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.
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Chapter 6
Three days had passed, and Zoran was nowhere in her line of sight. He was absent at breakfast and neither Rowan nor Silas knew where he had gone. Her door had been fixed from when he tore it down and sprinted out, but the complexity of her thoughts? Nah.
Naelis sat on the sun-warmed bench, tilting her face toward the sky. Her heat had dulled, leaving her skin oddly restless. She should have been relieved, but instead the quiet made her itch.
Even the young pups playing nearby couldn't lift the knot in her chest. Not like she liked kids that much anyway.
Something wasn't right.
She noticed it first in the way the guards moved along the perimeter, with quicker strides and glances. It was a little whiff at first, but her nose caught the scent almost instantly.
Gunpowder.
Her senses were sharper now that she was on her period, (lunar cycle).
The first shot went off.
The children screamed, scattering like startled birds. "Shit! Get inside, quickly." Naelis yelled, springing to her feet.
They ran inside, all... but one.
A boy tripped, a painful scream was torn from his throat as his ankle snapped. He crumpled to the ground, clutching his leg. His friends attempted to skiddle back to his rescue with their little friend.
"Don't!" Naelis barked, sharper than the gunfire echoing from the borders. "Get inside! I'll handle him!"
And though their eyes brimmed with fear, they obeyed, rushing for the Alpha house.
She sprinted to the ash-haired five year old, attempting to pull him up, she tried and almost successfully got him off the ground.
Except...
She felt a sharp abdominal twinge, a menstrual cramp. She hissed, nearly doubling over. She never had cramps before, never.
"Miss, are you okay? Are you hurt?" the boy whimpered, his eyes wide.
"Shit," she muttered, clutching her stomach with one hand while shoving him up with the other. "Goddammit-go inside! Get your little playmates in, cover your ears, and stay put!"
He was conflicted. The little boy shook his head, insisting on sniffing out what was wrong with her.
Kids and their damn innocence.
"Do I have to root my claws in your snout before you run inside already?" She hissed, grabbing her abdomen and shoving him forward on his good feet.
The threat scared him and forced him to limp inside to the safety of the main house.
Naelis tried to stand up, tried to push through the twisting pain, but the cramp worsened, making her scream.
A stone was thrown toward her direction and she narrowly missed it by an inch.
Are these intruders really resorting to throwing rocks?
Another stone came from over the fence and collided with her temple. She cursed and placed her palm on her bruised forehead while still fighting her cramps.
Come on, Naelis, move!
She kept screaming at her legs that seemed paralyzed. These no longer felt like cramps but like little acidic explosions in her uterus.
The children yelled at her from inside as a large rocky stone was hurled into the air. With her chest blazing with panic and her legs immobile, all she could do was close her eyes and hope to not get crushed to smithereens. Which was highly unlikely.
Three...
Two...
One...
Firm arms slid under the knees and pulled her from the line of impact before the rock could impale itself on her skull.
Zoran.
"Your abdomen..." His eyes darted to her stomach. "What is wrong?"
She shook her head. "Nothing."
"Nothing?" He leaned down, his nose hovering just below her navel. He inhaled. "I can smell blood...."
Naelis bit her lip, suddenly feeling very doe-like.
"Are you hurt?"
She tapped her tummy twice and he understood.
Oh, that kind of blood.
He straightened, touched her temple where the rock had grazed her. His fingers were surprisingly gentle against her skin. "It will swell if we don't handle it. There is a health kit upstairs. We can treat it there."
He was effortlessly professional like he had done this many times, saving people, carrying them. Her eyes couldn't help but notice the strands of fur jutting out from his skin.
"Why?" she asked softly, brushing her fingers against the fur before she could stop herself.
Zoran went still. His grip on her tightened, as if he was forcefully pinning the wolf back inside.
"My wolf is on edge," he admitted.
The noises of trouble outside were still very loud.
"Intruders, invaders, curious personnel, or?"
"A band of rogues. We had a fragile alliance, but they broke it."
Her brows furrowed. "Why?"
"They demanded that Rowan betroth Silas to their leader's daughter. To solidify the alliance further."
An arranged marriage?
She scoffed.
"Sometimes, some werewolves act a bit too traditional."
"The rogue leader lacks the ability of discernment."
She lifted a brow, surprised an insult was spewing out from his holy lips. "Did you just-"
"No, Naelis. I only speak the truth. Rowan refused and said that Silas should choose his own woman, in his own time. They took offense to that and said that Rowan rejected them for being rogues."
"But Alpha Rowan isn't like that."
Zoran's eyes flicked to hers, a glint of agreement in their depths. "Exactly. He wasn't looking down on them, he was simply protecting Silas's choice. And for that, they are here....."
She looked down at her abdomen scornfully.
"If not for these cramps, I would've marched down there and curdled off some heads."
"Rowan has it handled."
"I know that. But he is probably what... reasoning with these rogues? Talking? No. Rogues understand one language and one language only. Death. And Frostpine should give it to them."
"Not everything-"
"No. I guess you are some kind of delusional eunuch, I don't expect you to see that violence is necessary sometimes."
"I'm not a eunuch. Eunuchs are usually castrated. I wasn't."
"So your intact-cock is what separates you from those timble men of faith?"
He marched the stairwell quietly.
"Is your tongue always this... sharp?"
"Untamed? Unbridled? All words people use to caution me when I speak the truth and they know it."
He looked down, at the way her thick brows furrowed in anger. The way her eyes narrowed with distaste. Her feline-like eyes, radiating the same intensity her hair did.
This was the first time he really looked.
"What? Gawking now?" She rolled her eyes, "I assumed I had the body of a parasite since a certain man punched a hole in my door, to run away from me."
His eyes turned guilty. Maybe she had tried to seduce him against his will. But his actions were far from the spectrum and inexplicable. For someone who held rationality as essential.
He opened his mouth to apologize,
"Miss Haldrith,-"
Her finger pressed to his lips, sealing the words in.
"Tell me what happened and why you ran, Zoran. I want the truth."
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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.