CRAVING THE PRIMORDIAL ELDER
Naelis Haldrith is many things, daughter to the South's most strategic Alpha, an Omega with Alpha genes, and an unapologetic misfit. During summer break, she decides to journey to Frostpine and spend her heat cycle with her boyfriend, the golden pea of the Thalric pod.
But during a collared moment, a secret of his is revealed, and Naelis realizes that their relationship was more complex than it seemed. Choosing to return to her pack, she steps outside under a storm, and it is at that moment she crosses paths with a man she had never seen before.
Zoran Vyer Thalric. Uncle to her ex. Member of the Elder's Council. The otherworldly primordial with red-ringed eyes and a wolf barely chained beneath his skin. Desire sparks instantly, and her sights are immediately set on him, but... he is a devotee of the Citadel, celibate, untouched, and unwilling to be the calm to her fury.
She is fire, wild and untamed. He is steel, honed and contained. And for the first time, Naelis is the hunter after her prey, and the line of resistance slowly blurs as he finds his years of enforced self-control and suppression unraveling at the tint of her touches.
And with a maniac on their radar, this summer break will demand blood, sacrifice, and passion that howls to the moon.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 3
She hadn't remembered the last time she had been up this early.
"Silas, I clearly said that I wanted the aloe vera mask and my green tea, I didn't say turmeric mask and black tea."
"But you-" He yawned and kicked back on my bed. "This is part of my punishment, isn't it?"
"Of course it is, what do you take me for? A merciful judge?"
"Maybe?" He teased, helping her pick between the green and lilac.
Lilac.
"As if. We're wolves, not humans." She rolled her eyes, dabbing her face with the white koal powder. Traditional.
"Since when did you start using koal powder? And not regular eyeliner?"
"Since I found out you have a six-foot-six gorgeous primordial for an uncle."
"You are unbelievable," Silas muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face. "You are supposed to be mad at me. Like, throwing-daggers-at-my-neck mad. Not suddenly thirsting after my uncle of all people."
Naelis leaned forward, chin in hand.
"Oh, don't flatter yourself. I'm still mad at you. But anger doesn't cancel desire, Silas. It just... sharpens it."
He groaned into his palms. "Heavens help me."
"Heavens help him," she corrected, smirking. "Because once I'm done with this mask, I'm going to need a pottery lesson."
Silas dropped his hands and stared. "You are not serious."
"Deadly." She dabbed another stroke of koal powder. "What is his favorite color?"
"I'm not telling you that."
"What does he usually eat for breakfast?"
"I'm not telling you that either."
Naelis tilted her head. "Then I'll just have to ask him myself."
Silas groaned so loud this time it rattled her teacup. "Nae, I swear, if you ruin my family gatherings with your insanity-"
"Correction." She rose from the vanity. "I don't ruin family gatherings, Silas. I redefine them."
Naelis dusted her fingers together and turned, arms folding. "You want my forgiveness, right?"
Silas squinted at her warily. "As your ex, yes. As your best friend, yes. But... not if it comes stapled to whatever devil's bargain you're cooking up."
She smirked. "Don't act brand new. You know I could've told everyone about your little late-night rendezvous with what's-his-name, the boy in the photos?"
Silas's ears went red immediately. "Keep your voice down..."
"Relax." Naelis leaned in close, her lips brushing near his ear. "Your secret is safe with me. For how long though... that depends on you."
"You're actually blackmailing me into pimping you out to my uncle."
"I'm not asking you to help shove me into his pants," she said with a laugh. "Just get me close enough. The seduction part?" She tapped her chest. "Handled."
Silas dragged a hand down his face. "Nae, you don't get it. He has taken a vow. A lifelong vow. Celibacy. Zero. Nada. Zilch. The man probably gets cold sweats if he brushes someone's hand by accident. Dad and I have tried to hook him up on several occasions."
"Mm." Naelis shrugged, adjusting the lapels of her coat. "Summer break will be over in a couple of months. What is wrong with a little fun? Consider it... distraction therapy. I forget the fact that I was cheated on, you get my forgiveness eventually, and your uncle, well, he gets me."
Silas dropped onto her bed with a groan.
"I feel like a brothel manager."
She patted his head. "Relax, Silas. It's a win-win."
There was a long silence. Then finally, begrudgingly, Silas muttered, "He is a meat lover. Loves having meat for breakfast."
Her lips curved into a grin. "Perfect. I love meat too."
