Chapter 3 White wolf

Xavier POV

The first thing I notice is the smell.

It hits me the moment I step out of the carriage: blood, old and new, soaked into the stones, the air, the earth itself. I stand still, breathe, and force my face to stay calm.

My father told me the Red Velvet Pack was ruthless and ambitious, and that they kept slaves. He did not tell me it would feel like this. The pain radiates from the walls and the ground and the people who pass with bowed heads and empty eyes, shoulders slumped, hands trembling, flinching at every sound. They are broken, every one of them, and pretending to be whole.

I want to free them. But I am here to sign an alliance, to be a prince, to play the game. I hate it.

A tall blond man approaches, grey eyes cold, smile wide. He looks like a saint and feels like a snake. "Prince Xavier. Welcome to the Red Velvet Pack. I am Derek, the Alpha."

I do not smile or bow. I just look.

"You are younger than I was told," he says. "The reports said the Lycan King was old. Gray. Tired."

"You were told about my father. I am not my father."

His smile widens. "No. You are not." He gestures toward the keep. "Come. We have much to discuss."

I follow with my face blank and my hands still, while my mind races. Slaves fill the corridors, kitchens, and gardens, working, serving, bowing. They are wolves, like me, like him, like everyone, and they are treated like animals. I want to demand how he can look at them and see property. Instead I repeat what I have been telling myself since the carriage: I am here to build a bridge, to change things from the inside.

In the great hall, with its red stone, golden light, and paintings of wolves and moons and battles, Derek pours out talk of trade routes, territory, resources, power. "The alliance will benefit us both."

"My father believes in cooperation."

"Cooperation," he repeats, smiling. "Yes."

I nod and say the right words, but all I see are branded wrists and empty eyes. When he slides a paper across the table, "Standard terms, nothing you need to worry about," I do not even read it. I am tired, and I am sick of this place.

"Excuse me. I need air."

"Of course. The courtyard is through those doors."

The courtyard is quiet, the moon high, the air cool. I breathe deeply and let the tension leave my shoulders.

Then I see it.

A white wolf, pure as snow and moonlight, stands in the shadows with its head low and its body still, watching me. I have seen Alphas, warriors, rogues. This is different. Power rolls off it like heat from a fire, and it holds itself like royalty. On its belly is a ring of silver, a mark I do not recognize.

I take a step closer. It does not move. Another step, and its silver eyes glow in the dark.

I stop. I do not know the mark, but I know what this power means. This is no Alpha's blood. It is the blood of the Moon Goddess, the blood of the first Lycans.

I pull off my cloak and walk toward her, slow and careful. She does not flinch, does not growl, does not run. I kneel and lay the cloak over her, and she trembles. She is afraid, but not of me.

Then, as though she has been waiting her whole life for someone to see her, she shifts. Her fur recedes, her bones crack and stretch, and a woman kneels in my cloak, pale and thin, her face bruised, her wrists branded. Her hair is red, so red it looks like fire, like sunset, like blood. She looks up at me with hazel eyes, tired and afraid and beautiful.

I cannot speak. She is the white wolf. She is royal blood. She is everything.

Shouts erupt from the keep, then pounding footsteps. Her eyes widen, and she grabs my arm. "We have to run."

"Wait. I am..."

"There is no time. They will find us. They will hurt you, and they will hurt me." Her eyes plead. "Please. Trust me."

And I do. I do not know why.

She pulls, and I follow, through the garden, the trees, the shadows. She knows the way, as if she has run it before, and she never looks back while the shouts behind us grow louder. I am the Lycan Prince, the future King, and I am supposed to be signing an alliance. Instead I am running through the forest with a slave girl I have never met, and I do not care.

She stops against a tree, breathing hard, hands shaking. "Thank you. For the cloak. For not hurting me. For trusting me."

I want to ask who she is, what she is, why she is hiding. The words will not come.

"I have to go," she says. "They will punish me if they find me."

"Wait." I reach for her. "What is your name?"

Her eyes are sad. "Helen."

She turns and vanishes into the trees. My hand is still reaching.

Helen.

I will find her again.