Whispers That Breathe

The palace was asleep.

Or pretending to be.

Caelum sat at the edge of his bed, elbows on knees, jaw clenched so tightly it ached. He hadn’t summoned Aric, and yet the Enigma was here. Lurking. Always near.

“You’re watching again,” Caelum said without lifting his head.

Aric stepped out of the shadows. “You’re heating up.”

“Get out.”

But Aric didn’t move. Instead, he walked across the room—unhurried—and knelt in front of the king. His eyes didn’t glow. His scent didn’t exist. But his presence hit like pressure against Caelum’s skin.

“Your body is screaming,” Aric said. “It wants something.”

Caelum’s lip curled. “You think I don’t know that?”

“No,” Aric murmured. “But I think you don’t know why.”

And then he reached forward—slowly, deliberately—and pressed two fingers just below Caelum’s navel. Right over the center of the warmth that had been pulsing for days.

Caelum shuddered. His breath caught.

It wasn’t erotic. It wasn’t even aggressive.

But the moment Aric touched that spot—

Heat exploded through Caelum’s core like wildfire.

His scent spiked. The glands at his neck pulsed. Every nerve lit up.

And his knees nearly gave out.

He caught Aric by the wrist and shoved him back, snarling. “What the hell was that?!”

Aric stood smoothly, unbothered. “A guess.”

“A guess?!”

“I wanted to see if the rumors were true,” Aric said casually, turning his back and walking to the window. “About where the second gland forms during transitional ruts.”

“There is no second gland—”

“Not in regular Alphas,” Aric said. “But you’re not regular. Not anymore.”

Caelum stared at his own shaking hands. His stomach still burned. Not in pain, but in need. Deep, cramping pressure that felt instinctual.

Like his body was rearranging itself from the inside.

⸻

Flashback: The Oracle in Moonlight

The memory returned stronger this time.

He was a child again, barefoot in the temple garden. Oracle Lys stood under the red moon, bleeding from a ritual wound on her palm. She whispered into the soil:

“If one ever awakens, the king shall fall.

And from that fall, kingdoms will burn or bow.”

He had never known what she meant. Until now.

⸻

In the Temple Archives

Lys lit a single black candle. Her apprentice waited behind her, nervous.

“Is it true?” the girl asked. “Is he fertile?”

Lys closed her eyes. “The shift has begun. Slowly. But there’s no stopping it now.”

“But Alphas can’t—”

“Enigmas rewrite the code,” Lys said. “If Aric has chosen him, the bond is already forming.”

“But he hasn’t bitten him. There’s no mark—”

“There will be,” Lys whispered. “But it won’t come from the Alpha.”