Chapter 18
The sun should’ve warmed the clearing, but the light was bent too sharp, too quiet. Something waited beneath the silence. Something wrong.
Kareon’s eyes swept the clearing, instincts already bristling. The convoy lay in ruin: crates smashed, supplies scattered, his men bound, gagged, and laid out like trophies. Their bodies writhed weakly beneath the ropes, struggling against the binds.
Varis swore. Taric’s fingers twitched toward his blade.
Kareon said nothing. His golden eyes lifted to the figures waiting at the edge of the clearing.
Stephan. Theon. Adrian. Not one of them looked surprised.
Theon smirked, arms crossed, head tilted with mock amusement. “Well, well, look who took the bait.”
Adrian let out a short laugh, tipping his head mockingly. “And here I was about to send an engraved invitation. Good to know even Lycans can read between the lines.”
Varis scoffed, rolling his shoulders. “If we were going to walk into an ambush, you could’ve at least made it interesting.”
Taric sighed, his tone deadpan. “Yes, because nothing says ‘interesting’ like walking into a bunch of smug Firstbloods who think they’re clever.”
Adrian smirked. “Careful, pup. Smugness is just confidence backed by results.”
Taric arched a brow. “Then I must be very confident you’ll shut up soon.”
Kareon tilted his head, his gaze cold. “This is the most effort I’ve ever seen a Firstblood put into a conversation. I’m almost touched.”
Behind him, Varis and Taric stilled as tension coiled like wire.
Stephan remained silent. His stance was taut and cold.
Kareon’s smirk didn’t fade, but something in him locked into place. This wasn’t about strategy. This was personal.
Stephan’s lip curled as he stepped forward, voice laced with icy contempt. “Tell me, Kareon, what did it take? What price did the Obsidian Order name before you sold off whatever honor you had left?”
Kareon arched a brow, unimpressed. “If this is another of your infamous deceits, Dragov, spare me the theatrics. I don’t have time for your games. Say what you came to say.”
Stephan’s gaze raked over him, hunting for the smallest flicker of guilt. There was none, and that unsettled him more than anything. Could his officers have been wrong? No. Impossible. The Dragov Watchers didn’t make mistakes. He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a low edge.
“My intelligence places Obsidian activity deep in pack territory. I came here to make one thing clear: We see you. We are watching. And if you think you can maneuver around us by aligning with them…you’ll regret it.”
It wasn’t a warning. It was a promise.
Kareon stood silent, golden gaze unreadable. This wasn’t about a convoy. Stephan had come for something else. He exhaled, head tilted.
“It’s one of two things, High Commander. Either your Watchers need retraining…or you’ve come here to drown out the sound of your own insecurities over the woman you claim to love.”
It struck deep, a raw nerve laid bare, vulnerable and exposed, like a sharp blade slipping between ribs, silent and devastating.
Theon drew a sharp breath through his teeth. Even he felt that one land.
Adrian winced, subtle, but unmistakable. One hand lifted briefly, raking through his hair like it might deflect second-hand impact. “Gods,” he muttered under his breath. “Low hit.”
Stephan didn’t flinch, but his silence was surgical.
The kind that came before blood. Then he exhaled, coldly.
“For someone so sure of his standing,” he said, voice venom-laced, “you are awfully obsessed with what is mine.” He stepped forward, blade tilting just enough to catch the light. “Should I take that as a challenge?”
“Careful, Prince,” Kareon said, smooth and almost amused, though his golden eyes burned.
“You wouldn’t want to start something you can’t win.
” He closed the space between them with a single, deliberate step.
“After all, your bloodline isn’t known for protecting what it loves. Only for watching it die.”
Another deep, merciless cut. Kareon wasn’t here to win. He was here to bury. The air tightened like a noose.
Stephan’s grip on his sword flexed, but his smirk stayed razor-sharp.
“That’s rich coming from a mongrel who scavenges power off the backs of others.
What disgusts me most is not your existence.
It’s that someone like you has been allowed to whisper into Eris’s ears—twist her against her own blood, her own destiny.
Drag her into your war…even if it kills her.
” His blade gleamed as he took another step forward.
“You think you can use her? That her power is something to leverage for your own gain?” His voice dropped, lethal, each word edged with controlled fury.
“Enjoy whatever hold you think you have over her, because when I am done with you, she will see you for what you really are.”
