Seth
THE PALACE GROUNDS are alive with music and firelight. Drums and flutes rise in a rhythm that carries across the night, mixing with the laughter of wolves drunk on joy and wine. Astra and Lucian’s bond is sealed, their vows spoken beneath the moon. Now the celebration spills over the lawns, where tables are heaped with roasted meats, sweet fruits, and pitchers of mead. Lanterns swing from the branches overhead, casting everything in warm gold.
I should be among them. Celebrating my king, my friend. Instead, I lean against a tree at the edge of it all, arms crossed, jaw tight.
Leon stands beside me, motionless as stone. His voice cuts through the music, low and even. “You keep staring like that, you’ll burn a hole in her.”
My gaze doesn’t shift. “I’m not staring.”
But I am.
Selene is in the middle of the dancers, her auburn hair catching every flicker of torchlight as it brushes her jawline. Her soft, blue eyes shine as she laughs, caught in the spin of one of the younger soldiers. He’s overeager, fumbling through the steps, but she humors him. She always does.
The sound of her laughter hits like a blade sliding between my ribs.
“She’s been in your sight since the first drumbeat,” Leon continues quietly, patiently. “You haven’t looked away.”
I grind my teeth. I don’t need him to point it out. I already feel the bond clawing at me, dragging my focus to her no matter how hard I fight it.
My fated mate.
The words taste bitter even though they are unspoken. I never asked for this, never wanted it. The moment our eyes first met, the connection lit through me like fire—inescapable, unbreakable. And I’ve been ignoring it ever since.
She’s a healer, yes, but a mediocre one. Her wolf is weak. She doesn’t belong by my side; she doesn’t match the weight of command that I carry.
Yet every time she smiles, my chest aches with something I can’t control.
The soldier twirls her, his hand lingering too long at her waist when she stumbles. My grip tightens on my upper arms, a low growl catching in my throat.
Leon doesn’t move, doesn’t soften. He just says, “If it bothers you, make it stop.”
As if it’s that simple. As if I could step out there, take her hand, and pretend I don’t resent what she is to me.
I force my eyes away from her. “She deserves better than a commander who doesn’t want her.”
Leon’s steady, unreadable gaze lands on me. “And you deserve the pain you’re choosing.”
The statement falls like a stone, heavy in my chest.
The drums quicken, voices rising with them. Selene’s laughter bursts out again, but when her partner spins her too roughly, she crashes hard into his chest. He steadies her with both arms, her palm splayed against him.
Heat flares low in my gut, sharp and vicious. My wolf snarls, demanding I go. But I remain rooted in place.
Leon lets the silence linger before speaking again, his tone returning to business. “The west wall still feels thin. Too much shadow between the torch posts.”
I’m as grateful for the change in subject as I would be for air after nearly drowning. “The east and south walls are secure. I walked them myself before the ceremony. Patrols are doubled.”
He nods once. “North side?”
“Covered. Extra men at the gates. No one gets through tonight.”
“Good.” Leon’s eyes, sharper than mine, sweep the grounds again, though he doesn’t look twice at her. He never does. “When so many are gathered, enemies like to take their chance.”
I breathe out slowly, forcing my jaw to unclench. “They’ll find no opening here.”
Still, my gaze betrays me, sliding back to the circle of dancers and the auburn head thrown back in laughter that doesn’t belong to me.
Before I can tear my eyes away, a figure slides up next to me. A woman—tall, with dark hair that tumbles over one shoulder and lips curved into a smile I know too well.
“Seth,” she says coyly, her hand looping around my elbow, fingers brushing slowly and familiarly over my sleeve. “You look miserable over here by yourself. Dance with me.”
I know her. Maris. Before Selene appeared, before the mate bond turned my world inside out, I’d chased her smiles, her laughter, her attention. And she had given me some of it, enough to keep the game going. I’ve had a hundred women like Maris: soft, easygoing, happy to have a tumble or two in bed and then move on.
Playboy, charmer, never serious. That’s what they say about me. That’s what I let them believe. Some attach expectations to me, and I end up breaking their hearts.
“Maris.” I force her name out with a polite nod. “It’s not a good night.”
She leans closer, teasing. “Since when does Seth Rowan turn down a dance? You’ll ruin your reputation.”
“Since I’m on duty.” My voice is even, but the lie tastes sour. “Not tonight.”
