Nova's POV
Cold wakes her.
Not the kind of cold you feel in winter. This is deeper. It seeps into her bones and makes her teeth chatter. Nova's eyes snap open to gray stone and darkness and nothing that makes sense.
She is naked.
The realization hits her like ice water. Her whole body is exposed except for a thin blanket someone has thrown over her like she is an afterthought. Her skin is covered in burn marks where the silver nets touched her. Her muscles ache in ways she did not know was possible.
She does not remember how she got here.
The last thing she remembers is the silver burning and the dark closing in and then nothing. No shift back to human. No moment where she chose to change. Just emptiness.
Nova sits up slowly. The blanket falls away. Cold air hits her bare skin and she wraps the blanket around herself like a shield. There are clothes folded on the ground next to her. Black pants. A gray shirt. Socks. Everything is her size which somehow makes this worse. They planned for this. They expected her to wake up.
Her hands shake as she pulls the clothes on. The fabric feels strange against her skin. Too heavy. Too real. Everything about this is too real.
The cell is small. Maybe ten feet by ten feet. Stone walls that look ancient. A toilet in the corner. A sink. And bars. So many bars. They shimmer with a faint silver glow and when she looks at them too long, her head starts to hurt.
She sits on the cot in the corner and wraps her arms around herself.
How long will they keep her here? What do they want? The woman at the diner said something about an Alpha. The word means nothing to Nova but it sounded important. Sounded like death.
Footsteps echo down the hallway outside her cell.
Nova's heart starts pounding. She stands up, not knowing if standing is better than sitting. Not knowing what the right move is when you are trapped in a cage made of something that burns.
A man appears in front of the bars.
For a moment Nova cannot breathe.
He is tall. So tall that the ceiling seems lower when he stands there. His shoulders are broad and built like someone who has spent his entire life learning how to hurt people. Black hair falls across his forehead. And his eyes. His eyes are blue like ice on a winter lake. Cold. Empty. Like looking into something that has never been warm.
But when he looks at her, something inside Nova breaks open.
Her heart does not just race. It sprints. Her skin does not just warm. It catches fire. There is a pull in her chest like someone has tied a rope around her heart and is dragging her toward him. It makes no sense. This man has her locked in a cage. This man is probably going to kill her.
Yet her body recognizes him like he is oxygen.
He studies her for a long moment. His ice-blue eyes travel from her face down to her bare feet and back again. The way he looks at her makes her feel like he can see through her skin. Like he can see into the parts of her that are broken and scared and desperate.
Nova forces herself to stand taller. To not show how much his stare is affecting her.
"My name is Kael Nightshade," he says. His voice is deep and smooth like stones being dragged across water. "I am the Alpha of this territory."
The word Alpha settles on her like a weight. Important. Dangerous. Absolute.
"You will tell me what you are and who sent you here."
Nova's mouth is dry. Her brain is screaming at her to be careful but her body is still vibrating from being this close to him. She has never felt anything like this. Not attraction. Not fear. Something else entirely. Something that comes from the animal inside her that she is still trying to understand.
"I don't know what you mean," Nova says. Her voice sounds small. "What am I? I am human. I was human. I work at a diner and I save tips for art school and I have never heard of you before."
His eyes narrow slightly. "You are not human."
"I was until last night." The words come out faster now. She needs him to believe her. She needs him to understand that she did not choose this. "I was just working my shift and there was this customer and he grabbed me and something broke inside me and then I was something else and I don't know how to change back and I don't understand any of this."
Kael steps closer to the bars. The movement is predatory and careful. A hunter checking on a trap.
"No one knows what you are when you first shift," he says. "Wolves are born into their nature. They are taught. They are guided." His ice-blue eyes lock on hers. "You shifted in public. You brought every wolf in a fifty-mile radius to their knees. That is not normal."
"I don't know what you want from me," Nova whispers.
"The truth. Your pack. Your family. Anything that explains why you exist." He pauses. "Where are your parents?"
"Dead. I think. I was raised by my grandmother. She found me when I was a baby. Abandoned. She raised me as human and she never talked about my parents or where I came from."
"Your grandmother is human?"
"Yes."
Something flickers across his face. Confusion. Calculation. He turns away from the bars and Nova feels the loss of his attention like a physical ache. She hates it. She hates that her body cares whether he is looking at her or not.
"You will stay here until I determine if you are a threat," he says without turning back to her. "Do not try to escape. My wolves have orders to use lethal force. You will cooperate with any medical tests. You will answer all questions completely and truthfully. Is this clear?"
"And if I refuse?"
Now he looks back. His eyes are colder than before. Harder. Like watching ice crystals form.
"Then you learn why other Alphas fear me."
He turns to leave.
Nova's wolf surges forward inside her, desperate and furious at his dismissal. Before she can stop herself, words pour out. "Why does it feel like I know you?"
Kael stops. His entire body goes still like a predator catching scent of prey.
When he turns back around, something flickers in his ice-blue eyes. Something ancient. Something that recognizes her back.
"I have been dreaming of a silver wolf since I was fifteen years old," he says quietly. "I thought it was a nightmare. Now I think it was a warning."
He walks away before she can respond, leaving Nova alone in the cage with her heart pounding and her skin burning and absolutely no idea what any of this means.
But she knows one thing with absolute certainty. Whatever he is, whatever this is, it just got more dangerous.
Because somewhere deep inside her, in the part of her that is still learning how to be a wolf, something is recognizing him as hers.