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 5
All eyes turned to Zoran as he coughed out his wine. He grabbed the napkin and hurriedly sloshed off the mess, his hands shaking a little.
The paper dissolved into the liquid.
"Uncle Zoran, is everything fine?" Silas reached out to help him clean the table's surface. Rowan too had paused munching and seemed concerned.
"Was there something in the drink, brother?"
"No. I just... forgot that I had to purchase extra yarn in order to knit like I had planned and-"
Naelis bit into her apple and licked her lips, holding his gaze when it crossed hers. Zoran's eyes got even wider seeing she wasn't bothered.
He immediately excused himself.
That was when Silas noticed the tiny piece of parchment soaking in the spilled wine.
"Is this your doing, Nae?" He whispered.
"Probably."
He fished for the paper but it was already falling apart. "What does it say?"
"Nothing you need to know in particular," she whispered back.
Rowan was confused, but he was too immersed in his lemon curd to ask.
"Alpha Rowan, I'll head upstairs for a bath. I don't want to ruin the carpets any further."
"Alright, child, I could still have the cooks prepare the boar. I'd like it with curry sauce and a little bit of parmesan."
"Of course, Alpha, enjoy."
She licked her fingers clean and waltzed away.
•••
Steam still clung to Naelis's skin as she stepped out of the washroom, drying her hair with a towel while her phone buzzed.
"Mm-hmm, yes, Sally, I'll tell you another story later, no, don't sneak cookies, you little thief," she laughed softly before hanging up.
Sally. A very soft, but yet, over-curious six-year-old.
Half-sister. Her father's bastard, but yet... a girl that had come to matter to her. Somewhat.
She tossed the towel aside, tugged on a loose robe, and flopped across her bed. With the curtains drawn and the mansion quiet, her finger hovered over her screen, tapping open something explicit.
She opened her flap and parted her legs, her heat cycles still pungent.
KNOCK-KNOCK.
The sound interrupted her before her hands could even make contact with her folds.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Silas, if that is you trying to dissuade me again-" She snatched a shoe off the floor and flung it.
The sensor-stimulation feature was still on. The doors creaked open just in time for the shoe to collide squarely with Zoran's chest.
He let out a small grunt, clutching his laptop.
"May I... have a word?" His voice was polite, but there was a rough edge beneath it.
Naelis's jaw dropped, heat rising in her cheeks. "Shit. Sorry. I thought you were... never mind. Come in."
He stepped inside, his refreshing scent hitting her nostrils.
Wild-root and coffee-tang.
She gestured behind her. "Make yourself comfortable, the bed is free."
Zoran nodded, moving stiffly to the chair instead. He set the laptop on his knees.
"I... ah... came to clarify," he began, "the note you handed me at breakfast. It was... wildly inappropriate."
Naelis stretched languidly on the bed, her damp hair spilling over her shoulders. "Oh? Inappropriate is just another word for memorable."
His gaze averted, just for a second, toward the sleek little wand-like toy resting near her pillow. He stiffened, color rising in his cheeks. He tried to look anywhere else, her window, the carpet, the wall... anywhere but there.
"Miss Haldrith-"
"-Naelis."
"N-Naelis," he said, carefully, "I am not... interested in... any of that."
She cut him off with a soft laugh.
"You sound like you swallowed a sermon. Relax, Zoran. I wasn't proposing anything serious. Just a little... fun fact." She dragged the words out deliberately, savoring his fluster.
His knuckles whitened on the edge of the laptop.
"It wasn't funny."
"It was hilarious." Her grin widened. "The way you nearly spat out your wine? Priceless."
He narrowed his eyes. "You enjoy making people uncomfortable."
"Only the ones I want to look at me twice," she shot back, leaning forward on her elbows. "And I want you to look at me, more than twice."
That silenced him.
"Aren't you thinking of getting back with my nephew?"
"No."
She slid off the bed with an almost feline grace, the hem of her robe dragging behind her. The fabric clung damply to her skin from the steam of her bath, emphasizing her figure. She sank down to her hands and knees, and then began to crawl.
Zoran felt a rush of trepidation.
He stood up. Every time her hand pressed into the carpet, he took another step back.
Her robe gaped, her cleavage visible with each movement, the curve of her breasts strained against the thin fabric, and Naelis didn't hide it, she wanted him to notice.
He didn't. At least, he tried not to. His gaze kept darting toward the wall or the floor.
"Miss Haldrith. Stop this. Calm your raging... omega hormones. There are other men out there, plenty of them. Dozens, hundreds. Someone that would willingly want this."
She laughed softly as she crawled another inch closer.
"I don't want any of them," she whispered. She crawled another pace forward, closing the gap he kept trying to create. "Let them be the fishes in the sea."
Her lips curved into a lethal smile. "For now, I just want one shark."
Zoran's back hit the wall, laptop clutched against his chest like a holy relic. "Naelis, this...this is not amusing."
Her laughter rang out. "Relax, hot cake..."
Zoran blinked. His red-ringed eyes shuffled with awkwardness.
"I'm not asking for forever," she continued, a sly grin tugging at her lips. "Just... wicked little moments. Nothing to fear, unless you're afraid of enjoying yourself."
"I am fourteen years older than you, I could be your uncle too," he blurted, as though the number itself might build a barricade.
Not when Naelis Haldrith was involved. Certainly not.
"Listen to me, young lady-"
She whimpered, letting out a half-moan that made his entire locomotive system come to a stand-still.
His lips parted in disbelief.
"Stop being so bashful and come here." Her nails reached out to grab his pants.
His back was against the wall. There were no more backward steps to take.
"N-Naelis!"
She didn't notice the intensifying red in his eyes, the venomous claws prickling at his fingertips.
"Zoran-uh... your pheromones."
Something was happening, his pores were leaking something. But it definitely wasn't pheromones.
"Enough!"
One moment his cheeks were flushed and he was frozen against the wall. The next, he leaned down and grabbed her by the throat.
Eyes blazing with distinct blood-lust.
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.