Her smile falters, a little pout tugging at her mouth. She squeezes my arm like she thinks she can coax me into it. “One dance won’t bring the kingdom down.”
“It might bring me down,” I say, forcing a rough edge of humor into my tone. “And I can’t risk that.”
Disappointment flickers in her eyes before she slips her hand free. With a small huff, she melts back into the crowd, searching for someone else who may be willing to play.
I exhale, my shoulders stiff against the tree.
Leon waits only a few heartbeats before asking, “Why lie?”
My eyes narrow. “What?”
“You told her you’re on duty. But you’re not.” His expression is relaxed, indecipherable, but his words hit their mark. “You’ve stopped chasing every skirt in the vicinity lately.”
My teeth grind together. “I’m not in the mood.”
Leon’s gaze doesn’t waver. “You haven’t been in the mood for anyone since Selene arrived.” He lets the words hang in the air. “If you’ve rejected your mate, then choose another. Take someone else and be done with it.”
I watch the light from the torches shimmer across the palace walls. The mate bond thrums hot in my chest, unrelenting.
“I haven’t rejected her,” I admit finally, my voice rough.
For the first time tonight, Leon’s composure cracks. His brows lift, surprise evident on his face. “You haven’t?”
“No.” The word is a growl. “Not yet.”
There’s a pause, heavy and weighted. Then, quieter: “What are you trying to do, Seth?”
I don’t answer. Because I don’t know. The mate bond claws at me persistently, demanding something I can’t give.
When I first met Selene, she was on her knees in the throne room, bloodied and half-unconscious. Her alpha had dragged her forward as a pawn in his scheme, planning to use her and her friend as scapegoats. Traitors, he’d called them, conspiring to aid the now-Queen Astra in defying the royal decree.
A crime that carried one punishment: execution.
Lucian’s voice thundered over the court that day, his fury cutting through the lies. He claimed Astra as his mate, tore the alpha’s plot apart in front of the king, Lucian’s father, and revealed the treachery for what it was. The truth spared Selene’s life.
But the memory that haunts me is not Lucian’s triumph. It’s her, collapsed on the ground, skin pale beneath streaks of blood. Her lips trembling as she whispered that she hadn’t betrayed anyone. Her wolf flickering so faintly I thought it was gone.
I carried her myself into the healers’ hall. Sat by her side for days as they worked, pressing herbs to her wounds, using their healing magic to fix her internal injuries. She didn’t stir, not once. But I stayed, watching the fragile rise and fall of her chest, the mate bond already searing through me with every heartbeat.
And when she finally breathed steadily again—when I knew she would live—I walked away.
Because I knew then what I know now.
She could never stand beside me.
The Rowan line does not bind itself to weakness. My family’s women have always been fierce—warriors, seers, leaders. My mother, my sisters, my aunts: all legends in their own right. And me? I was raised to believe strength demands strength.
But Selene is not strong.
She’s a healer who fumbles with her gift, a wolf who trembles when others bare their teeth. And though the mate bond fires up my blood, it doesn’t change what I see when I look at her.
Someone I shouldn’t want.
Someone I can’t stop wanting.
I press my fist against the tree trunk, the bark biting into my skin. Across the lawn, her laughter drifts to me again, bright and alive. It shreds me. It infuriates me.
Leon breaks the silence first. “What’s your plan?”
I drag in a breath through my nose as the tree bark starts to draw blood. “She’s weak,” I mutter, the words jagged and raw in my throat. “Too weak.”
Leon shakes his head slowly, disappointment crossing his otherwise calm features. “You’re a fool.”
The words cut deeper than they should.
Of course he’d say that. He doesn’t understand. He never will.
Leon was once blessed and cursed with the rarest thing: finding his fated mate when he was still a boy. He loved her fiercely, even in their youth. And he lost her too soon, death stealing her before they could ever grow into what they were meant to be.
I don’t say anything as he turns and walks away, his broad shoulders fading into the crowd. He’s an orphan, with no long line of ancestors behind him, no family legacy that weighs like iron on his shoulders. He can’t grasp what it means to carry the Rowan name.
Every one of my sisters is as strong and unyielding as I am. Yet fate ties me to this. To her.
Shame burns hotter than the wine in my blood.
I exhale hard, pressing my palms against my eyes, trying to smother the fire in my chest. But when I lower my hands, a sharp realization strikes me like a lightning bolt.
