The photographs hadn't prepared me.
Nothing could have prepared me.
Kael Thornhart hung from silver chains bolted into the concrete wall, his arms stretched above his head in a position that must have been agony. The shackles burned where they touched his skin, leaving raw, weeping wounds at his wrists and ankles. His shirt was gone, revealing a canvas of muscle and scars... some old and silvered, others fresh and still healing.
Or trying to heal. Silver poisoning prevented werewolves from regenerating properly.
But it wasn't his injuries that made me freeze just inside the door.
It was his eyes.
When he lifted his head and looked at me, the world tilted sideways.
His eyes were amber... the color of honey backlit by sunlight... and they locked onto mine with an intensity that stole the breath from my lungs. Something jolted through me, starting at the base of my spine and racing upward like electricity through water.
My heart began to pound, hard enough that I felt it in my throat, my fingertips, the soles of my feet. Heat bloomed across my skin despite the frigid air. The case slipped from my numb fingers and hit the floor with a crash that made me flinch.
Kael Thornhart inhaled sharply, his entire body going rigid.
Then he whispered, "No."
His voice was deeper than I'd expected, rougher, like gravel wrapped in silk. It did something to me, that voice. Made my knees weak and my hands tremble.
"Not you," he continued, his eyes flashing gold for a split second before returning to amber. "Not here."
I tried to speak but nothing came out. My mouth was desert-dry.
"Step back," he said, and there was urgency in his tone now. "Step back and call the guard. Tell him you're not doing this. Tell him..."
"Why?" The word finally escaped, barely more than a whisper.
"Because you're in danger, little hunter." His muscles strained against the chains, making them clink softly. "Not from me. From what we are to each other."
"I don't..." I swallowed hard. "I don't understand."
"You feel it." It wasn't a question. His gaze raked over me, assessing, and everywhere it touched, my skin prickled with awareness. "Your pulse is racing. Your pupils are dilated. You're aroused and terrified and you don't know why."
My face burned. "That's not..."
"Don't lie. I can smell it on you." He took a breath, nostrils flaring. "Honeysuckle and gunpowder. Fear and desire. You have no idea what you are, do you?"
"I'm a hunter."
"You're more than that." His eyes tracked to the door behind me. "How long did Marcus give us? Three days?"
The use of my father's first name jolted through me. "How do you know..."
"I know everything about Marcus Ashford." His lips pulled back from his teeth... not quite a smile, not quite a snarl. "Including how far he'll go to win. And this?" He rattled his chains. "This is new, even for him."
I forced myself to move, to cross the room and pick up the fallen case. My hands still trembled, but I managed to set it on the small metal table that was the cell's only furniture.
"My father captured you," I said, trying to regain some sense of control. "You're his prisoner. And for the next three days, you're mine."
"Am I?" Something flickered in his expression... amusement? Pity? "Tell me something, little hunter. Did Marcus explain exactly why he wants you to interrogate me? Out of all his trained killers, why you?"
"Because I'm ready."
"No." Kael shifted, and I heard him hiss softly as the silver dug deeper. "Because he knows what I am to you. What you are to me. He's counted on it."
"You're not making sense."
"Aren't I?" He tilted his head, studying me like I was a puzzle he was solving in real-time. "How old are you, Elara Ashford?"
The use of my full name sent another shiver through me. "Twenty-three."
"Twenty-three," he repeated softly. "And in all those twenty-three years, have you ever felt like this? This pull toward someone? This certainty that something fundamental just shifted in your understanding of the world?"
Yes, the truthful part of me whispered. But I couldn't admit that. Wouldn't.
"I don't feel anything," I lied.
"Liar." His voice dropped lower, became almost hypnotic. "Your body is screaming the truth even while your mouth tries to deny it. Every cell in you recognizes me, and you have no idea why. But I do."
"Then tell me."
"Come closer."
"No."
"Afraid?" The challenge in his voice made my spine straighten.
"Of you? Hardly."
"Then prove it. Come closer. Let me see your eyes properly."
It was stupid. Dangerous. Exactly the kind of thing I shouldn't do.
I crossed the room anyway.
Up close, I could see the toll his captivity had taken. Dark circles under his eyes. Hollows in his cheeks that spoke of hunger. More scars than I'd initially noticed, crisscrossing his torso in a map of old violence.
But he was still beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with conventional attractiveness and everything to do with raw, undeniable presence. This close, his scent wrapped around me... pine and rain and something darker, wilder, that made my wolf...
Wait.
My wolf?
I didn't have a wolf. I was human.
"There it is," Kael murmured, watching my face. "That moment of recognition. You felt it, didn't you? Your wolf stirring, reaching out for mine."
