Chapter 2 Two

CHAPTER TWO: The Flame Beneath the Ashes

King Ronan Thorne POV

The scent of blood was faint but undeniable. A single thread of copper and sorrow riding the wind like a whisper begging to be heard. It tugged at my instincts, sharp and sudden, interrupting the war council like a blade through silence. I should've ignored it. Lycan Kings don't chase ghosts on the breeze. We rule. We dominate. We protect our borders with steel and command. But something about that scent... it didn't just smell of pain, it screamed of betrayal. And I knew it wasn't just any wolf bleeding out in those woods. It was her. The Omega. The one I'd heard whispers about through my spies, Kael Darius' hidden Luna who wasn't a Luna at all. The girl who'd saved a pup during the Blood Hollow raid despite being ordered to retreat. The same girl who nursed her pack warriors without thanks, who stood in the shadows while another woman wore the crown that should've been hers. Aria Quinn. I didn't know her. Hadn't seen her with my own eyes. But her name... it stayed with me. I left the council mid-strategy, ignoring Ezra's questioning glance. He was used to my sudden absences, though he never liked them. I trusted him to follow. He always did. Within minutes, I was shifting. The beast beneath my skin surged forward, eager and furious. My paws tore through the forest, wind slicing past like knives. The scent was clearer now, weaving through the trees in spurts, blood, dirt, fear... and something else. Resignation. I found her on the forest floor, half-buried in pine needles and shadow. At first, I thought she was already dead. But then she barely moved, a twitch of her fingers and I realized this was no ordinary death. This was execution. Silver laced her wounds. Ancient poison laced in the cuts, silent, slow, designed to shut down a wolf's shift. Whoever had done this wanted her to suffer. Her skin was the color of the snow that fell outside, and she wore it on her body like a canvas for bruises and claw marks. Her chestnut hair hung around her face like vines, matted with blood. And her face, moonlight kissed her cheekbones as if even the moon itself wept for her. But it was her eyes that nearly stopped me cold. Grey, wide, cracked open despite the pain, there was fire in them. Not a plea. Not fear. Defiance. Even half-dead, she wasn't broken. That, more than anything, stirred something ancient in me. I shifted back, ignoring the burn in my muscles, and lifted her into my arms. She barely weighed anything. "You're safe now," I murmured, not expecting a reply. But her lips moved, cracked and barely audible. "Let me die... I have nothing left." "No," I said, voice colder than steel. "You're not allowed to give up. Not yet." It took three days for her to wake. In those days, I kept watch, barely sleeping. Ezra handled the politics in my absence, but I refused to leave her side. The palace healers did what they could, but it wasn't their skill that brought her back. It was her will. The woman clinging to life on that bed wasn't just an omega. She was something else. I didn't know what yet, but I'd seen warriors break from lesser wounds. I'd watched battle-hardened Lycans surrender under lighter betrayal. But this girl, no, this woman was still fighting. --------- Aria Quinn POV They say the strongest flames are born from ashes. If that's true... then I must be fire incarnate. Few days later, I opened my eyes in that silken, moonlit chamber, wrapped in warmth, wrapped in peace, I realized something I never thought possible. I was still alive. And worse I didn't know what to do with that. My body ached in a thousand places. My wrists were bandaged. My ribs were wrapped tight. My skin was clean, too clean, scrubbed of Kael's scent, of Bloodmoon's dirt, of my failure. But nothing could scrub away the humiliation. The betrayal. The look in his eyes when he threw me away like yesterday's scraps. "Rest," the healer had whispered when she left me. "You're safe now." Safe? I didn't even know what that word meant anymore. Two days later, I opened my eyes fully. And then there was him. King Ronan Thorne. The Lycan King. The man who'd stood between me and the abyss, wrapped me in his cloak, and carried me like I was something worth saving. He visited every night. Never stayed long. Never asked questions. Just sat in the chair across the room and watched me like he was waiting for something. Like I was a locked chest, and he was looking for the right key. Sometimes I pretended to sleep. Other times, I stared right back. I didn't know what he wanted from me. Why he'd spared me. Why he didn't chain me up, interrogate me, toss me into the dungeons like every other alpha would have. But something about him was... different. Not soft. No. There was nothing soft about Ronan Thorne. He was sharp angles and midnight shadows. Power radiated from him in waves, quiet, coiled, and lethal. But when he looked at me... He didn't see a broken omega. He saw a storm. Then one day I decided to speak to him, I simply looked at him and whispered, "Why did you save me?" I expected lies. Calculated reasons. Maybe even silence. But he didn't flinch. He just met my gaze and said, "Because you deserve to live. Because they tried to erase you like you were nothing, and I don't let cowards win." That answer didn't belong to a king. It didn't belong to a warrior or a savior. It belonged to something deeper. Something I hadn't grasped as yet. So I just looked at him, not in fright, not in wonder but in puzzlement I could not articulate. Why him? Why now? Why, when everything in me had already given up? I didn't know it then, but that moment would become the first crack in the shell I had buried myself in. ------ One morning, I was on the tower balcony, and i looked out to see the horizon on fire. The wind whipped my hair around me, and for that moment in time, I didn't think about pain. He came to stand beside me, quiet. "You're healing," he said, voice like dusk. I nodded. "You gave me the tools. But I'm the one holding the sword now." He smirked, something dangerous sparking in his eyes. "Good. Because this world doesn't give crowns to the weak." I turned to him, searching for the weight in his words. "I'm not weak anymore." And I meant it. Something was shifting inside me. Something old and powerful, waking beneath my skin like fire laced in bone. I saw it in the way people looked at me, even when they didn't understand why. I felt it in the silence that followed my steps. Power. Raw. Unshaped. Waiting. And I would claim it.