In the Arms of the Feral

LILITH'S POV

The morning sky hung ash-gray, a permanent shroud that had veiled the sun for six years—ever since the Lycans descended and claimed our world.

I stood barefoot in the slave yard, iron cuffs cutting into flesh worn raw by years of captivity. The cold stone beneath my feet was nothing compared to the ice in my chest as I watched them drag Allen to the execution block.

He was bloodied, beaten, but somehow still managed to smile when our eyes met across the yard. That reckless, stupid, beautiful smile that had gotten him into the Resistance three years ago—and brought him back to die for me last night.

"I'll free you, Lilith," he'd promised through the fence. "I swear on my life."

He'd kept his word. And now he'd pay the price.

Around me, slaves were forced to watch, guards shoving them forward with rifle butts. Most stared at the ground—too broken to care, too tired to feel. But I couldn't look away. I wouldn't give them that mercy.

At the far end of the yard stood Prince Kelvon.

Even in this place of death and despair, he commanded attention. Obsidian armor caught what little light remained in our gray world, each scale perfectly fitted like a second skin. His presence was sharp enough to cut—the kind of dangerous beauty that made you forget to breathe. The son of the Lycan King, commander of the southern territories, and the man who'd chosen to execute Allen personally.

He could have sent any of his lieutenants. Could have delegated this to a common executioner. But Prince Kelvon had come himself, as if Allen—as if I—warranted his personal attention.

That should have terrified me. Instead, something darker stirred in my chest.

Kelvon looked barely older than me, but carried himself with the lethal grace of someone born to rule. Silver eyes swept the yard with predatory focus, cataloging faces, marking those who dared to look up. When his gaze found mine across the crowd, it lingered. Something flickered there—not boredom, not disgust. Recognition? Intrigue?

Why was he looking at me like that? Like he was seeing something the others missed?

A scarred soldier grabbed Allen by the hair, dragging him toward the bloodstained block. I heard the wet scrape of knees against stone as Allen tried to stay upright.

"No," I whispered, stepping forward before someone yanked me back.

Reality fractured. Suddenly I was thirteen again, watching my parents kneel in our burning village square. My father, a Duke who'd treated wounded Resistance fighters. My mother, who'd hidden them in our estate. "Traitors," the Lycan commander had called them before the sword fell.

I blinked back to the present, sanity slipping like water through cupped hands.

"You don't have to do this!" Allen shouted, lifting his head to meet Kelvon's gaze directly. "You say you're better than us. Prove it."

Kelvon descended the platform steps with measured grace, sword singing as it cleared its sheath. No emotion showed on his angular features, but something in his movement suggested this wasn't routine brutality. This was personal.

He stopped directly before Allen, towering over him.

"I'm not interested in proving anything," Kelvon said, voice carrying despite its quiet tone. "Only in reminding your kind where you belong."

The sword fell.

The sound was wrong—wet, crunching, final. Allen's body convulsed once, then went still. Blood sprayed across gray stone, across Kelvon's boots, bright and violent and warm.

I screamed. The sound ripped from my throat, inhuman and raw.

Then laughter bubbled up—mad, broken laughter that didn't sound like my voice. "I told you!" I shrieked between gasps and sobs. "I told you not to come back!"

Rough hands seized me as I fought like something wild, biting until I tasted blood. The other slaves stared in dull silence. I was breaking the cardinal rule: keep your head down, stay invisible, live.

I didn't care. Sanity was a distant shore I could no longer see.

"Allen!" I screamed until my voice cracked. "You bastards! He came back for me! It's my fault!"

The world tilted as my knees hit dirt. Grief crashed over me like a tide too big to hold.

Through blurred tears, I realized Kelvon was still watching me.

Not with disgust or boredom, but with something else entirely. His head tilted slightly, silver eyes studying me like I was a puzzle he hadn't encountered before. A drop of Allen's blood fell from his sword, then another, pattering against stone.

"Bring her," he said.

The words dropped like stones into still water.

"No—" I thrashed as soldiers grabbed my arms, hauling me upright. The crowd scattered like insects, no one wanting to be seen, no one wanting to be next.

They dragged me past Allen's body. I forced myself to look, to remember. His eyes were still open but empty now, and the ground beneath him was slick with blood that steamed in the cold air.

Kelvon waited near the platform. As I was forced to my knees before him, his gaze never wavered. One guard kicked the back of my legs to make me fall faster.

"What is your name?" he asked.

I said nothing, staring at ground stained with my friend's blood.

He crouched before me, coming down to my level with fluid grace. I caught his scent—metal and pine and something wildly masculine, something that made my pulse skip despite everything. The contradiction of it hit me like a physical blow: how could someone so beautiful be so deadly?

"I asked you a question."

His voice was velvet over steel, quiet but commanding absolute attention. Every slave in the yard had gone silent, as if the very air held its breath when Prince Kelvon spoke.

I gathered what remained of my defiance and spat. The saliva, pink with blood, landed near his perfectly polished boot.

A guard moved to strike me, but Kelvon raised a single finger, stopping him with casual authority that spoke of absolute power.

"No." He wiped Allen's blood from his blade with slow, almost ritualistic precision. Each movement was deliberate, hypnotic. "You're braver than most."

"I'm not brave," I hissed. "I'm angry."

His lips curved—not quite a smile, but something far more dangerous. Something that suggested he found my defiance... entertaining. "Good. Anger keeps you alive longer than fear."

I lifted my head just enough to meet his gaze directly. Those silver eyes weren't cruel exactly, just... ancient. Like storms that had raged for centuries, leaving destruction and beauty in their wake. I wondered what he saw when he looked at me—another broken slave, or something else entirely?

"I should kill you," he said, tilting his head slightly. "It would be the logical choice."

"Then do it," I whispered, surprised by the steadiness of my own voice. "Or are you afraid of a slave's curse?"

Something shifted in his expression—a flicker of genuine amusement, perhaps even respect. He leaned closer, close enough that I could see the faint scars along his sharp jawline, could count his dark lashes. Close enough to smell Allen's blood on him, mixed with that intoxicating scent that was purely him.

"I'm not afraid of curses," he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper but somehow carrying more weight than his earlier commands. "But I don't like wasting useful tools." His gaze dropped to my lips for the briefest moment before returning to my eyes. "Especially ones with such... fascinating spirit."

Heat flashed through me—unwanted, inappropriate, terrifying. Confusion cut through my grief like a blade. What was happening to me?

"Take her to the mines," Kelvon ordered, straightening.

"What? No! I'm not going—"

"An angry woman," he said, and this time there was definitely amusement in his tone. "Put that energy somewhere useful."

The guards dragged me up again, rougher now. I fought anyway, kicking and clawing until my throat bled from screaming.

But Kelvon was already walking away, his obsidian armor catching the dying light like dark fire. He moved with the predatory grace of someone who had never doubted his power, never questioned his right to decide who lived and who died.

He never looked back—but I felt his presence like a brand against my skin until he disappeared beyond the platform.

The last thing I saw was Allen's body being pulled away by disposal slaves, his blood leaving a crimson smear across gray stone. By tomorrow, rain would wash it clean as if he'd never existed at all.

But I would remember. Every detail. Every word. Every moment when Prince Kelvon's silver eyes had held mine like he was looking into my soul.

And somehow, I knew this wasn't over.

The way he'd said useful tools. The way his gaze had lingered on my lips. The way he'd stopped his guard from striking me, as if I belonged to him now.

A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold morning air.

Prince Kelvon had spared my life. But as they dragged me toward the mines, toward whatever fresh hell awaited, one terrifying thought echoed in my mind:

What exactly did he plan to do with me?