I can’t see her anymore.
My muscles tense, my head snapping back and forth. The crowd on the dance floor whirls, skirts flaring, soldiers laughing—but Selene isn’t there. The spot she occupied before is empty.
My pulse spikes.
I scan the lawns, searching desperately—and then I see it. A flash of auburn hair, catching the firelight just before it disappears into the trees at the far edge of the celebration. She’s not alone. A man moves with her, his arm brushing hers as they slip into the shadows.
My blood boils, fury searing up my spine. The mate bond roars inside me, wild and frantic.
Before I even realize it, my body is racing toward them.
The trees close in around me, muting the music and laughter from the palace grounds until the only sounds are the crunch of leaves under my boots and the thunder of my pulse in my ears. The scent of pine is sharp, but beneath it—her. Sweet, familiar, infuriating.
I slow down, my instincts sharpening. Voices filter through the darkness. A low murmur, followed by soft laughter. Hers.
I push forward, weaving through the forest by the filtered light of the moon.
And I see her.
Selene, pressed against the trunk of an oak tree, auburn hair mussed, lips swollen as a man I don’t recognize mouths at her neck. His hands grip her hips, sliding lower, and she tilts her head back, eyes half-lidded, breathy with enjoyment. There’s a faint flush in her cheeks, the telltale scent of wine clinging to her. Not drunk, not fully—but loose enough to make reckless choices.
“Darren,” she whispers, tugging him closer, pulling his mouth back to hers.
That’s what makes the decision for me.
My wolf erupts inside my head. I surge forward, grab the bastard by the back of his tunic, and hurl him sideways. His body smashes through branches with a loud crack and crashes hard into the undergrowth. He groans, stunned, crumpled in the dirt.
Selene gasps, horrified. “No!”
She starts toward him, but I catch her by the arm, yanking her back. Her wide, blue eyes fly to mine, blazing with shock, fury, and hurt.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I snarl, my grip firm.
Her chest heaves as she struggles against my hold, anger flaring sharply. “Mind your own business!” She rips her arm free with a violent jerk, spinning toward the man on the ground.
But Darren, pale and shaken, staggers upright, his gaze darting between Selene and me. “I–I didn’t know,” he stammers, panic etched across his face. “I didn’t know she was—” He cuts himself off and bolts into the darkness, branches snapping under his boots as he flees.
“Darren!” Selene calls after him, voice breaking with frustration. She takes a step as if to chase after him, but he’s already gone. Her shoulders stiffen, her hands curling into fists as she turns back to me, quivering with rage.
“You had no right,” she spits at me bitterly. “No right at all.”
I take a step toward her, fury still burning through me. “No right?” My voice is low, sharp enough to cut. “You drag a man you barely know into the woods, half drunk, and you think I won’t notice?”
She stiffens, eyes flashing. “Why do you care?”
I move closer, forcing her backward until her shoulders brush the rough bark of the oak. My shadow falls over her, my wolf still snarling beneath my skin. “If you’re going to throw yourself at someone, at least don’t be reckless about it. You don’t know him. You don’t know what he wanted from you.”
Her chin lifts, defiance surmounting her trembling. “Let me make my own mistakes.”
The words hit hard, but anger surges harder. “Fine. If you want to whore yourself out, Selene, then do it. I don’t care.”
Right after I say this, her face drains of color, eyes going wide before narrowing into a sharp, cold, and merciless glare.
“No wonder we’re fated mates, then,” she says sardonically, her voice like ice. “Since you’re also known for spreading yourself around. Little bit of a man whore yourself, aren’t you, Seth?”
For the first time in a long time, I’m stunned into silence.
I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Her words cut deeper than any wound I’ve ever gotten on the battlefield—not because they’re untrue, but because they are. And because she said them with a cold finality that makes my wolf recoil.
She doesn’t stop there. Her chin tilts higher, eyes burning into mine. “I’ve heard about your reputation, Seth. Every woman in this kingdom has.”
It doesn’t surprise me. I’ve never hidden what I am, never denied the string of lovers, the games, the charm. It’s easier than letting anyone get close. Easier than admitting I’m empty inside.
But hearing it from her, my fated mate, is a different kind of pain.
Selene and I have never spoken of our connection before. Never named it. I avoided her from the moment it snapped into place, kept my distance, hoping silence would kill it. Hoping she would stop looking at me with those eyes that know too much.
