CARL
The scent hit me like a hurricane. Clean, crisp, and unbearably enticing. It lingered on me long after she left the room, curling itself around my senses in the gentlest caress and sinking its claws deeper into my wolf. Thaddeus growled in my gut, restless and furious, demanding that he chase, that he hunt, that he claim.
I gritted my teeth and shut my eyes, feeling the familiar pull in my chest—a magnetic attraction I hadn't felt in all thirty years as queen. Not since I was a young Alpha with something to prove. Not since I first learned what it was like to rule over kings.
This had nothing to do with power, though.
This had everything to do with her.
Annalise Keaton.
A name I'd never heard until hours ago, and yet my wolf reacted as if we were born under the same star. Mate. She was my mate. And not some common woman—the Winnor pack's Omega. The one who had vanished into thin air like a ghost. The one who stood over me with steady hands and eyes of flame and would not kneel.
She had touched me. Commanded me.
And so help me, gods, I had let her.
I still felt the caress of her fingers against my chest where she had attended me. Recall the scent of citrus and honey in her hair. The warmth of her skin so close to my own, and the precise location my wolf had sensed.
She didn't yet comprehend it, not that. That was guaranteed. But I did.
And now that I had tasted the air around her, now that I had seen the truth in the gold of her eyes, there was no going back.
I sat in the stillness of my room, letting the world recede.
Marcus had done well. The file he brought me confirmed everything I'd sensed. She was extraordinary. Not just talented but resilient. She had survived alone in the human world, clawed her way into respect and status, while her old pack wrote her off like a broken toy.
It made my blood boil.
Her birth pack—the Winnor Pack—was one of the oldest, most traditional in the northern lands. Their laws were brutal, their hierarchy cruel. I remembered them well. Their Alpha, Garrett, was a fool of a man who prized bloodlines and pride. He was the kind of male who would sooner starve an Omega than raise her up.
He would pay for what he'd done to her.
Every single one of them would.
But not yet.
This had to be done with caution. Annalise wasn't the type to bend. I'd seen steel in her spine when she'd refused to come to me. I'd sensed it in her caress as she'd handled me like any other patient, not the King of Wolves. That pride, that inner fire—I valued it more than words.
But it would mean that she would run away if I came on too strongly. So I would not chase her. I would build a kingdom around her instead.
"Purchase the hospital," I told Marcus as he stood silently by the door.
He raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He knew better than to disagree.
"And the flat she is living in. All of them. I want complete control. But keep the original names. Don't change anything. She's not to find out but put them in her name. Rename it as Keatons Hospital ".
Marcus bowed his head. "As you wish."
"Make Cliff do it. Discreetly. Erase all trail."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
I watched him stroll away, and went back to the file. Her face looked back at me—strong jawline, cunning eyes, little scar on her temple that she must have earned as a kid. She was beautiful in the same manner that storms were beautiful. Wild. Fatal. Essential.
Why was it that the Moon Goddess should have denied her to me for so long?
The next day, I left the palace.
In defiance of every medical order, in defiance of every complaint from my doctor and guards, I walked out of the damn building, got into the backseat of the car Marcus had arranged, and drove to her city.
No bodyguards. No official announcement. Just me.
And the storm brewing in my chest.
We didn't go to her apartment. We didn't go to the hospital.
I told Marcus to drive until I instructed him to stop.
I needed to sense the city she'd lived in. Needed to walk where she'd walked, breathe the air, hear the noise. Humans buzzed around us like bees—horns blaring, yelling salesmen, crowds that moved like rivers without direction.
And yet, through all the noise… I sensed her.
Thaddeus shifted.
She was close.
We ended up in front of a small bookstore café stuck between an antique pharmacy and a used old record store. There were houseplants in the window. A sign that read Quiet Souls Welcome.
I recognized it at once.
I entered.
The aroma was most potent here.
She came here regularly. Read here. Sat at the little round table beside the window.
I went over to it and sat down. Her presence clung to the chair, the table, the warm cup still on the shelf behind the counter.
She'd only just been there.
Missed her by minutes.
Thaddeus scratched at my chest.
Patience, I said to him. Soon.
Three days later, I sent her flowers. No note. No signature. Just white calla lilies—regal, rare, and limitless.
She didn't discard them. Marcus informed me.
She put them in a vase by her window.
She liked them.
Progress.
The next week, I returned to the palace. I was healthier now. The illness had passed, but the longing hadn't. The pain had teeth now.
I checked in on her. Not obsessively—just enough. I watched from afar, through the eyes of some loyal wolves secretly stationed about her domain. She worked long shifts. Slept little. Ate little. Slept alone.
No smell of men on or around her.
Good.
She was mine.
And soon she would remember that too.
One evening, Marcus approached me with a small, wrapped object. "From the archives," he said.
I untangled it.
A pendant. Ancient, silver, crescent moon shape with sapphire at center.
A family heirloom. A mate's symbol.
I curled my hand into a fist over it.
The next time I saw her, she would wear it.
Even if she didn't know it… yet.
Soon, Annalise Keaton. Soon, you will recall whose you are. And I shall be waiting.