"Ugh." Silas flopped back, covering his eyes. "If you're really serious about this, breakfast is soon. He eats in the general hall."
Naelis slipped her arms into her coat, smoothing it like armor. "And that, dear Silas, is exactly why I am dressed and ready. Now be a good boy and escort me to the woods."
"The woods? For what?"
Naelis flexed her fingers, her claws sliding out with a satisfying click. She plucked up the claw-sharpener from the vanity and dragged it along the edge, sharpening it as she often sharpened her nails.
"To hunt, obviously."
"Hunt?" Silas blinked. "Nae, what the hell-"
"You said your uncle was a meat lover, right? Then I'll bring him meat." She tilted her head.
Silas groaned. "The kitchen staff already serves meat. We have cooks. Actual, professional, apron-wearing-"
Naelis cut him off with a laugh. "Oh, Silas. Do you really think a slab of pork from a pan has the same effect as a bloody kill dropped at someone's feet? Your uncle is a primordial, not some bored accountant. He will appreciate effort, he will smell the hunt in the meat. He will know it's fresh, and from me."
"You make it sound like you're about to court him in the Middle Ages."
"That's exactly the point," she said with a smirk. "Old vows and old important traditions. I'm simply speaking his language."
Naelis waved a hand dismissively. "You said he was traditional, didn't you? Well, in traditional times, wolves wooed their women with fresh hunts. I intend to flip the script. A guest show worthy of a primordial."
Silas gawked. "So, you are going to hunt... for him."
She smiled. "Exactly. And I plan to look good doing it."
His gaze dropped to her dress.
"You are wearing that to hunt? You'll snag it on every thorn in the woods."
"I'll snag his attention first."
"Oh man. You've got it down bad."
"What?" Naelis arched his brow. "It's been ages since I set my sights on a man. Except, of course, for the time I wasted on you."
"Gee, thanks."
"Anyway," she continued breezily, "this summer deserves a little fun. And if targeting your uncle is that fun, so be it."
Silas stared. "Are you seriously not even taking a crossbow? A spear? Knife? Anything?"
She scoffed. "Crossbows? What do you take me for, an archer princess? Please. I have my hunting material right here." She tapped her claws against the sharpener with a soft metallic scrape.
"The boars in our woods are wild, Nae."
Her grin turned feral. "And I am wilder. You know that."
You may also like
8.9
Aliana braved a heavy storm, carrying a warm stew for her fiancé, Ivan, just as she always put his needs before her own. This ingrained habit, a survival mechanism from a cold childhood, was about to shatter into a million pieces. Tonight, everything she believed was a lie.
The iron gates of Ivan's private villa flashed red, denying her entry, and a guard mumbled lies. Ignoring him, she pushed past, a strange orchid perfume leading her to Ivan's car, where a tube of crimson lipstick lay on the passenger seat. Through a window, she saw him with another woman and a small child, an image that felt like jagged glass twisting in her heart.
Then his words cut through the storm, cold and cruel:
"Aliana is just a placeholder."
He was marrying her for her multi-billion-dollar patent, a secret deal made with her own parents, who had sold her for a kickback to buy this very house. Her family, her love, her future-all were a calculated lie.
Her inner wolf, usually fierce, fell terrifyingly silent, replaced by a chilling resolve. The burning acid in her throat wasn't just bile; it was the taste of her shattered devotion.
She didn't want his apologies or his guilt. She wanted his ruin, and as Ivan walked in with a fake smile the next morning, Aliana was ready to deliver it.
8.6
I was the youngest Paladin in history, the absolute pride of the Azure Blade.
But after a disastrous mission in the snow, I was falsely accused of slaughtering my own squad.
Grand Master Bernardo Rowe didn't just exile me; he surgically severed my connection to the magic Aether, turning me into a crippled mortal.
Desperate to survive, I tried to climb the Holy Stairs to reclaim my legendary sword, "Rebellion."
Instead of answering my call, my own blade shrieked in absolute rejection and blasted me down the thousand stone steps.
My bones snapped like dry twigs, and I was left in a pool of my own blood.
The pilgrims laughed at me. The guards declared me a lost cause and left me to rot in the dirt.
I should have died there, betrayed by the Order and the holy magic I once served.
But a silent, massive laborer named Cato Sims dragged my mangled body into the shadows.
He healed my shattered skeleton in mere days with impossible skill, yet he allowed lowly servants to spit on him and beat him just to keep my presence hidden.
I didn't understand why my holy sword had abandoned me, and I understood even less why this stranger was protecting a condemned criminal.
