Chapter 2: A King in the Dark

Chapter 2: A King in the Dark

The world returned to Orion in a slow, painful tide.

First came the scent. Not the clean, sharp aroma of pine and cold night air, but the cloying, earthy smell of a confined space. Honeysuckle soap. Dust. Drying herbs. The faint, metallic tang of his own blood, now laced with the smell of strange antiseptics.

Then came the feeling. The fire in his shoulder was now a dull, throbbing ache, wrapped in something clean and soft. The searing poison of the silver was gone, neutralized. He was lying on something… scratchy. A rough-woven blanket was draped over his lower half.

Finally, sound. The crackle and pop of a wood fire. The soft, rhythmic sound of breathing that was not his own.

He opened his eyes.

The ceiling was low, made of dark, exposed beams. Firelight danced across it. He was inside the human’s cabin. He was inside *her* den.

A low growl started deep in his chest, a purely instinctual reaction to being vulnerable in a foreign territory. The breathing across the room hitched.

“You’re awake.”

Her voice was softer than he remembered from the woods, laced with a wariness that was entirely justified. He turned his head, a movement that sent a fresh spark of pain through his neck and shoulder.

She was sitting in a worn armchair by the fireplace, legs tucked beneath her. The firelight painted her skin in gold and shadow, catching the worried furrow in her brow. She looked small, dwarfed by the chair and the situation. But her eyes, the color of rich earth, held his gaze without flinching.

*Lyra.* Her name floated back to him from her one-sided conversation in the forest.

He tried to shift, to push himself up onto his haunches, to regain some semblance of power and dignity. A white-hot lance of agony shot through his shoulder, and he collapsed back onto the blanket with a grunt, his vision swimming.

“Don’t!” she said, lurching forward from the chair before stopping herself, as if remembering he was still a wild predator. “The wound… I packed it with yarrow and honey, but the muscle was torn to shreds. You need to stay still.”

Orion ignored her. He was the Alpha of the Midnight Pack. He would not be laid low on a human’ floor, being given orders. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he focused inward, reaching for the part of him that was Wolf, the part that could heal this, could shift and knit his flesh back together.

Nothing.

A cold dread, colder than any silver, trickled through him. There was only a void where the vibrant, powerful presence of his wolf should be. The poison hadn't just wounded his body; it had forced his beast into a deep, comatose slumber to survive. He was trapped. Trapped in this form, trapped in this weakness, trapped with *her*.

The realization must have shown on his face—a flicker of panic, of utter disbelief—because Lyra’s expression softened from caution to something dangerously close to pity.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, taking a tentative step closer.

He bared his teeth, the most basic warning he could manage. A silent command for her to stay back. To not see him like this.

She froze, but she didn’t retreat. Her eyes narrowed, studying him with an artist’s perceptive intensity. “You’re not just a wolf, are you?”

Orion went still. His breath caught in his lungs. How could she know?

“The way you look at me,” she continued, her voice barely a whisper. “It’s… it’s not an animal’s gaze. It’s calculating. It’s intelligent. It’s…” She trailed off, shaking her head as if dismissing a foolish thought. “Who did this to you?”

He could only stare, his mind reeling. This human, this fragile, temporary creature, saw too much. The bond, still new and fragile, hummed between them, a taut, invisible string. It was why she had felt compelled to save him. It was why she could sense his nature. It was a complication he did not need, a vulnerability he could not afford.

A log shifted in the fireplace, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. The noise broke the tense silence.

Lyra let out a slow breath. “Look, I don’t know what you are. And right now, I don’t care. You were dying. I couldn’t leave you. But you can’t stay here.” She gestured around the small cabin. “I have no way to feed you, and I’m fairly certain the local rangers would have a thing or two to say about me keeping a… a creature like you as a pet.”

A pet. The indignity of it burned hotter than the silver. A low, menacing rumble built in his chest, a promise of what would happen when his strength returned.

She heard it and squared her shoulders, that stubborn light returning to her eyes. “And don’t you growl at me. I’m trying to help you. But you need to help me, too. I need to know what to do.”

Orion looked away from her, towards the small, grimy window. The moon was a sliver of cold, sharp light in the sky. His pack would be searching for him. His Beta, Cassian, would have scouts combing the territory. But this cabin was on the very edge of his lands, in a neutral zone he rarely patrolled. It could be days before they found him.

Days he did not have. The rival pack, the Bloodfang, would also be hunting. If they found him here, weak and helpless, they would kill him. And they would kill the human without a second thought for the crime of aiding him.

He was endangering her. His Mate.

The word echoed in his hollowed-out soul, terrifying and absolute.

He turned his head back to her. The growling had stopped. He had to make her understand the danger. He had to make her leave. He focused all his will, all his remaining energy, into a single, clear command. A thought he tried to project into the space between them.

*Leave. This place is death. Go.*

Lyra’s eyes widened. She took a sharp step back, her hand flying to her temple. “What was that?”

A spark of hope. The bond was stronger than he’d thought.

He pushed the thought again, more forcefully. *GO.*

She stared at him, her face pale. “Did you… did you just…?” She shook her head, a nervous laugh escaping her. “I’m losing my mind. The isolation is getting to me.”

Frustration, thick and bitter, rose in his throat. He was failing. He was the most powerful shifter in five territories, and he couldn’t even communicate a simple warning to one human woman.

Suddenly, a new sound cut through the night, so faint a human would never have heard it.

But Orion did.

The distant snap of a branch. Too heavy for a deer. The soft, almost silent pad of large paws moving with purpose through the undergrowth. Not the familiar, disciplined rhythm of his own pack.

The scent hit him a second later, carried on a wayward draft through a crack in the cabin’s wall. Musk, aggression, and the coppery taint of old blood.

*Bloodfang.*

They had picked up his trail.

His eyes snapped back to Lyra’s, all frustration gone, replaced by a cold, primal urgency. He tried to rise again, ignoring the scream of his shoulder, a desperate snarl tearing from his throat. This wasn’t a warning to leave anymore. It was a warning of immediate, impending doom.

Lyra saw the change. She saw the raw alarm in his silver eyes, the way his ears flattened against his head, the way his body tensed to fight despite its injuries.

She heard it too, then. The subtle crunch of footsteps on the gravel path outside her cabin. Too many to count.

Her eyes, wide with dawning terror, locked with his.

Someone—or something—was here.

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