Chapter 12
Rykan lay on his furs, one arm tucked behind his head, his eyes tracing patterns in the darkness above him.
The fire had burned down to embers hours ago, casting just enough light to turn the shadows into living things that breathed and shifted with every flicker.
He should have been asleep. After fleeing the cabin earlier, he’d run for miles, trying to escape the need to return and claim Ember.
The memory of her face, her eyes wide with wonder and delight as he pleasured her, had accompanied him the entire time.
He’d thought he’d regained control, but as soon as he returned to the cabin and caught the lingering sweetness of her arousal, his restraint had almost vanished.
He’d intended to leave again, but she’d asked him to stay and he couldn’t refuse her.
He knew he shouldn’t have left her the first time, still trembling from her climax, so this time he stayed. But he didn’t sleep.
She wasn’t sleeping either. He could hear her breathing—not the deep, even rhythm of rest, but something shallow and wakeful. He’d known that for the past hour, but he’d resisted the urge to speak because speaking would make this moment real in ways he wasn’t sure he was ready for.
The tension from earlier still hummed beneath his skin.
He could still taste her on his lips, could still feel the ghost of her body pressed against his, could still hear the way she’d whispered please against his throat.
The memory made his blood heat and his beast stir restlessly, prowling the edges of his control like a caged predator.
He had almost claimed her.
The thought filled him with a dark satisfaction that he couldn’t quite suppress. His beast had recognized her from the first moment—had known what she was to them before his conscious mind had caught up. And every day since, the bond had grown stronger, the pull between them impossible to ignore.
She would have let you, his beast whispered. She wanted it. You could smell her desire.
He could still smell it now, clinging to the air of the cabin like a promise, and he could still taste it on his lips. It made his fangs ache and his hands clench and his cock stir with renewed interest despite his exhaustion.
He was so lost in his thoughts that he almost didn’t hear her speak.
“Rykan?”
Her voice was soft, barely louder than the crackle of the dying fire. He turned his head towards her, though he couldn’t make out more than the shape of her body beneath the furs.
“Yes?”
“Why are you here? Alone, I mean. On this mountain.”
The question hit him like a blade between the ribs—sharp and unexpected, slipping past defenses he hadn’t realized were down. He stared at the ceiling, his jaw tight, his heart suddenly beating too fast.
“That is a long story.”
“I’m not sleeping anyway.”
No, she wasn’t. And neither was he. And the darkness made things easier somehow, made it feel like they existed outside of time, in a space where truths could be spoken without consequence.
He was still silent for so long that she started to withdraw, and he heard the shift of fabric as she began to roll away.
“My father was the Alpha of our pack,” he said, and the movement stopped. Her attention sharpened, focused on him like a beam of light. “It was one of the largest packs in the northern territories. My father led it for almost forty years.”
“Led?”
“He died. Seven years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
He made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Don’t be. He wasn’t an easy male to love. Or to mourn.”
He heard her shift again, this time towards him rather than away. “Tell me about him.”
Why? he wanted to ask. Why does it matter? Why do you want to know the ugly truth of what I am, where I came from, what I left behind?
But the words wouldn’t form. Instead, other words came, truths he’d buried so deep he’d almost convinced himself they no longer existed.
“My father took two mates in his lifetime. My mother was the first. She was…” He searched for the right word, for some way to describe the female he remembered.
“Fierce. That’s what they say. She challenged him publicly before they mated.
She told him he was arrogant and blind and unworthy of her respect.
No one had ever spoken to him like that before. ”
“What did he do?”
“He laughed. And then he claimed her in front of the entire pack.” A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “They say she bit him hard enough to leave a scar before she accepted the bond. He wore it proudly until the day he died.”
He could feel her curiosity, bright and warm in the darkness. “She sounds incredible.”
“She was. And she died when I was six years old.”
The words came out flat, emotionless—a recitation of facts rather than a confession of grief. But even now, after all these years, he felt the echo of that loss. The empty space his mother had left behind, never quite filled by anything or anyone else.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, the words carrying genuine sorrow.