A pretender. A parasite.
And he would make damn sure Kareon never touched her fate again.
Kareon’s smirk didn’t waver, but his golden eyes now gleamed sharper.
“Lies,” he drawled, voice low with amusement.
“The ones you tell yourself because the truth burns too much.” His gaze locked with Stephan’s, unflinching.
“Eris isn’t like you. She’s not poisoned by the darkness in your bloodline.
” He let the words land, watching for the crack in Stephan’s carefully restrained fury.
“And that kills you, doesn’t it?” Kareon stepped closer, voice dropping, intimate and dangerous now.
“Because no matter how you mold her, how you try to fit her into your pristine little dynasty, she keeps slipping through your grasp. You don’t understand her, Dragov.
You’ve never tried. You’re afraid to admit she’s bigger than you.
Bigger than me. Bigger than this war. She wasn’t made to keep your world intact—she was made to change it.
” He paused, his smirk curving blade-like as he moved, loose and lethal.
“So tell me, Prince—still eager to see if you measure up?”
Stephan’s grip on his sword turned vice-like, leather creaking beneath his fingers.
Kareon’s words slithered under his skin, feeding a fire already burning too hot.
He’d always known Eris was different. And gods, yes—some part of him had always feared the day she saw it too.
That she’d realize he wasn’t enough and leave.
But that confidence in Kareon’s voice, that certainty, as if he knew her, as if he had any right to her at all—that was unbearable.
Theon leaned toward Adrian with a smirk. “Well, this is escalating quickly.”
Adrian nodded, mock-serious. “A diplomatic meeting, they said. A political discussion, they said.”
Taric folded his arms. “I’ll start digging graves just in case.”
Varis adjusted his gloves, calm as ever. “Make it a deep one.”
Stephan’s expression shifted, hardening into something colder.
Enough. “You think you know her?” he said, voice lethal.
“Like a wolf howling at the moon, thinking it belongs to him just because it calls for it? You don’t understand a damn thing.
Not about Eris. Not about me.” His presence became a blade unsheathed, his voice cutting with the same brutal precision.
His eyes flashed, fury and faith entwined.
“You talk like she is going to break my world. She’s not here to shatter it.
She is going to rule it. With me. As my queen.
” He took another step, his blade glinting as his voice turned razor-sharp.
“That is what you will never grasp. Because you do not know what it means to carry a kingdom. To protect it. To bleed for it. Let my sword teach you what loyalty looks like.”
He moved fast, a blur of fury and steel as he lunged. The sword sliced through air, merciless.
Kareon moved just as swiftly. The clearing erupted, sparks bursting as metal screamed. Theon and Adrian stepped back on instinct, their banter silenced. Two warriors from opposite worlds came crashing together.
Stephan struck like a soldier, precise, honed, and unforgiving.
Years of discipline forged into every blow.
Kareon didn’t fight like a soldier. He fought like the wild.
He moved with wind and instinct. One moment he was there, the next, he was gone.
He let Stephan’s fury slice through empty air, drawing it out, wearing him down, before slipping in to strike.
Stephan growled, lunging forward, his sword slicing inches from Kareon’s throat.
Kareon ducked and pivoted, their movements weaving through dappled sunlight bleeding between the trees. This wasn’t strength against strength. It was control against chaos. Legacy against instinct.
Theon leaned against a tree, arms folded. “Classic. Absolutely classic.”
Adrian clapped slowly. “Brilliant strategy—turn a love triangle into a sword fight. That always ends well.”
Taric crossed his arms. “Should we step in or let them get it out of their system?”
Varis shrugged. “They’d probably stab us too.”
Stephan drove forward, his blade locking against Kareon’s with brute force. Their faces were inches apart, breaths mingling, muscles coiled.
Kareon’s smirk didn’t falter. “Oh, but I do understand what it takes to carry a kingdom. The Firstbloods know it well too, don’t they?
Sacrificing the people they love for power.
” His golden eyes glinted, darkly. “But if you think I’ll let you do that to Eris…
” His voice dropped, a breath from a growl. “You’re already dead!”
He twisted, feral, and shoved Stephan back. Stephan staggered a step, caught—not by the blow, but by the fire in Kareon’s eyes. What was that? For a heartbeat, he hesitated. That wasn’t bravado. That wasn’t defiance. That was possession, certainty.
Was he—? No. Impossible.