“I don’t know.” The admission seemed to cost the old male. “But I’ve served Lux my entire life. I’ve witnessed three Alpha Kings rise and fall. I’ve seen the moon turn colors I couldn’t name and watched males I loved become monsters.” His amber eyes held steady on Sylas’s face. “And in all those years, I’ve never felt Lux’s presence as strongly as I did in that integration chamber. When the core activated. When your human stood at the observation window, watching.”
Cold crept down Sylas’s spine.
“You’re saying Lux has taken an interest. In Elsa.”
“I’m saying the Great Snow Beast doesn’t waste her attention on things that don’t matter.” The priest rose, movements slow with age but dignified. “Whatever that human is, whatever she represents—she wasn’t a random crash survivor who happened to smell pleasant. She wassent. Whether as test or blessing or warning, I cannot say.”
“And your recommendation?”
The priest paused at the doorway, looking back. “Keep her close. Protect her with everything you have. And when Xar or Vask or any other fool tries to take her from you—” His lips pulled back in something too old to be a smile. “Remember that Lux doesn’t take kindly to those who interfere with her plans.”
He left.
Sylas sat alone in the council chamber, surrounded by maps and politics and the echo of warnings he didn’t fully understand.
Lux marks don’t happen by accident.
He thought about Elsa’s defiance. Her sharp mind. The way she’d demanded information rather than simply accepting captivity. The way she’d looked at him without fear—not because she didn’t recognize the danger, but because she’d chosen to face it anyway.
Sent.
The word settled into his bones with uncomfortable weight.
If the priest was right—if Lux had actually chosen to place Elsa in his path, on his planet, in his territory—then the political calculations changed. The possessive instincts he’d been fighting weren’t just his beast’s obsession. They were...sanctioned. Encouraged.
Expected.
And the males who wanted to take her from him weren’t just rivals. They were heretics.
The thought should have simplified things. Instead, it made everything more complicated.
Because if Elsa was divinely chosen, then his responsibility to her extended beyond ownership. Beyond even protection.
He had to beworthyof what Lux had given him.
Sylas rose from the table, claws scraping against obsidian as he pushed to his feet. The afternoon stretched before him—patrols to oversee, reports to review, the endless administrative weight of ruling a territory that wanted to tear itself apart.
But first.
He needed to see her.
She was exactlywhere he’d left her.
Curled in the nest of furs that still seemed to swallow her small frame, golden hair spread across pillows meant for someone three times her size. The afternoon light through the narrow windows painted her in shades of silver and shadow.
Asleep. Still recovering from the core’s effects, despite Yarx’s assurances that the worst had passed.
Sylas closed the door behind him, the heavy mechanism sealing with a sound that didn’t wake her. His chambers feltdifferent with her in them—smaller, somehow, though nothing about the physical space had changed. Just the awareness of her presence pressing against walls that had only ever known solitude.
He crossed to the window, putting distance between himself and the sleeping female while he sorted through what the council meeting had revealed.
Xar’s ambition. Vask’s maneuvering. The Lux Priest’s warnings about divine attention and blessings that couldn’t be ignored.
Keep her close. Protect her with everything you have.
He was already doing that. Had been doing it since the moment he’d scented Frosted Tears on a fragile human who should have died in the snow.
But now the stakes had shifted. This wasn’t just about territory or possession or the political statement of keeping a pet. This was about—