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Lyra

The city never sleeps because wolves don’t dream.

We rule best when humans think they’re safe. When the streets glow with neon and rain and sin, and nobody looks twice at men in tailored suits stepping out of black cars with guns tucked neatly beneath Italian wool. They think this city belongs to politicians and crime lords.

They’re not wrong.

They’re just missing the fur.

I stand before the DeLuca compound with my hands clenched inside the pockets of my coat, rain soaking the pavement and bleeding into the cuffs of my boots. The gates rise high above me, wrought iron twisted into the shape of crescent moons and snarling wolves. Old symbols. Old power. The kind that doesn’t fade with time, only sharpens.

My wolf is restless.

She’s been quiet most of my life. Too quiet for someone born into a pack. Omegas usually feel everything too loudly fear, submission, longing. But inside me there’s only a constant, muted tension, like a held breath that never releases.

Tonight, that tension coils tight.

The guards recognize me immediately. They always do. Not because I matter, but because I don’t belong.

“Lyra Vale,” one of them says, silver eyes flaring faintly as his gaze sweeps over me. “You were summoned an hour ago.”

“I came as fast as I could,” I reply. My voice stays steady even though my pulse doesn’t. Excuses mean nothing here.

He steps aside after a moment. The gates open with a slow, deliberate groan, as if the compound itself is deciding whether I’m worth letting in.

Inside, everything smells like money and violence. Polished marble floors. Oil paintings older than the country itself. Wolves standing guard at every corner, their postures relaxed in the way only predators can afford. These aren’t pack members who patrol forests and borders. These are enforcers. Fixers. Men who disappear problems before dawn.

This is not a pack.

It’s a syndicate.

I keep my eyes down as I walk, but I feel them watching me. Feel their curiosity prickling against my skin. An omega doesn’t get summoned to the Alpha’s private office unless something has gone very wrong.

Or something has gone very right.

The thought makes my stomach twist.

The doors open silently, and the moment I step inside, the air changes.

Kael DeLuca stands behind his desk, broad shoulders filling the space like he was carved into it. He wears black, of course. Black suit. Black shirt. No tie. Power doesn’t need decoration. His dark hair is slicked back, his expression carved from control and restraint. Alpha energy rolls off him in a quiet, suffocating wave.

My chest tightens before I can stop it.

The bond stirs.

It’s not whole. Not completed. But it’s there, a half-healed wound that still aches when touched. It snapped into place years ago, sudden and violent, the night he took over as Alpha and painted the floors red with traitor blood. I’d been nothing but a witness, standing too close, feeling something ancient and irreversible latch onto my soul.

We never spoke of it.

We never finished it.

“Lyra,” he says, voice smooth and deep. It slides under my skin like a blade. “You feel it.”

I swallow. “I feel tired.”

A faint curve touches his mouth. Not warmth. Ownership.

“Sit.”

My body obeys before my mind catches up. I lower myself into the chair opposite his desk, spine straight, hands folded tightly in my lap. He moves then, circling slowly, his footsteps unhurried. A predator inspecting something he already owns.

“You’ve been quiet,” he says. “Kept your head down. That was smart.”

“I don’t cause trouble,” I reply.

“No,” he agrees. “Trouble finds you.”

He stops behind me. I feel him there, close enough that my skin hums with awareness. The bond pulses once, sharp and demanding, and I grit my teeth.

“There’s a shift happening in the city,” Kael continues. “The rogues are moving again. Encroaching on our routes. Disrupting supply lines. Testing borders.”

“That’s pack business,” I say carefully. “Not mine.”

His hand lands on the back of my chair. The wood creaks slightly under the pressure.

“It became yours when their leader asked about you.”

My breath catches.

The room feels smaller. Colder.

“Who?” I ask, though part of me already knows.

Kael leans closer, his voice dropping. “Riven Blackmoor.”

The name hits like a strike to the ribs.

Every wolf knows it. The exiled Alpha. The one who refused to kneel. The one who survived a sentence meant to kill him and came back stronger, darker, untamed. He rules the underbelly of the city with blood and fear, a king without a pack, a legend whispered in back rooms and alleyways.

I’ve never met him.

I swear I haven’t.

But my wolf stirs like she recognizes something.

“I don’t know him,” I say.

The lights flicker.

Once. Twice.

Pain explodes in my chest.

I gasp, sliding from the chair as my knees hit the marble floor hard enough to bruise. My breath comes in sharp, broken pulls as something rips open inside me, something deeper than flesh, deeper than bone.

This isn’t the bond I know.

This is wild. Furious. Burning hot where Kael’s presence is cold steel.

I clutch at my chest, nails digging in uselessly. “What’s happening to me?”

Kael swears under his breath. I hear movement, hear him shift as his control fractures. His aura spikes, filling the room with dominance and rage.

And then I feel it.

Him.

Not physically, but everywhere else. A presence that crashes into my mind like a storm, unapologetic and raw. Emotion pours through the bond hunger, anger, relief, something dangerously close to satisfaction.

A voice curls through my thoughts, rough and intimate, like it has every right to be there.

Found you.

Terror locks my throat.

The windows shatter outward as a roar tears through the compound, deep and feral, echoing across the city like a challenge thrown at the moon itself. Wolves shout. Alarms blare. Power surges through the halls.

Kael is beside me in an instant, eyes glowing silver, fangs descending. “Get her out,” he orders his men. “Lock this place down.”

But my body isn’t listening to him anymore.

It’s leaning toward the pull, toward the bond that feels like fire and freedom and ruin all at once.

Somewhere beyond the gates, beyond the city lights and pack laws and ancient rules, I know he’s smiling.

The Moon Goddess is silent.

And for the first time in my life, my wolf opens her eyes.