Caleb
I stood rooted to the ground long after Erick had walked away, swallowed by the long corridor and the soft echo of his boots against the marble.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t even breathe properly.
The world felt strangely silent, reverent, almost as though the palace itself understood the weight of what had just happened.
Erick had accepted me.
Not only accepted me…he had shaken my hand.
Blessed my bond with his mother.
Warned me, in his strangely affectionate, stoic, terrifying way, that if I didn’t keep her happy, he would take my head.
And yet it was the sweetest, most beautiful threat I had ever heard in my entire life.
I looked down at my hand, the one he had shaken and turned it palm up, palm down, as though expecting it to glow.
My chest tightened, my wolf presse