"I don't have a wolf. I'm not..."
"You are." His amber eyes held mine, and I couldn't look away even though every instinct screamed that I should. "You're as much wolf as I am. Maybe more. I can smell the bloodline on you. Ancient. Powerful. Alpha stock."
"You're lying."
"Am I? Tell me, these pills your father makes you take every morning. The 'vitamins' he says are for your health. Do they make you feel strong? Or do they make you feel... dampened? Muted? Like there's something inside you pressing against a wall, trying to get out?"
My breath caught. How could he possibly know about that?
"The wolfsbane in those pills has been suppressing your nature since you were a child," Kael continued relentlessly. "Marcus knew what you were. What you'd become. So he's been poisoning you for twenty years to keep your wolf locked away."
"That's insane."
"Is it? How else do you explain what you're feeling right now? This connection between us?"
"There is no connection."
"Look me in the eyes and say that again."
I opened my mouth to do exactly that... and couldn't. Because standing here, close enough to count his heartbeats, close enough to see the silver flecks in his amber irises, I felt the pull he described. Felt something in my chest tightening, reaching, yearning toward him like a flower turning toward the sun.
"What is this?" My voice came out smaller than I intended.
"The mate bond." He said it simply, like announcing the weather. "We're true mates, Elara. Your soul recognizes mine. My wolf has claimed yours, even though you don't know she exists yet."
"That's impossible. Mate bonds are..." I struggled to remember my training. "They're rare. Maybe one in ten thousand werewolves find their true mate."
"Rarer than that. I'm two hundred and eighty-seven years old. I'd given up hoping to find mine." His gaze softened fractionally. "And then you walked through that door, and my entire world realigned around you."
I stepped back so fast I almost tripped. "This is a trick. Some kind of werewolf manipulation to..."
"To what? Escape?" He rattled his chains again, and I saw how the silver had eaten into his flesh, saw the tremor in his arms from holding the position. "I'm a little handicapped for escape attempts."
"Then to mess with my head. Make me doubt my father, doubt my mission..."
"Your mission." He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Your father locked his daughter in a cell with her mate and told her to torture information out of him. Do you know what that makes you, Elara? Bait. You're not here to break me. You're here to see if the bond is strong enough to turn you against everything you've been raised to believe."
The room suddenly felt too small, the air too thick.
"I should kill you," I said.
"You could try." His eyes flashed gold again. "But you won't. Not because you're too weak or too kind. But because every instinct you have is screaming at you to protect me, not harm me. Even now, looking at my injuries, it's taking everything in you not to tend to them, isn't it?"
He was right. Damn him, he was right.
My gaze kept dropping to the worst of his wounds... a deep gash across his ribs that looked infected, burns from previous torture sessions, the raw meat of his wrists where the silver had eaten away skin.
"How did my father catch you?" I asked, desperate to change the subject.
"Does it matter?"
"Yes."
He studied me for a long moment. "He took members of my pack. Civilians... pups, elders, wolves who couldn't fight back. Said he'd kill them one by one until I surrendered myself. So I did."
Something cold and sharp twisted in my gut. "That's not how we operate."
"Isn't it?" His expression hardened. "Marcus Ashford doesn't follow anyone's rules but his own. Surely you've figured that out by now."
"My father is a good man. He's dedicated his life to protecting humans from..."
"From what? From us?" Kael's voice rose. "Tell me, little hunter, how many humans have werewolves killed in the past decade?"
"Hundreds. Maybe thousands."
"Wrong. Forty-seven. And thirty-two of those were in self-defense against hunter attacks. Your people have killed three thousand of mine in the same time period. So tell me... who's the monster?"
"You're twisting the numbers..."
"I'm stating facts. Facts your father doesn't want you to know because they complicate his righteous narrative." He leaned forward as far as the chains allowed. "Ask yourself this: why did Marcus really give you this assignment? Out of all his hunters, why you specifically?"
"I told you. It's my final test."
"It's a setup." His eyes bored into mine. "He knows about the bond. He's counting on it. Either it'll break you and prove you're too weak to be a true Ashford, or it'll turn you into the weapon he's been trying to forge for twenty-three years."
"A weapon against what?"
"Against us. Against your own kind." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "What better way to infiltrate werewolf packs than with a wolf they'd never suspect? One raised as a hunter, one trained to kill her own kind, one who doesn't even know what she is?"
The implications crashed over me like ice water.
"You're lying," I said, but even I could hear the doubt creeping into my voice.
"Am I? Then explain this." He shifted again, and this time I saw him deliberately press his wrists harder against the silver shackles. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, and despite everything, despite all my training and all my resolve, I lurched forward.
