Chapter 4 A Forbidden Connection

Evan

I smelt her before I saw her.

It hit me like a blow - cinders, wildflowers, a whisper of moon ash. Familiar. Wrong.

I froze mid-stride on the terrace, boot heels scuffing stone. My breath caught in my throat, uninvited.

That scent didn't belong here. Not in my estate. Not at the event.

Not in this century.

And yet it was here.

I turned, and she stood there.

Small and slender. Human, at first glance. But not truly. Not even close.

She was watching me with wide, confused eyes. Her aura flared without her realising it, light bleeding through cracks in a broken wall.

"Solen"

I knew it before my wolf did.

But when the bond snapped into place like a whip-the mate bond-that was when I truly staggered.

Her blood called to mine like fire drawn to oxygen.

I locked my jaws to keep from reacting.

She doesn't know what she is, I told myself. She can't. She'd never walk on here if she did.

But she looked at me like she felt it.

The mate pull was undeniable.

I hadn't felt anything like this in my life, not even close.

And that's exactly why I had to bury it.

But why did I have to be mated to a Solen? How cruel fate can be.

She was Solen.

The very thing my father vowed to erase from existence. The last loose end of the bloodline my pack helped wipe out.

If she lived... everything we buried would claw back to the surface.

And if she awakened fully, she-

She would destroy us all.

The curse in my name, the whisper in the walls, the madness in our blood-all of it traced back to her kind.

And now here she was.

Wearing the scent like it didn't damn her. Looking at me like she recognises the other half of her soul.

But that wasn't why I turned away.

No.

I turned away because if I hadn't, I would have claimed her right there.

And I would have lost everything.

As I stepped back into the ballroom, my pulse thundered in my ears.

I couldn't let her see the way my fingers trembled. I couldn't let her see how close I'd come to stepping off that terrace and grabbing her.

She had no idea what she was. What her scent could do. How dangerous she was just existing.

I had to keep it that way.

She would never survive my father's wrath.

I returned to my seat at the front of the room. People clapped. Toasted. My father, Alpha Tarmal, nodded with pride from across the hall.

I didn't smile.

I watched the shadows instead.

Her scent lingering on me like a phantom.

"She's close," my wolf whispered. "She's ours."

I clenched my fist under the table.

"She's dead," I whispered back.

"Then let's die with her," the wolf growled.

I forced myself to stay still through the rest of the gala. I gave a speech I didn't care about. I shook hands I planned to ignore. Pretended everything was exactly how it should be.

But I had seen her.

I had felt her.

And now the bond between us pulsed like a second heartbeat-one I was trying with every ounce of my will to silence.

But she was a Solen.

And I was hers.