Chapter 2 Collision

The first thing I noticed was the heat. Not the kind that makes you sweat, but the kind that presses into your bones, curls around your skin, and sets your senses on fire. Then came the smell the metallic, wild, like a storm had broken open in the middle of the Raelthorn courtyard. And then him.

Thane Raelthorn. Demi-god. Wolf prince. Walking disaster. He was bigger than any man I’d ever seen, and the kind of beautiful that made your stomach ache without warning. Claws dug into the stone beneath him. His chest heaved, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and, God, I had no right to notice, something else. Fear? Pain? Hunger? All of it? I couldn’t tell.

And I didn’t want to.

I wanted out. My brain screamed it in frantic waves, but my legs didn’t move. Something held me in place and something stronger than terror, stronger than reason. I barely managed a step back, and he was there in a blink, catching me with hands that were both terrifying and steady.

“Don’t run,” he said. His voice cracked like glass. “You don’t...”

I stumbled into him anyway.

The moment my arms brushed his, the world fractured and healed all at once. Magic collapsed. The storm of power surrounding him vanished. My heart lurched. His eyes, dark gold flecked with black, and locked onto mine, wide and wild, and I felt something inside him snap into place. Something inside me answered.

And then he whispered.

“Mate.”

I almost screamed.

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It hadn’t always been like this. My life used to be normal. Well, as normal as it could be for a girl who had survived a magical assassination attempt she didn’t understand at seven.

I spent most of my mornings wandering between classes at Vale High, trying to disappear. I was the girl who blended into the background, the one teachers assumed was shy, the one classmates overlooked because I never raised my hand, never said a word louder than necessary. My body was soft, curvy, unremarkable and was my camouflage. I didn’t notice it much, didn’t care. I had better things to do, like staying alive, or figuring out why I kept breaking streetlamps and spilling sparks from vending machines.

That morning had been mundane. Alarm clock buzzing. Cereal. A quick scan of social media and nothing exciting. Just a normal day. Until the phone buzzed with a reminder I’d forgotten, the deliver the forgotten package to my cousin. Simple, harmless errand.

I didn’t know then that I would step into a world that wanted me dead or a man who couldn’t survive without me.

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Back in the courtyard, Thane’s hands were still gripping my arms. I noticed for the first time how warm his skin was under my palms, how solid he felt, like someone had pressed me against the only thing keeping the ground from falling out from under me.

“Who are you?” he asked again, voice low, jagged with… something. Exhaustion? Pain? I couldn’t read him. My mind refused to process anything other than the fact that the world around us was utterly, terrifyingly quiet. No wind. No distant chatter. Even the leaves on the surrounding trees hung frozen in place, like the universe itself had paused.

“I, I’m just me,” I said. My voice sounded small, too high, too unsure. “Alenya. Alenya Vale. And I… I don’t know what’s happening.”

“You saved me,” he said, almost accusingly, as if my existence was both a miracle and a crime.

I blinked. “I… what?”

He sagged slightly against my arms, eyes closing for a heartbeat. The tension in his body was tangible, like a wire stretched too tight. Then his eyes snapped open again, sharper this time. “You have Null Blood,” he said simply, as if stating a fact that couldn’t be disputed.

Something inside me shifted. The words felt familiar, like echoes from a dream I didn’t remember dreaming. “Null… Blood?” I whispered.

“Yes.” His voice hardened. “You’re not supposed to exist.”

I laughed, weak and nervous, because that had to be a joke, right? Nobody, nobody ordinary like me and was supposed to be able to stop a demi-god from tearing himself apart. Nobody was supposed to have magic that erased magic itself. Nobody was supposed to.....

I stopped laughing because a sound reached my ears and a growl, low and guttural, vibrating the air around us.

And then I noticed them. Shadows moving at the edges of the courtyard, impossibly fast. Wolves. More than wolves. Something in their eyes, in the way their muscles tensed, told me they weren’t natural. They were dangerous. And they were coming straight for us.

Thane stiffened, his hands tightening around me. “Stay behind me,” he commanded.

But he wasn’t moving. Not yet. I realized with a jolt that he was trying to protect me, and that realization was like stepping into a river of fire. I didn’t want to be protected. I wanted to run.

But I couldn’t.

Not when the wolves and the claws glinting in the fading sunlight, teeth bared, eyes locked on me and stepped closer.

Thane’s voice cut through the air. Low. Dangerous. Controlled. “Go,” he said. “Run, or you die.”

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t move.

Something inside me stirred, deep and dark and powerful. My hands tingled, my stomach tightened, and I felt the air around us react. The wolves hesitated, their growls faltering. They didn’t step forward. They didn’t attack. Not while I was here.

“What are you doing?” Thane demanded, shock and something else, astonishment? and in his voice.

“I… I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think… I think I’m not supposed to hurt them.”

Thane’s brow furrowed, and I saw him realize what I already knew. My power wasn’t just rare. It wasn’t just dangerous. It was a weapon. A weapon that even the most violent creatures, even the most untouchable demi-gods, feared.

And I… I had no idea how to use it.

“Alenya,” he said quietly, almost reverently, “you have no idea what you’ve just done.”

I swallowed. “Neither do you,” I whispered.

His lips curved with half a smile, half grimace. “I do. And it terrifies me.”

And that was when I realized, terrified, thrilled, and utterly overwhelmed, that my life had just changed. Forever.

The wolves didn’t move. But the universe was watching. And I had just stepped onto a battlefield I didn’t understand, with a wolf-born prince I didn’t trust, and a power I didn’t control.

I was Null Blood.

I was a weapon.

And I was utterly, completely, dangerously alive.