Lord Ath’tal glanced down at his silent ward.

  “Wait here. He’s dangerous.”

  She nodded, sliding from the dragon pup’s back and guiding the little beast off the path, into the shade of a broad-rooted tree. Ath’tal waited only long enough to scent the wind, then stepped into the clearing.

  Tlas was already there.

  His younger brother shoved someone behind him the moment he saw Ath’tal, claws flashing as his growl split the air.

  “He’s wicked dangerous,” Tlas snapped over his shoulder. “He’ll kill ya for lookin’ at him.”

  Ath’thal raised a brow and breathed in.

  Kitsune—faint, clever.

  Human—warm, fragile.

  And something else.

  Power. Innocence. A sweetness that caught at the back of his throat like blood on snow.

  His beast stirred—interested, hungry—until a flicker of color caught his eye. Celestial hair spilled from behind Tlas’s side, glowing faintly as if it remembered a sky that did not belong to this world.

  Ath’tal stilled.

  “What the hell do you want?” Tlas snarled, claws fully bared.

  Then Ath’tal saw her.

  For a heartbeat, the world tilted. Brown skin like polished earth. Eyes the color of shifting sands—ancient, watchful, unafraid.

  His beast spoke without hesitation.

  Mate.

  “Hn.”

  Ath’tal scoffed, disgust curling his lip. He turned and left the clearing without another word.

  The notion was absurd.

  He was Lord Ath’tal. Primordial. Apex.

  He did not claim. He ruled.

  The next time they met, Tlas attacked him.

  No warning. No words. Just fury.

  Ath’tal’s patience—already frayed by centuries of unfinished arguments—shattered. He struck back without restraint.

  The blow landed harder than intended.

  Tlas crumpled.

  The silence afterward was sharp enough to cut.

  Then the light came.

  She stepped from it like judgment given form, her presence burning the clearing white. Golden eyes locked onto Ath’tal, blazing with fury that made even his ancient instincts hesitate.

  “Get away from him, you animal.”

  The arrow screamed.

  It struck his shoulder with a thunderous force, shattering three centuries of armor like spun glass. Pain tore through him as the magic embedded itself deep, searing and alive.

  The bow sang again.

  Ath’tal did not wait for the second shot.

  He vanished into the shadows, blood hot down his arm, her power humming through the air behind him like a vow.

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  It took an hour to tear the arrow free.

  Ten days for the wound to stop burning.

  It never truly healed.

  Time passed.

  Distance did not help.

  Ath’tal found them again—Tlas, two humans, and her. He masked his aura and watched.

  “Why did you do that?” Tlas shouted. “Stupid—you know he could’ve killed you!”

  “He could have killed you as well,” she replied calmly, hands steady as she tended the injured human.

  Then Tlas snapped.

  He seized her by her hair and yanked her away, rage pouring from him unchecked.

  “Like that ass of a brother of mine?”

  Ath’thal’s vision darkened.

  She did not scream.

  Pain flickered through her eyes—and vanished, replaced by something unyielding.

  “Your brother may be dangerous,” she said, voice low and steady, “but I am not afraid of him. And you shouldn’t be either.”

  Tlas’s grip loosened.

  That was when Ath’tal stepped forward.

  “Enough.”

  The word cut through the clearing like a blade.

  Tlas stiffened. She turned.

  Ath’tal let a fraction of his aura surface—not a threat. A reminder.

  “Mind your tongue, Tlas,” he said softly. “Unless you wish to answer for it.”

  She moved between them without hesitation.

  “I don’t care who you are,” she said, meeting his gaze head-on. “You will not hurt him. Not while I’m here.”

  For the first time in centuries, Ath’tal did not immediately decide how to break something that defied him.

  Instead, he nodded once.

  “Very well,” he said. “For now.”

  His eyes lingered on her—longer than he allowed himself to acknowledge—before he disappeared into shadow once more.

  The forest swallowed him, but his thoughts would not follow.

  This goddess—no, this woman—burned behind his eyes. He did not know her name, yet she had commanded him. Had wounded him. Had stood against him.

  No one did that.

  His beast growled approval, low and possessive.

  Mate.

  “Nothing,” he muttered, even as the lie tasted thin.

  The wound in his shoulder pulsed, magic still alive beneath the skin. Not pain—memory. Essence. Her.

  She haunted him without permission. Challenged him without fear. Embedded herself in him without a name to curse or speak.

  And that—more than the arrow, more than Tlas’s defiance—was unforgivable.

  By the time Ath’tal vanished into the deep wilds, one truth had already taken root:

  He would learn her name.

  And when he did, this goddess would no longer remain only a wound he remembered.

  Months Later

  As Lord Ath’tal made his way back toward camp, a scent caught him mid-step.

  Blood.

  Not fresh-spilled in violence, but the thin, metallic whisper of a wound that had been tended. His attention snapped outward, senses unfurling as he surveyed the edge of the clearing.

  There.

  In the dying light, the goddess knelt before his ward.

  Bella bent low, her hands steady as she wrapped cloth around Aelia’s small, injured foot. Blood smeared her fingers, stained the pale white of her robes. She did not hurry. She did not flinch.

  “Now you ask your guardian for shoes, okay?” Bella murmured, her voice gentle, almost playful, as she finished the bandage. “This underbrush is bad for human feet, sweetie.”

  Ath’tal did not move.

  Aelia nodded eagerly, a grin breaking across her face, unguarded and bright in a way she never allowed herself to be in his presence. “Okay!”

  Bella leaned in and pressed a kiss to the child’s forehead. The gesture was so natural it struck him like an error in the world’s design.

  “Bye,” Bella said softly.

  And then she was gone.

  No ripple of power. No declaration. One blink of shadow and leaf, and the forest swallowed her whole.

  Ath’tal’s gaze lingered where she had been, the air still remembering her shape, before he finally looked down at his ward.

  Aelia beamed up at him. “Her name is Bella, my lord. Her brown skin is so soft and silky.” She tilted her head, studying him with earnest curiosity. “Aelia hurt her foot. Bella bandaged me.”

  She laughed. A small, breathy sound. Content.

  “Hn.”

  It was all Ath’tal gave her.

  His attention drifted back to the forest, to the place Bella had vanished. Bella. He turned the name over in his thoughts, testing its weight, its edges. It did not behave like the names of gods he knew.

  Later, when Aelia slept deeply, curled and peaceful in a way that irritated something in him, Ath’tal allowed the memory to surface.

  “Bella,” he whispered.

  He saw it again. Her hands, calm and certain. The blood on Aelia’s foot, bright and vivid against white cloth. Any other being would have recoiled. Even many gods would have stiffened, offended by the sight, by the intrusion of mortal frailty.

  Bella had smiled.

  She had worked as though blood were inconsequential. As though pain were not an interruption, but a condition to be addressed and released.

  She should have been disturbed.

  The fact that she was not unsettled him more than fear ever could.

  Too calm. Too composed. Too unshaken.

  Ath’tal raised a hand to his face, brow furrowing.

  The scent lingered.

  Not only Aelia’s blood.

  Hers.

  Sweet. Subtle. And now that he had noticed it, impossible to forget.