But now, she names it.
“I knew you were my fated mate the moment I first saw you,” she says, her voice shaking but steady enough to pierce me. “And I knew, just as quickly, that you didn’t want me.”
The truth lands heavy in my chest, stealing the breath from my lungs. My wolf claws at me, demanding I deny her words, demanding I claim her. But I don’t move. I can’t.
I wait for her to ask the question I’ve dreaded for months: Why don’t you want me?
But she doesn’t ask it.
Instead, her voice hardens, each word deliberate. “I don’t care that you don’t want me. But I’m not going to let you stand in my way. I’ll find someone who does want me. And if that makes me a whore in your eyes, then so be it.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
She turns to leave, apparently finished with me. My wolf howls, furious, but it’s my pride that makes me speak.
“You knew,” I bite out, my voice sharp. “All this time, you knew about the bond. Why haven’t you sought me out? Why stay quiet if you were so sure?”
She spins to face me again, shaking her head, cheeks flushed from wine and fury. For a moment, I expect her to falter, to soften, to finally ask me the question that has hung between us since the day we met.
But she still doesn’t ask it.
Her gaze hardens, and her next statement lands harsher than any blow. “Because I don’t want you, Seth.”
Shock slams through me, colder than winter, heavier than any chain. Not once did I consider that possibility. I’ve spent months resenting the mate bond, pushing her away, convincing myself she isn’t worthy of me. But never—not once—did I imagine she might feel the same way about me.
I stare at her, my astonishment twisting into something rawer, darker. My wolf rages in disbelief, clawing against my ribs. She’s lying. She can’t not want us.
But her eyes don’t waver. They burn with conviction. With finality. And for the first time in my life, I feel the jagged edge of rejection.
Her words sliced into me like a blade to the heart, but my pride—my stupid, wounded pride—refuses to let me crumble. Instead, it transforms the pain into something ugly. Something vicious.
“You don’t want me?” I laugh, the sound bitter and cutting. “Is that why you’ve been watching me from across every room for months? Following me with those desperate, longing looks?”
She flinches, but I’m too far gone to stop.
“You think I don’t notice?” I step closer, my voice dropping to a cruel whisper. “How you light up whenever I’m near? How your scent changes, gets sweeter, needier? Your body betrays you every time, Selene. Even now.”
Her cheeks flush deeper, but whether from shame or anger, I can’t tell. “You’re wrong,” she breathes.
“Am I?” I circle her slowly, like a predator stalking wounded prey. “Then, why are you trembling? Why is your pulse racing? I can hear it, you know. That frantic heartbeat tells me exactly how much you want what you claim to reject.”
She backs up against the tree, chin lifted in defiance even as her eyes glisten. “You’re a bastard.”
“Maybe.” The word is like ash in my mouth. “But at least I’m honest about what I am. You? You’re a liar. Standing there pretending you don’t want me when every fiber of your being screams otherwise.”
Her hands form fists at her sides. “Even if that were true—which it’s not—it doesn’t matter. I meant what I said. I don’t want you as my mate.”
My wolf snarls in response. Without thinking, I close the distance between us, caging her against the oak with my arms on either side of her head.
“You wanna know what I think?” My voice is deadly quiet now. “I think you’re lying to yourself. Pretending you don’t want me because it’s easier than admitting the truth.”
Her breath hitches, and I lean closer until our faces are mere inches apart.
“I think,” I continue, my lips nearly brushing her ear now, “that you’re running to pathetic little boys like Darren because that’s all you can get. Weak men for a weak woman. At least you know your place.”
“Get away from me.” She shoves me in the chest, but I don’t budge.
“No.” I press even closer to her. “You started this. You wanted to hurt me with your little performance out here? Congratulations. It worked. But if you think I’m going to let you walk away after tearing into me like that, you’re mistaken.”
Her eyes flash dangerously. “I don’t owe you anything, Seth. Not explanations, not consideration, and certainly not my body just because fate decided to play some cosmic joke on us both.”
“Cosmic joke?” The words ignite something feral in me. “Is that what you think this is?”
Before she can answer, before I can stop myself, I crash my mouth onto hers.
She gasps against my lips, her hands flying back up to my chest to push me away, but I don’t relent. I pour everything into the kiss—months of want, of denial, of fury and frustration. My mouth moves against hers with bruising intensity, demanding a response she is determined not to give.
