Chapter 2 Instinct Is a Lie

POV: Male Lead

The bond hit him like a blade driven straight into his spine.

For a fraction of a second, the world vanished.

No forest. No night. No court or crown or command. Only the violent, unmistakable truth is tearing through his blood and bone, forcing itself into every locked corner of his control.

Mate.

His breath stalled. His heart lurched once, hard enough to hurt. Power surged instinctively, dominance flaring on reflex, answering the call with an eagerness he had not allowed himself to feel in years.

No.

He crushed it down with brutal force.

The pressure was instant and punishing. It felt like turning a weapon inward, forcing his own power to kneel beneath his will. His jaw locked, teeth grinding as he held the surge back, muscles bunching beneath his skin.

Across the clearing, she stood frozen, her scent flooding his senses, too close, too sharp. Not just wolf. Not just fear and heat and fragile defiance.

Moonlight.

His mate.

The word echoed again, louder, more. Insistent. His instincts roared, demanding he cross the distance between them, demanding touch, claim, completion. The bond pulled at him with an urgency that bordered on agony.

Then the vision slammed into him.

Blood soaked into white snow, dark and spreading. A woman on her knees beneath a fractured moon, silver light breaking apart above her as life drained from her eyes. His own hands, outstretched, too late. A child crying in the dark, small and furious, crowned in ruin as the world burned around it.

His chest tightened violently.

He had seen it before. In fragments. In dreams that woke him with his heart hammering and his power out of control. The prophecy he had spent years outrunning, denying, suppressing.

The moon does not give without taking.

This was it. This was the trigger. The final piece locked into place with merciless precision.

If I hesitate, she dies.

The thought cut through instinct like a command blade.

He forced his gaze away from the moon and back to her, grounding himself in the present with ruthless discipline. She was watching him, chin lifted, fear clear but contained. She did not bow. She did not plead. Even with the bond screaming between them, she stood her ground.

That alone made the effort to reject her hurt more than he expected.

Power strained inside him, furious at being denied. His command cracked outward despite his control, a sharp ripple in the air that made the trees groan softly. He felt it fracture, felt the unmistakable hitch in his dominance as it lashed out before he could leash it fully.

Just once.

Her eyes widened, not in submission, but in startled awareness, as if she had felt the disturbance as keenly as he had.

He tightened his control immediately, forcing his power back into rigid lines. The clearing went still again, the night holding its breath.

"You should not be here," he said.

The words came out colder than he intended, stripped of everything but authority. He needed distance. He needed separation. The bond was too loud, too alive, and the moon above them felt like an open eye.

"I did not mean to cross the boundary," she replied. Her voice was steady, though her pulse betrayed her. He could feel it through the bond, rapid but controlled. "I will leave."

She stepped back.

The bond reacted violently, flaring in protest. His vision darkened at the edges as instinct surged again, enraged at the retreat. It took everything he had not to move after her.

He forced himself to stay still.

No. Leaving would not save her. It would only delay what was coming.

She was already marked by fate. By him.

The fractured moon brightened overhead, light shifting in a way that made unease coil tight in his gut. He did not like coincidences. He liked control, certainty, cause, and effect.

This night offered none of those things.

She lifted her chin then, meeting his gaze directly, and something inside him faltered. Not dominance. Not desire.

Respect.

It unsettled him more than the bond.

For the briefest instant, he saw it. A faint gleam along her hands, gone almost before it existed, like silver light flickering beneath skin. His breath caught despite himself.

Impossible.

He dismissed it immediately. Stress. The bond distorting perception. He could not afford to chase illusions when the stakes were this high.

"You will not leave yet," he said.

The command settled into the air, heavy but precise. Not a demand. A declaration.

Her shoulders tensed, but she did not lower her gaze. "On what authority?"

The question was quiet, measured. Not defiant for defiance's sake. Calculated.

His lips thinned. "Mine."

Silence stretched between them. He could feel the bont. Training living thing caught between hunger and restraint. It would not remain contained for long. Already it was threading deeper, searching for pathways he could not fully block.

He needed isolation. Control. Answers.

And he needed them now.

He turned sharply, breaking eye contact before the pull could worsen. "You will come with me."

A pause. He could sense her hesitation through the bond, the way she weighed her options, fear tempered by thought rather than panic.

"I will not be caged," she said.

Something dark and bitter twisted in his chest. He did not want to cage her. He wanted to push her as far from himself as possible.

Aloud, he said, "No one will touch you."

The vow slipped out before he could stop it. It settled between them, heavy with unintended promise.

Her breath hitched once. Then she nodded, slow and deliberate. "Then lead."

The moonlight shifted again as he moved, and for an instant, he felt as though the night itself resisted him. He ignored it, striding past her without looking back, trusting the command to compel her steps.

As they walked, the prophecy pressed closer, no longer a distant threat but a living presence at his back.

Blood. Snow. A child crowned in ruin.

He would not let it come to pass.

Even if it meant becoming the monster she would someday curse.

He stopped at the edge of the clearing and spoke without turning around.

"Bring her to me," he ordered the shadows, his voice carrying with lethal clarity. "And clear the hall."

He hesitated, just for a heartbeat, then added the final word, sealing the night's direction.

"Alone."