her chest screamed a warning.

'Run,' it whispered. 'Submit. Survive.'

But she didn't run.

She turned.

He stood at the far end of the hall, framed by the grand doors like a painting come to life.

Alpha King Evren.

The last pure Lycan.

He was taller than any wolf she had ever seen—easily seven feet, with shoulders that strained against the dark velvet of his coat. His hair was silver-white, pulled back from a face that belonged on an ancient coin: sharp, beautiful, and utterly without mercy. His eyes glowed gold and silver in the dim light, and when he smiled, it was the smile of something that had stopped being human centuries ago.

"I came to this summit," Evren said, his voice low and terrible, "expecting to witness something far more compelling."

He stepped forward.

The Alphas parted before him like water before a blade.

"Instead, I find a grown wolf beating a woman trapped in his grip. Refusing to honor a fair challenge. And threatening to call her husband—" He tasted the word like poison. "—as if she were property to be reclaimed."

Thorne trembled, still on his knees, his face the color of aged cheese. "Your Majesty—I didn't—she provoked—"

"Silence."

The command was not loud. It did not need to be.

Thorne's mouth snapped shut. A thin trickle of blood ran from his nose. Evren's dominance pressed down on him like a fist closing around ripe fruit—relentless, suffocating, absolute.

The room held its breath.

Evren turned to Mira.

His golden eyes swept over her—the emerald gown, her mother's pearls at her throat, the defiant set of her jaw despite the fine trembling in her hands.

"You are the Sterling daughter," he said. Not a question.

Mira lifted her chin. "I am Mira Sterling. Daughter of William and Catherine. And I came here to request an audience with you, Your Majesty."

A long pause stretched between them—thick enough to cut, silent enough to hear every heartbeat in the hall.

Then Evren smiled.

It was not a kind smile. But neither was it cruel. It was the smile of someone who had not been surprised in a very, very long time—and found the sensation not unpleasant.

"You have my attention," he said. "Come with me."

He did not wait for a response. He turned, his dark velvet coat sweeping across the marble floor, and walked directly toward the private corridor at the far end of the hall—a passage reserved for royalty and those the king deemed worthy of his time.

Mira's legs nearly gave out beneath her.

He actually said yes.

She gathered her gown and followed, ignoring the whispers that erupted behind her. Alpha Thorne remained on his knees, already forgotten. The other Alphas watched her pass with expressions tangled in envy, confusion, and something that might have been reluctant respect.

She did not look back.

The moment she stepped into the corridor, the heavy doors swung shut behind her—sealing her away from the summit, and placing her in the presence of the most powerful man in the world.

Evren did not slow his pace. He did not glance over his shoulder. But his authority rolled off him in waves—thick, ancient, suffocating. Any other wolf walking beside the Lycan King for this long would have collapsed from sheer pressure. Their knees would have buckled. Their wolves would have whimpered.

Mira's fingers clenched the fabric of her gown.

Keep walking. Keep breathing. You are a Sterling.

She held on by will alone, matching his stride even as her instincts screamed at her to submit, to kneel, to flee. The blood vow in her chest pulsed with every step, warning her that she was walking into the den of something far greater than an Alpha.

She did not stop.

They came to a halt before an ornate set of doors—carved ebony inlaid with silver, depicting a great wolf standing beneath a crescent moon. Guards flanked the entrance, motionless as statues, their eyes fixed straight ahead.

Evren turned. His gold eyes swept her face, her trembling hands, the stubborn set of her jaw.

Then he smiled.

"Worthy of the Sterling name," he said quietly.

He unfastened his cloak with a casual flick of his wrist, revealing the powerful lines of his shoulders beneath a tailored charcoal coat. A servant appeared from nowhere—silent, efficient—and caught the heavy fabric before it touched the floor, then offered a crystal glass of deep amber liquid.

The doors swung open.

"Come, Mira Sterling." Evren stepped inside without waiting. "Tell me what you want from me."