For a heartbeat, she’s rigid beneath me. Then, she breaks.
Her fingers curl into my shirt instead of pushing me away. Her lips part on a soft whimper, and when I deepen the kiss, she meets me with equal desperation. The taste of wine lingers on her tongue, sweet and intoxicating, but underneath it is something purely her. Something that makes my wolf roar with satisfaction.
One hand slides into her auburn hair while the other grips her hip, pulling her against me. She arches into the contact, a breathy moan escaping her that sends fire racing through my veins.
This is what I’ve been fighting. This overwhelming need, this perfect fit, the way her body seems made for mine. The mate bond sings between us, hot and demanding, urging me to claim her completely.
Her hands slip under my shirt, nails dragging across my skin, and I groan into her mouth. She tastes like everything I’ve denied myself, everything I’ve convinced myself I don’t need.
But even as my body responds to hers, even as she melts against me like she was born to be there, reality comes crashing back.
I tear my mouth away, breathing hard, my forehead pressed against hers. Her lips are swollen, her eyes dazed with desire, and for a moment—just a moment—I almost forget why I’ve been running from this.
Then, I remember.
The weakness. The quaking wolf. The way she crumbles under pressure instead of rising to meet it.
I step back abruptly, and the loss of my support makes her lose her balance. She braces herself against the tree, chest heaving, staring at me in confusion.
“This changes nothing,” I say, my voice harsher than I intend.
She suddenly looks as if I’ve slapped her. The desire in her eyes dims, replaced by something that looks perilously close to devastation.
“What?”
“This.” I gesture between us, hating myself even as the words spill out. “The kiss. The connection. None of it matters.”
She blinks at me, and I see the exact moment she crumbles. The exact moment I destroy whatever fragile hope might have been building between us.
“You’re still too weak,” I continue, each assertion a nail in the coffin of what we could have been. “Too inadequate for me to even consider as my mate. The bond doesn’t change what you are, Selene. It just makes it harder to ignore.”
Her face goes pale, but I’m too deep in the cruelty to stop now. The wounded animal in me wants to hurt her as much as she hurt me.
“And honestly?” I lean back against a tree across from her, affecting a casualness I don’t feel. “No other man is going to want you, either. Not really. Oh, they might take what you offer—like that boy tonight—but when it comes to something real? Something permanent? They’ll see the same thing I do.”
“Stop.” Her voice is barely a whisper.
But I don’t stop. I can’t. The words pour out like poison, each one calculated to cause pain.
“They’ll see a woman whose wolf can barely manifest. Who shakes when challenged. Who runs rather than fights. Who needs protecting instead of standing strong.” I pause, letting it all sink in. “They’ll see someone who is fundamentally…less than.”
The sound she makes is barely human, a broken sob that tears something vital inside my chest. But I’ve gone too far to take it back now.
Tears run down her cheeks, and she doesn’t bother wiping them away. She just stares at me as if she’s seeing me clearly for the first time—seeing exactly what kind of monster I really am.
“I hate you,” she whispers, but it’s louder than any scream.
Then, she pushes off the tree and runs away from me.
She crashes through the underbrush like something wild and wounded. I see branches catching at her dress, leaves tangling in her hair. I can hear her ragged breathing, her choked sobs, the erratic rhythm of her feet as she flees deeper into the woods.
Every instinct I have shrieks at me to follow her. To apologize. To take back the cruel things I said and hold her until she stops crying.
But I don’t move. I lean against the tree and listen to the sound of my fated mate fleeing from me, carrying my poison words with her into the darkness. The mate bond stretches thin between us, aching with her pain, and I wonder if this is what it feels like to truly reject someone.
Not the formal ceremony. Not the spoken declarations. But this—the moment you destroy them so completely that they never want to see you again.
The celebration continues in the distance, music and laughter drifting softly through the trees as if the world hasn’t just shifted on its axis. As if I haven’t just torn apart the one thing that might have made me whole.
I close my eyes and breathe in the lingering scent of her—of the tears and the heartbreak and the fading sweetness that will haunt me forever.
This is what I wanted, isn’t it? To push her away so thoroughly that she’d never look at me with hope again?
So, why does it feel like I’ve just ripped out my own heart and left it bleeding in the dirt?