Chapter 1 #2
He removed his jacket with one smooth motion and tossed it aside like he was preparing to slaughter someone—and didn’t want blood on his favorite blazer. The rolled sleeves of his black shirt stretched over thick forearms, veins corded, jaw set.
His voice, when it came, was silk over steel.
“You brought a bullet to a war, asshole.”
Then he was gone.
No, not gone—everywhere.
He blurred forward, too fast to follow. One second he was ten feet away, the next—he had the vampire by the throat, slammed into the boards so hard the stage cracked.
“Do you know who I am?” Aeolus snarled, voice a snarl of dominance. “I own this theater. You just declared war in my fucking house.”
The vampire gurgled, thrashing. Aeolus smiled—sharp and savage.
“You don’t get to stalk what’s mine.”
And then—he ripped the bastard’s head clean off.
A spray of blackened blood hissed in the magic-charged air.
Aeolus tossed the corpse to the side like trash and turned.
His gaze locked on Candy—wounded, breathless, burning with a light that hadn’t gone out.
He dropped to his knees beside her.
Close enough now that she could smell him—citrus and storm and unholy sin. His hand pressed gently to her side, magic flowing through his touch.
“You’re going to be okay,” he murmured.
Her vision flickered. Her body trembled. But still—still—her lips curled in the faintest smile.
“You’re my…” she whispered, breath catching.
Aeolus leaned in, his golden eyes dark and full of secrets.
“Yeah, sweetheart,” he said, voice low and wrecked. “I know.”
And then she went still in his arms, the darkness taking her.
But Aeolus?
He wasn’t letting her go.
* * *
Aeolus didn’t hear the gasps.
Didn’t hear the scream that tore through the crowd.
Didn’t feel the crack of the ruined stage beneath his boots as he stepped over Candy’s collapsed body.
All he heard was her breathing—ragged. Shallow. Drenched in pain.
And that sound?
It unmade him.
His vision blurred crimson, his pulse a war drum behind his ears. Everything else—the crowd, the security, even Nikos standing in the wings—ceased to exist. His entire focus narrowed to two things: the scent of Candy’s blood and the bastard who had spilled it.
The vampire turned.
Too late.
Aeolus struck.
His fist collided with the leech’s jaw with a crack that split the silence, bone shattering like cheap glass. The vampire flew backward, smashing into the backdrop like a broken doll. The set groaned and gave under the weight, collapsing in a heap of painted wood and splinters.
The crowd screamed.
He didn’t care.
Let them scream.
Let them see what happened when a predator laid hands on his mate.
The stage lights flickered violently overhead—one final gasp of brightness before plunging the theater into shadow and chaos. It cast long, flickering silhouettes across the stage, stretching Aeolus’s hulking form until he looked like a myth reborn.
A god of vengeance. A creature of fury.
The rage inside him—feral, blistering, unforgiving—snapped its leash and surged forward like a beast uncaged.
He lunged.
No hesitation. No mercy. No pause.
The vampire scrambled, too slow.
Aeolus’s hand locked around his throat and lifted.
One-handed. Effortless.
The bastard dangled like a marionette, legs kicking wildly, claws scrabbling at Aeolus’s iron grip. Blood seeped around his fingers, hot and thick, as his claws extended and sank into the vampire’s flesh.
“You touched her,” Aeolus growled.
His voice was no longer fully human.
It echoed with something ancient—a growl from the first beasts that ever hunted beneath moonlight.
The vampire choked, eyes wide with terror. “Please—”
Aeolus snarled and slammed him into the floor.
Once.
Twice.
The third hit cracked the stage open like a coffin lid.
Blood pooled beneath the vampire’s crushed frame. Bone jutted from an arm twisted the wrong way. His face—a mess of red and ruin—was unrecognizable. But Aeolus didn’t stop.
Because it wasn’t enough.
Not yet.
A low, vicious rumble built in his chest. His beast wanted to tear the leech’s head from his shoulders and mount it on a pike outside the theater. Wanted to mark this place in blood so no one ever dared again.
But something held him back.
Answers.
And revenge required precision.
He turned, golden eyes flashing toward the shadows.
“Nikos,” he growled.
The other man stepped forward from the wings, his expression a twisted grin of anticipation.
Aeolus hurled the broken vampire at him like garbage. The body hit the floor with a wet thud, limbs jerking in reflexive spasms.
“Find out who sent him,” Aeolus said. “Then erase him. Slowly.”
Nikos gave a sharp nod, baring his teeth. “With pleasure.”
As he dragged the whimpering vampire offstage, Aeolus finally—finally—turned back to her.
And what he saw nearly dropped him to his knees.
Candy.