When I finally snapped and demanded to know his price for saving my life, he didn't ask for money or my body.
"The mountain does not forget its debts. I am reclaiming what was taken from it."
Staring into his unyielding eyes, I realized my exile wasn't the end, but the beginning of a terrifying truth.
9.3
Born into privilege, Eleanor never imagined her life could shatter in a single night. Then her father disappeared with his mistress, her mother fell from a building and slipped into a coma, and everything she once owned turned to dust.
Determined not to ruin Jonathan's future with her family's disgrace, she ended their relationship and became the bride of a man trapped in a vegetative state.
She believed that was the last time their paths would cross. But two years later, Jonathan pinned her in the dark and whispered, "Long time no see, my sister-in-law."
9.2
When Alma's father stood in front of the bulldozers to protest, the energy company's thugs beat him half to death in the mud.
Instead of arresting the attackers, the police handcuffed her bleeding father and threw him into a cruiser.
"Stay back, kid," the officer barked, shoving Alma away.
Her father was denied bail and framed for assaulting an officer. The corrupt mayor just smiled and told her not to cause a scene. Meanwhile, the company mailed her weeping mother a severance check that barely covered a month of groceries.
Alma was forced to watch her family be completely destroyed by men with money and power.
Kneeling in the cold dirt where her father's blood had spilled, she didn't shed a single tear. The panic in her chest died, replaced by a cold, absolute hatred.
She realized that crying wouldn't do anything. In this world, justice didn't exist for the weak.
Years later, Alma stepped onto a prestigious Ivy League campus, her cheap backpack slung over her shoulder.
She was surrounded by the arrogant children of the very executives who ruined her life.
She lowered her head, hiding her dead eyes, and put on the perfect mask of a timid, helpless charity case.
Undergrad was just a training ground, and these elite kids were just her practice dummies. The hunt was officially on.
9.4
I was a New York photographer, but I woke up under the brutal sun of the African savanna.
Worse, I wasn't human. I was trapped in the body of a male cheetah, with two starving cubs clinging to my fur, telepathically calling me "Mom."
But I am a real man!
To keep my adopted sons alive, I had to fight hyenas and dodge rogue lions. But the real nightmare was my bizarre survival mechanism. Under extreme threat, I would uncontrollably shift back into my human form—stark, undeniably naked. I was forced to sprint across the plains with my bare skin exposed, carrying two cubs while escaping furious lionesses. I became a freak, the most confusing and humiliating legend of the animal kingdom.
Covered in bloody scratches and mud, I was pushed to the brink of despair. Why was I thrown into this beast's body? Why did my only defense mechanism involve profound social death?
Just when I barely survived a cliff dive to escape the lions, my path was blocked by two massive, highly intelligent prime male cheetahs.
But the alpha, Bradley, didn't want to kill me for my territory.
His intense gaze raked over my naked, bleeding human body with a dark, possessive hunger.
"You are full of surprises."
He purred smoothly, teaching me to magically summon a fur skirt before demanding I join his coalition.
"Oh, you'll come to me. I guarantee it."
Looking into his predatory eyes, I realized I was no longer just surviving the wild; I was the prey of a completely different kind of beast.
9.2
I woke up suffocating in the dark, only to find my mind trapped inside a tiny, plump, and entirely uncoordinated body.
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in my brain, announcing that I was dead in my original world and had transmigrated into a corporate revenge novel as the six-month-old illegitimate daughter of Edward McClure, the story's ruthless villain.
The system mercilessly outlined my doomed fate. Tonight, my cold-blooded father would abandon me to a state orphanage. By age two, he would officially sign my rights away, leaving me to die miserably at the hands of human traffickers. Outside my nursery, I could hear his terrifying footsteps approaching, his voice devoid of any human warmth as he debated throwing me out like garbage. I was completely helpless, trapped in a baby's body, staring up at a man who looked at me with pure, visceral disgust.
Why did I have to be reborn as the tragic cannon fodder of a tyrant destined to put a bullet in his own head? How was I supposed to win over a severe germaphobe when my unequipped infant reflexes made me literally pee and vomit all over his pristine Tom Ford suits?
"Your ultimate mission is to prevent Edward McClure's self-destruction. Step one: Survive tonight's abandonment crisis."
Hearing the system's terrifying ultimatum, I swallowed my adult panic, forced a pool of pitiful tears into my large eyes, and reached my chubby little hands toward the monster.