Before I saw her, I could smell her.
The smell was too familiar, and it hit me like a slap. Sweetened pine and wolf musk. Spiced berries. A cloying undercurrent of something sharp, like jealousy masked in perfume.
I stiffened in Kael's bed.
I knew that scent.
Ayla.
Once, she'd been my closest friend. My secret-keeper. The only other girl who understood what it meant to grow up in a highblood family, caged by expectations and silenced by duty.
We were going to escape together.
Now she was here—inside Kael's camp.
My heart thumping with something other than fear, I gently sat up and clutched the furs to my chest.
The den door opened.
She entered like she belonged.
With tight black leather looped along her sides, her hips swung. Her braids gleamed with polished bone beads, and her golden-brown complexion shone in the firelight. She glanced around the room before focusing on me.
She extended her lips into a slow, poisonous smile.
"Seren," she purred. "You look well-fucked."
I winced.
She had cried in my arms the last time I saw her, pleading with me to accompany her on our escape. To leave our fathers, our courts, the war looming between them.
And now?
She was strutting into the den of my captor. My… Alpha.
Kael followed behind her, shirtless, as always, his hand resting casually on her lower back.
My stomach dropped.
He didn't say anything. He didn't need to.
Ayla said it for him.
"I offered him my loyalty," she said, voice light as silk. "And my womb."
I stared at her, numb.
"He accepted?"
Kael's eyes flicked toward me. "Not yet."
I looked at Ayla.
She smirked.
"Oh, he will," she said confidently. "He just hasn't gotten tired of you yet."
My mouth opened. Then closed.
Words wouldn't come.
"You really let him collar you?" she asked, pointing to the thick leather around my neck. "How obedient."
I wanted to claw her smile off.
Kael stepped forward, standing between us.
"She's not obedient," he said. "Not yet. But she bleeds well."
Ayla chuckled. "She always was dramatic."
"You're a traitor," I whispered. "You knew what he was. You knew what he did to my family."
She shrugged.
"I also knew what my father planned to do to yours," she said. "There are no good men in war, Seren. Only the ones who win."
"You said we'd run. Together."
"And then I found something better."
She turned to Kael and pressed her body into his side, purring.
"You never made me cry," she said to him. "You never made me beg."
His arm slid around her waist.
But his eyes were on me.
"I don't want easy," he said quietly.
Ayla faltered for a moment. Just a flicker.
Then she forced another smirk.
"You'll come around."
I had trouble sleeping that night.
My mind was racing with anger and perplexity as Kael and Ayla left the den. I detested hearing her laugh.The casual way she touched him. The way his eyes lingered on her—and then drifted to me.
Jealousy burned, hot and ugly.
I didn't want him.
But I didn't want her to have him, either.
When they returned hours later, Kael smelled like sex and blood.
He dragged Ayla by the wrist.
She was flushed, hair messy, her shift askew.
But her face told a different story.
Anger. Disappointment.
Something had gone wrong.
Kael shoved her forward. She stumbled, catching herself against the hearth.
"What the hell—"
"You want to replace her?" Kael growled. "Then earn it."
Ayla blinked.
"I did what you asked—"
"You begged like a pup."
"I—"
"Strip," he said.
Her lips parted in shock.
"Here?"
He nodded toward me. "She watched you betray her. Let her watch you humiliate yourself."
For a second, Ayla hesitated.
Then, slowly, her fingers moved.
She peeled off the leather corset. Unlaced the ties at her hips. Let the thin fabric slide off her shoulders.
Her breasts were full, firm. Her body curvier than mine. Her skin perfect.
But Kael didn't move.
"On your knees," he said.
She obeyed.
"Open your legs."
She hesitated—just a moment too long.
Kael's expression darkened.
"You don't follow orders well," he said.
Ayla swallowed and spread her thighs.
I looked away.
Kael didn't.
He sniffed the air.
Then stepped forward.
But he made a single round around her, like a predator examining its prey, without touching her.
His lip curled.
"You smell wrong."
Ayla's eyes widened. "What?"
"You smell desperate," he said. "Not submissive. Not ready. Just… eager."
She reached for his leg, eyes pleading.
He slapped her hand away.
"You're not her," he said coldly.
Then he turned to me.
My heart stopped.
"Come here."
"No."
He raised a brow. "Now."
I stood slowly.
Ayla was still kneeling, naked and exposed.
Kael reached for me.
He pulled me into his lap like I was made to fit there.
"Watch," he said to Ayla.
And then he took me—again—right in front of her.
I sobbed. Not from pain. From humiliation. From confusion. From the growing, terrifying truth that I didn't know where my hate ended and my craving began.
Kael growled in my ear as he moved inside me.
"She smells like mine," he said to Ayla. "Because she is."