Chapter 2 Heartless doesn't mean Heartless.

ZARIA.

The blood hadn't even dried on my skin yet.

It clung to me, sticky and hot, a second skin that smelled of iron, lust, and war. I could still feel the weight of Darius's eyes on my back, even as the trees swallowed me whole. His breath had been copper and arrogance, his touch desperate, his hunger bottomless.

And that look in his eyes when I walked away?

That wasn't fear.

It was hunger.

Let them starve.

I had no destination. Only a pulse, a rhythm in my bones, a calling that told me I wasn't made to kneel in any man's den. The wind tugged at my torn dress, whispering secrets through the branches. The moon had climbed higher now, its silver eye fixed on me like it wanted to watch me unravel, like it wanted to see what I'd become next.

A howl split the silence behind me.

Darius.

He'd shifted. Calling the others. Rallying them as if I were some escaped pup instead of the storm that had just torn their Beta apart like parchment.

Fools.

They thought this was over?

I wasn't running.

I was hunting.

My old den reeked of silence.

It was nothing but ruins now burned, rebuilt, and burned again. The stone walls were cracked, soot still clinging to them like old scars. My scent had faded, but not enough. Anyone with half a nose could tell I'd once curled up here like a stupid little girl, waiting for a mate who never came.

I stepped into the hollow, inhaled, and spat.

I wasn't that girl anymore.

The silence here wasn't peace. It was betrayal. It was the echo of packmates who had looked away while they stripped the collar from my neck and tossed me into the cold. My so-called sisters had giggled behind their palms, whispering: "What if she never goes into heat?" and "Maybe she's not even Omega at all."

But I went into heat.

Gods, I went into blistering, sickening, savage heat.

And the Alphas who tried to answer it?

They didn't survive the burn.

Not all fires are for warmth. Some are meant to consume.

I moved toward the hearth, fingers tracing a jagged scratch in the stone. My scratch. My mark. A scar left behind the night I realized no one was coming for me. The night I stopped waiting to be claimed.

I was about to turn away when I heard it.

A growl. Low. Male. Hungry.

I turned slowly, blade sliding into my hand like a second heartbeat.

And there he stood.

Levi.

The rogue. The Beta.

Not bound to any pack. Not chained by heat. Just wild, dangerous, dripping with chaos.

He leaned in the doorway like the place belonged to him, shirt open, chest slick with sweat, boots stained with blood. And that smirk Gods, that smirk was sin given flesh.

"You're a hard b*tch to track, Zaria."

I didn't move. Didn't blink. "Try harder."

He laughed. The sound rolled through the room like smoke, curling into my lungs until I almost choked on it.

"You cut down Darius's Beta like he was made of wet tissue."

"I gave him the death he deserved."

Levi stepped forward, slow and deliberate, his boot grinding against the scorched earth. "And what about Darius? Did he deserve to live?"

"I let him."

"That's not like you."

"I'm evolving."

"Mm." His head tilted, wolfish. "Or playing with your food."

His eyes dipped, shameless, dragging over me the torn dress, the blood smeared across my thighs, the blade glittering in my hand.

"You planning to use that on me, too?" His voice was low, dark velvet.

"Depends," I said, stepping into the shaft of moonlight spilling through the cracked wall. "You planning to use your mouth on me first?"

That got him.

For a heartbeat, everything stopped. The air. The forest. Even the damned wolves outside froze, as if the world itself was holding its breath.

Then Levi moved.

Fast.

Too fast.

I was slammed against the stone wall, steel and heat coiled around me. His forearm braced just beneath my throat-not choking, but close. Close enough. His scent hit me hard: wild berries tangled with storm clouds. His lips hovered an inch from mine, heavy with the weight of a thousand things unsaid.

"You're poison," he growled.

"You're addicted."

His hand found my waist, gripped, dragged me flush against him. I could feel him, hard and ready, pressed to me with a hunger that matched my own.

But he didn't move.

Didn't f*ck.

Didn't kiss.

He just stared at me like I was something holy. A miracle he'd stumbled into but wasn't sure he deserved to touch.

"You're not in heat," he whispered.

"No."

"Then what is this?"

My hand traced down his chest, slow and taunting, until I felt his breath stutter.

"This is want, Levi. No bond. No heat. Just raw f*cking need."

His composure cracked. His mouth crushed against mine-hot, furious, filthy. Not soft. Not sweet. Just teeth and tongue and blood.

His hands slid to my thighs, lifted me, slammed me into the stone like he wanted to brand me into the ruins. I wrapped my legs around his waist, grinding against him like a starving thing.

Maybe I was.

Starving for something real. Starving to prove I didn't need a f*cking mate to feel alive.

Levi kissed like he wanted to burn with me.

I bit his lip until it bled.

He groaned, low and broken. "F*ck, I forgot how insane you are."

I licked his blood from my tongue. "You love it."

His hands roamed lower, rough on my *ss, my dress hiked high around my hips. He could've taken me. He didn't.

He just held me there, forehead pressed to mine, sweat slicking both of us.

"What are you doing, Zaria?" His voice cracked on the words.

I smiled, slow and merciless.

"Starting a war."

When he finally left, I didn't ask him to stay.

I lay back in the soot of my old den, chest rising and falling slow, my pulse still racing like thunder in my veins. The fire between my thighs still burned, but it wasn't release I craved.

It wasn't pleasure I needed.

It was information.

Levi had come first. But he wouldn't be the last.

Because the Alpha King was watching.

The same bastard who had exiled me years ago.

And now with his enemies clawing at his borders, with his pack fracturing under his rule he wanted his secret weapon back.

Me.

But I wasn't going back.

I was coming for his throne.