"Stop that!"
"Why?" His smile was sharp as broken glass. "Does it hurt you when I hurt myself, little hunter? Can you feel it? Not physically, not yet, but the wrongness of it? The way your wolf screams inside you to make it stop?"
My hands had moved without conscious thought, reaching toward him, toward his injuries. I yanked them back and clasped them behind me.
"Don't do that again."
"Or what?"
"Or I'll make it worse."
"Will you?" He watched me with those too-knowing eyes. "I don't think so. I think you're going to have the hardest three days of your life, torn between what you were taught and what you feel. Between duty to a father who's been lying to you since birth and a mate your soul has been searching for your entire existence."
"You're not my mate."
"Keep telling yourself that." His gaze dropped to my throat, then lower, a slow perusal that made heat flood my face. "But your body knows the truth, even if your mind hasn't caught up yet."
I should have responded with violence. Should have opened that case on the table and shown him exactly what happened to prisoners who spoke to me that way.
Instead, I turned and walked to the door.
"Running away?" Kael called after me.
"Getting some air." My hand was on the door when his next words stopped me cold.
"Your father is watching us, Elara. Right now. Cameras in all four corners. Did you really think he'd leave you unsupervised down here?"
I looked up slowly and found the tiny lenses exactly where he'd indicated.
"He wanted to see how long it would take," Kael continued. "How long before the bond manifested. How long before you started doubting. How long before you came to me for answers instead of giving me pain."
I turned back to face him. "If you're trying to manipulate me..."
"I'm trying to save you." For the first time, I heard something raw in his voice. Real emotion beneath the calculated words. "Because when this is over, when your father's finished with whatever game he's playing, one of us ends up dead. And mate bond or not, training or not, you're not ready for what he has planned."
"Which is?"
"I don't know." His chains clinked as he shifted again. "But I know Marcus Ashford. And I know that whatever he's building toward, it's going to cost more than either of us can afford to pay."
The door behind me suddenly felt very far away.
"I don't believe you," I said.
"You don't have to believe me. You just have to survive long enough to figure out the truth yourself." His eyes found mine again. "Three days, Elara. You have three days to decide who you are and who you want to be. Hunter or wolf. Daughter or mate. Weapon or warrior."
"I already know who I am."
"Do you?" The challenge hung in the air between us. "Then prove it. Open that case on the table. Pick up one of those pretty silver instruments. Come over here and use it on me like your father expects."
I didn't move.
"That's what I thought." Something that might have been disappointment crossed his face. "You're not ready for this, little hunter. Not ready for me, not ready for the truth, not ready for any of it."
"I'm plenty ready."
"Then why are your hands shaking?"
I looked down and found he was right. My hands trembled visibly, had been trembling since I entered the room.
"It's cold in here," I lied.
"It's not the temperature." His voice softened, became almost gentle. "It's the bond. Fighting it takes energy. The closer you are to me, the harder it becomes to maintain the walls you've built. Every minute you spend in my presence, those walls crumble a little more."
"I don't have walls."
"Everyone has walls, Elara. Yours are just stronger than most. Had to be, growing up as Marcus Ashford's daughter." His amber eyes seemed to see straight through me. "What did he do to you? All those years, all that training. What did it cost you to become what he wanted?"
"It cost me nothing. I chose this."
"Did you? Or did you simply never realize there was another choice?"
The question hit harder than any of my father's blows.
"I'm done talking," I said abruptly.
"For now." He settled back against the wall, somehow still managing to look dangerous despite the chains. "But you'll be back. We have three days together, remember? Three days alone in the dark. And every hour, the bond grows stronger. Every minute, harder to ignore."
I reached for the door control, ready to call the guard.
"Oh, and Elara?" Kael's voice followed me. "When you report back to your father tonight? When he asks how it went? Tell him the truth. Tell him his little experiment is working exactly as planned. Tell him the mate bond has taken root."
"There is no mate bond."
"Then why," he asked softly, "are you still standing there instead of leaving?"
I didn't have an answer for that.
So I did the only thing I could... I slammed my palm against the door control and waited for the guard to let me out. The locks disengaged one by one, achingly slow, and I kept my back to Kael the entire time. Kept myself rigid, controlled, calm.
But I felt his gaze on me like a physical touch.
Felt something inside me reaching back toward him, trying to close the distance I was creating.
Felt, for the first time in my life, like I was walking away from something important instead of toward it.
The door opened. I stepped through without looking back.
As it sealed shut behind me, I heard Kael's voice one last time, muffled but clear:
"See you tomorrow, little hunter."
And damn me, I was already counting the hours until I could.