The siren who had shattered stages with her voice, who had moved the world with her magic… lay still.
Too still.
Her golden skin had gone pale. Her curls spread across the stage like spilled ink. Blood pooled around her in a slow, steady rhythm that promised death if left unchecked.
His mate.
His.
The word detonated in his chest.
The realization hit him with the force of a freight train—fast, brutal, final. Fate had given him a gift. One he hadn’t even had the chance to touch yet, and already, the world had tried to take her from him.
Unacceptable.
A savage sound ripped from his throat, not quite human, not quite wolf. His beast paced just beneath his skin, howling for blood, for vengeance, for her.
He dropped beside her, barely managing to keep his claws from rending the wood beneath them.
His hands trembled as he pressed them to her side, trying to stop the bleeding, trying to hold in the life draining from her.
“Too much blood,” he whispered.
His heart—a thing that had survived war, death, exile—shattered.
And then—
A breath.
A whisper. So faint he almost missed it.
“…Aeolus…”
His name. On her lips.
And it ruined him.
He bent closer, inhaling her scent—jasmine and blood and magic.
“You stay with me, sweetheart,” he growled, voice low and shaking with command. “You don’t get to leave me. I haven’t even kissed you yet.”
Her lips parted, breath fluttering, but her eyes stayed shut.
No.
He clenched his jaw, pushing down the instinct to mark her right there. His beast howled for it—begged to sink its teeth into her soft throat, to claim her, bind her, brand her.
But she was too weak. Too hurt.
And Aeolus would not mark a dying woman.
Not even his mate.
He looked up, sharp as a blade. “Get me a witch. Now. I want this place cleansed. I want every bloodstain burned, every trace of magic scrubbed clean. No one touches this stage again until I say so.”
Security scrambled into action. Even the humans obeyed without question.
Then, without another word, he slipped his arms beneath Candy’s limp body and lifted her.
She was so small. Delicate. Her weight barely registered against his strength.
But she was the heaviest burden he’d ever carried.
His grip tightened. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, low and vicious. “You’re mine now. No one takes what’s mine.”
And then he turned, stalking through the blood-soaked stage, boots echoing like a funeral march.
If anyone came for her again?
They wouldn’t get a second chance.
Because Aeolus Stavros had seen the future.
And it looked like her.
Alive. Safe. Marked.
By him.
And he would burn kingdoms to the ground to make sure it stayed that way.
* * *
The first thing Candy became aware of was the heat.
It pressed against her skin, heavy and consuming—not fire, but something far more dangerous. It wasn’t just warmth. It was possession. Protection. A living, breathing force that wrapped around her like a cloak of muscle and fury.
Aeolus.
She didn’t need to see him to know.
The second thing was pain.
A vicious, throbbing fire bloomed in her side, tearing through her with every shallow breath. She gasped, the sound ragged and low, a hiss sliding between her teeth.
“She’s waking,” a woman murmured nearby, voice hushed and taut. “Hold him back.”
The warning came too late.
The moment Candy stirred, a growl exploded across the room.
Low. Lethal. Earth-shaking.
Not human. Not even close.
It was the kind of sound that made prey freeze mid-run. That made other alphas bow their heads. A don’t-test-me growl. A she’s-mine-and-I-will-end-you growl.
The witch attending to her stiffened visibly. Her fingers hesitated on Candy’s bloodied skin.
“I said hold him back,” she snapped, eyes flicking toward the looming figure beside the bed. “Or I’ll spell him unconscious.”
Candy forced her eyes open, her vision swimming.
And found him.
Aeolus Stavros.
A man who looked like war in a suit. Broad-shouldered and dangerous, golden eyes burning like a forge. His jaw was clenched tight, the muscle ticking like a clock counting down to violence. His hands—those massive, battle-scarred hands—hung at his sides, fists trembling. Not from fear.
From the sheer effort of not tearing the room apart.
He looked like a beast barely restrained by skin.
And all of that rage? All of that power?
Was aimed solely at the woman bleeding out on the bed.
Candy.
His.
Even through the agony searing her side, something stirred deep in her belly. Recognition. A pull older than time. Fated. Final.
Her mate.
Her lips cracked into a faint, sardonic smile. “Behave,” she rasped, voice barely a whisper, but strong enough to echo through the charged silence.
Aeolus didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
But his breathing hitched—just a fraction. Just enough for her to feel it. The leash tightening. The storm… waiting.
The witch glanced between them, face pale. “I’m going to remove the bullet. If he so much as twitches, I’ll put him in stasis.”
No one responded. Aeolus didn’t dignify the threat with a sound.
He just watched.
Candy turned her head slightly, teeth gritted. Her body screamed in protest. The scent of blood hung thick in the air—hers.