Chapter 2 Chapter 2

AMINA

The journey from the alley to the cage was a blur of speed, terror, and the nauseating pull of the Mate Bond. Rian didn't touch me again, but he didn't need to. The connection, raw and screaming, felt like a live wire threaded through my nerves, humming with his every repressed heartbeat.

Kira, the Beta, treated me like contaminated cargo. She bound my wrists with a slick, black polymer that felt cool and restrictive, then shoved me into a matte-black SUV. The material was coated with a faint, suppressive agent—a crude attempt to stifle my energy, which only made the Bond scream louder in protest.

Rian rode in the seat across from me. He was silent, the air in the vehicle so thick with his repressed power and the overpowering, clean scent of Alpha that I felt dizzy. He wasn’t looking at me, but at the skyline of Meridian City, his amber eyes hard and calculating. He looked like a god contemplating the immediate, bloody consequences of his own existence.

He’s going to kill you the second the urge to possess you wears off, my rational mind screamed. He has to. It’s the law.

But my stomach, tied psychically to his, twisted with a desperate, unwelcome hope. The bond wasn't love; it was a brutal, volatile necessity. It was a chemical storm that made my knees tremble under his silent scrutiny.

We stopped not in some gothic manor, but at the base of the Vale Tower, a monument of glass and black steel in the Financial District, exactly as cold and intimidating as its Alpha. We shot up thirty floors in a silent elevator that smelled of ozone, wealth, and his barely contained primal heat. I felt the urgent, possessive thrum of the Bond intensify as we climbed higher into his territory.

Kira shoved me through a seamless, unmarked door. The Observation Deck was a gilded cage designed for surveillance. The reinforced glass offered a stunning, dizzying view of the city Rian controlled, but I only saw the nowhere left to hide.

“Wait here,” Kira spat, her voice laced with venom, her face contorted with jealousy and distrust. She saw the Mate Bond, and she hated me for it. “Try anything, and I won’t bother waiting for his orders.”

She left, and the silence was immediately replaced by the low, dangerous hum of Rian’s power filling the space. He took off his tactical jacket, tossing it onto a minimalist bench. The action was deliberate, revealing a taut, muscular frame and a white cotton shirt that somehow still looked lethal.

He walked straight toward the panoramic window and simply stared out at the city, his back to me. The pose was pure, arrogant command, yet I felt the strain of his control through the Bond.

“Why did you do it?” he finally asked, his voice low, gravelly, and tight with suppressed rage. It was the first sound he’d made since the alley.

I swallowed, tasting metal and my own rising fear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. That man attacked me. I defended myself.”

Rian let out a short, cold laugh that did nothing to ease my nerves. He didn't turn around. “Don’t insult me. You’re a Hybrid, Lycan-Seer, or whatever obsolete term your pathetic bloodline uses. I felt the surge when you reversed the physics of his momentum. Kinetic Echo is not self-defense, Amina. It’s an act of war.”

I hated that he knew my name. I hated that he knew the term for my power. “I didn’t choose to be whatever you think I am.”

He finally spun around, his amber eyes burning with a mixture of professional contempt and terrifying, involuntary need. He crossed the room in three predatory strides, stopping inches from me. His sheer size was suffocating.

“Choice?” he scoffed, grabbing the restrictive polymer bands on my wrist. The small contact sent a shocking electrical surge through my limbs, and I fought the urge to melt into the overpowering heat of his touch. “We don't get a choice. You are a violation of the Lunar Pact, an active threat to the Shroud, and by law, you should already be a corpse on the pavement.”

The pressure from the Mate Bond made my vision swim. It wasn't just attraction; it was a desperate, protective instinct from him that clashed violently with his logical hatred. My own body was reacting to his proximity, an agonizing mix of terror and unwilling desire.

“Then why am I not?” I challenged, my voice shaking but loud. “If I’m a weapon, why is the most ruthless Alpha in Meridian City wasting time asking me questions when his law demands my blood?”

He leaned in, his breath warm and dangerous against my ear, smelling of ozone and pure power. “Because the first law, the one etched into our biology, is the Mate Bond. And you, little Hybrid, are mine.” He paused, the words a primal declaration that sent a wave of heat down my spine. "And the second I felt that, I knew I had a catastrophic decision to make."

"Decision?" I whispered, my heart aching with the confusing, terrible duality. My lips were dry, focusing only on the devastating proximity.

"Yes. Do I kill you now, quickly and cleanly, and spend the rest of my life fighting the bloody agony of a severed bond? Or do I keep you alive long enough to figure out how to neutralize the threat you pose to my entire lineage?"

His honesty was brutal. He wasn’t thinking about saving me; he was thinking about mitigating the political and psychic damage I represented. My desperate hope shriveled, replaced by cold terror.

He let go of my wrist, and the sudden release of pressure was almost painful. He stepped back, pacing again, struggling against the Mate Bond’s possessive pull.

“You’re lying,” I said, focusing on his eyes, trying to find the lie in his calculated cruelty. “There’s more than neutralization. Tell me the real reason you haven’t killed me. Tell me the curse.”

He stopped pacing, his body rigid. The anger in his eyes was replaced by something colder, older—something akin to dread.

"Fine," Rian said, his voice flat and final, like a tombstone dropping into place. "You want the truth? You're not just my mate. You are the Prophecy."

He moved, but this time, he didn't stop. His hand shot out, not to strike, but to cup the back of my neck, pulling me forward until my forehead rested against his firm, hot shoulder. The intimacy was shocking, terrifying, and the Mate Bond roared to life, flooding my senses with his despair and fierce possessiveness.

NO. DON'T TOUCH ME! My mind screamed resistance, but my body went weak and compliant under his touch.

The moment our skins met, the Blood Sight flared. It wasn't a memory, but a single, vivid vision of the immediate future.

I saw Rian, strong and whole, standing defiant against a pillar of black stone. Etched into the stone was a huge, snarling wolf, the symbol of his bloodline—but the symbol was cracked, split down the center, dissolving into shadow.

A voice, cold and ancient, echoed through my mind, not Rian's, but the curse itself: "The Mate of the Hybrid is the seed of destruction. His life is held by the Hybrid’s hand."

The vision snapped off. I stumbled back, gasping, my body slick with cold sweat. I knew, with devastating certainty, the full truth of the curse on the Vale bloodline.

I looked up at my captor, my mate, the man whose ruthless control was built on a foundation of inescapable destiny. I didn't see an Alpha demanding execution; I saw a man fighting his inevitable end.

He is my mate, and he knows I am supposed to kill him.