Seven days of watching her chest rise and fall.
Seven days of wondering whether she would wake up or die right here in my arms.
I spent a century alone in this dark stone hole, believing I understood isolation.
I was wrong.
Isolation was not having an empty space around you.
Isolation was having someone breathing beside you and knowing nothing about her.
She had not opened her eyes once since she arrived.
Her fingers twitched against the damp stone.
Sometimes her legs jerked.
Once, she even turned her face toward mine when I called her lady, though I doubted she heard a sound.
I watched every small movement.
I hated that I paid such close attention.
I hated that I could not stop.
Her scent had changed completely.
When she first dropped into the cavern, I could barely smell her beneath the heavy metallic smell of blood, the river water, and the sand clinging to her skin.
Now the fragrance filled the entire air.
It lingered in the water and followed me even when I moved to the far corner of the Cavern.
I had lived for ages.
I had seen thousands of people enter this place, some coming willingly while others were dragged down here screaming.
None of them smelled like her.
I sat beside her and narrowed my eyes.
“What exactly are you?”
She did not answer.
She had ignored my questions for a full week.
I reached for the cup next to me and dipped it into the underground river.
I had no need for food or constant meals anymore, but she did.
I hunted fish from the underground current, keeping them raw because I had no fire and no way to cook them.
I placed small pieces of fish near her lips, and even while unconscious, her body knew what to do.
She swallowed.
Whenever I tilted her head and pressed water against her mouth, she drank.
I cleaned her cuts, changed the fabric wrapped around her torso, and kept her warm against the chill of the river.
Every time my fingers brushed her skin, I reminded myself to keep my grip.
I could not afford to lose control.
Not with her.
Not until I figured out who she was.
On the second day, something else drifted down the underground waterfall.
I pulled it out of the water using a long stick, turning the soft object over in my hand.
Its fur was soaked through.
Then I noticed a small piece of cloth attached to the side.
It matched the zipper on the jacket she wore.
I looked down at her face, then back at the stuffed toy.
“So this belongs to you.”
I set it down beside her hand.
She did not move a muscle, but I left it there anyway.
After seven days of staring at nothing but chains and rock walls, every little detail tied to her felt heavy with meaning.
I looked down at my wrist.
The iron shackle remained locked in place, but my own cuts had healed.
I healed myself by receiving her blood which is still a mystery.
For a hundred years, I lived with raw power pressing against the stone walls of this prison.
The chain suppressed most of it, but being this close to her made the restraint slip.
My wolf paced beneath my skin, repeating a single word in my mind.
Mine.
I pushed the voice away.
I was not claiming anyone yet.
I needed answers, especially about the metal emblem resting near my hand.
I picked up the heirloom.
The name Orion Vale was carved sharply beneath the Kingmaker symbol.
Four hundred years ago, that emblem meant something entirely different.
Back then, I was not chained to a floor.
I led armies.
I was the Alpha of Ironclaw, marching to war with thousands of warriors behind my back.
I returned with almost nobody.
Most of the wolves I cared about died on that field.
I walked away from the bodies, soaked in blood that did not belong to me, believing I was the sole survivor.
Then I found him lying among the fallen, barely taking in air.
I carried him across the territory until I found someone who could help.
When he recovered, I told him to leave.
He refused, saying he had nowhere else to go, so he followed me to this land.
When they saw me, they panicked, thinking the Alpha of Ironclaw came to finish the slaughter.
I stayed anyway.
I kept rogues away from their camp.
When threats attacked, I fought them off.
Eventually, the people stopped hiding and asked me to lead them.
I refused the title of Alpha, but my friend convinced me to become their king.
Because my strength surpassed ordinary men, I created the Kingmaker bloodline to help protect the kingdom long after I was gone.
I chose a family, gave them an heirloom, and gave them a purpose.
Then La Fita betrayed me.
They turned on the very person who kept them alive, chained me beneath the earth, and sealed the cave.
Before the stones locked into place, I cursed the crown.
No one would sit on the throne until the true blood of the Kingmakers returned to claim it.
I looked back down at the girl.
She possessed the heirloom.
Her blood reacted to mine the moment she fell, meaning she belonged to that ancient bloodline.
A daughter, a granddaughter, or someone further down the line.
Either way, she was tied to the people I trusted centuries ago.
I leaned back against the stone wall and waited.
I had already spent a century down here.
I could wait another.
Eventually, she would wake up, and when she did, I would ask her everything.
Where she found the emblem, who sent her here, and why her blood vanished into my own body why her blood revived my healing ability.
She shifted beside me.
My attention snapped back to her face.
Her fingers curled into the sand.
Her brows pulled together into a sharp line.
Her breathing sped up.
I sat straight.
“Come on.”
Her eyelids fluttered.
I froze completely for the first time in seven days.
Her eyes opened, staring up at the stone ceiling before slowly turning toward me.
Her gaze locked onto my white hair, my face, and the chain bound to my wrist.
Her eyes narrowed in confusion.
“Why do you keep staring at me like that?”