He breathed through the old pain and let it settle back into the place where he kept all the things he didn’t want to feel.
“My father mourned her for three years. Then the pack elders began pressuring him to take another mate, to stabilize the pack. He was still strong, still capable of leading for decades, but a male is… stronger with a mate. So he chose again.”
“Your stepmother.”
It wasn’t a question. He heard the understanding in her voice, and the careful way she put the pieces together.
“Vaela.” He spoke the name like a curse. “She was young. Beautiful. And utterly without scruples.”
He sat up, unable to lie still any longer. The memories were too close to the surface, pressing against his skin like something alive and struggling to break free. He moved to the fire, staring down into the embers.
“She pretended to love my father. She pretended to respect my mother’s memory.
She pretended to accept me as the rightful heir.
” His voice hardened. “But from the moment she arrived, she was working against me. Whispering in my father’s ear.
Turning the pack against me one member at a time.
Preparing the way for her own son to take what should have been mine. ”
“Her son?”
“My half-brother. Nico.” He turned and paced the width of the cabin. “He was born two years after Vaela joined the pack. A sickly pup at first, small and weak, nothing like me. But Vaela coddled him and convinced my father that he needed special consideration.”
“And your father believed her?”
“My father believed what he wanted to believe. He was tired of conflict. Tired of the constant politics of pack leadership. And Vaela knew exactly how to play him—how to seem loyal and devoted while undermining everything he’d built.”
He heard the blankets rustling as she sat up. Even without looking, he could sense the intensity of her attention.
“What about your brother? What did he think of all this?”
The question cut deeper than she probably intended.
“Nico was…” He searched for words that didn’t sound like excuses. “Weak. Not in body—he grew strong enough eventually—but in will. He wanted everyone to like him. He wanted peace at any cost, and he was terrified of his mother.”
“Your stepmother.”
“Yes.” His hands clenched on his knees. “Vaela controlled him completely. He did everything she said, believed everything she told him. By the time my father died, Nico was more her creature than his own person.”
An ember popped in the silence. He breathed through the memories, through the bitter taste of old betrayals.
“When my father passed, I should have become Alpha. It was my right—by blood, by tradition, by everything our pack believed in. But Vaela had spent years preparing for that moment. She had allies among the elders. She had stories about my supposed unfitness, my aggression, my instability. And she had…”
He stopped. The next part was harder than he’d expected.
“She had Lysara.”
The name hung in the air like poison.
“Who was Lysara?”
He closed his eyes. Even after all these years, the memory still burned. “She was meant to be my mate.”
He could feel her shock in her sudden stillness and the way her breathing changed.
“Meant to be?”
“We grew up together. Our families had an understanding—not formal, but strong enough. Everyone assumed we would bond when we came of age. And I…” He laughed bitterly. “I was fool enough to believe it too.”
“What happened?”
“Lysara was… different. Unusual for a Vultor female.” He forced himself to continue, to dig out truths he’d buried under years of silence.
“Most Vultor females celebrate their strength, but she seemed fragile in a way that made you want to protect her. But that was all performance. Underneath, she was calculating and ambitious and completely without loyalty.”
He turned from the fire to face the darkness where she sat. He could feel her presence, warm and steady and somehow grounding in a way nothing else had been for years.
“She played me perfectly. She made me believe she wanted me, that she would stand beside me when I claimed my father’s position.
I trusted her with things I’d never told anyone else.
” His voice dropped to something rough and raw.
“And then, on the night of the succession challenge, she stood before the entire pack and declared herself for Nico.”
“She betrayed you?”
“She destroyed me,” he said harshly. “Not just by choosing my brother, although that alone would have been enough, but by claiming I had forced myself on her. She said I was dangerous, unstable, and unfit to lead. She said that I had threatened her and tried to claim her against her will.”
He heard her sharp intake of breath.