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KAEL — 19 YEARS OLD, FUTURE ALPHA

Chapter — Kael

My name is Kael.

And, contrary to what most people think, I was never kind by nature.

From an early age, I was taught that an alpha can't be weak. Can't hesitate. Can't let the wrong feelings take root inside him. The pack senses when its leader wavers. And I never wavered.

I observe. I've always observed.

People think power comes from physical strength. They're wrong. Power comes from noticing the things others pretend not to see. It comes from reading what's in someone's eyes before they even have the courage to say it out loud.

And Luara's eyes always said everything.

She never needed to confess. Never needed to speak. All she had to do was look at me like I was something impossible, distant, out of reach. Like my presence was a prize she didn't even have the right to imagine.

That irritates me.

Not out of vanity. Out of disrespect.

She knows who I am. Knows what I represent. Knows I'll be the future alpha. And still, she dares to nurture a feeling that doesn't belong to her.

There's something deeply wrong with that.

Luara was always… slow. In body. In mind. In development. While the others were awakening their strength, their wolves, their presence, she stayed the same. Too quiet. Too big. Too fragile.

A she-wolf who can't keep up with the pack becomes dead weight.

And I don't carry dead weight.

The first time I noticed her staring, I felt disgust. Not physical — something deeper. A discomfort. A breach of hierarchy. As if someone out of place kept insisting on touching something sacred.

She doesn't see me as a man.

She sees me as salvation.

And that's offensive.

I'm an alpha. I'm leadership. I'm power. I'm not the emotional refuge of someone who can't find her own place in the world.

With Lisa, it's different.

It always has been.

Lisa never looked up at me from below. Never worshipped me. Never put me on a pedestal. She faces me as an equal — sometimes as a rival. And that awakens something in me Luara could never awaken.

Respect.

Lisa is strong. Lisa is sharp. Lisa understands the game of the pack without anyone having to explain it. She feels the power but doesn't bow to it — she walks beside it.

When we're together, there's no awkward silence. There's tension. There's chemistry. Something electric in the air that doesn't need to be spoken.

She's beautiful. But not just in body. She's beautiful in the way she commands a room. The way she speaks. The way she knows exactly who she is.

A luna needs to be that.

Someone who walks with me, not behind me.

Sometimes I'd notice Luara in the academy hallways. Always a step behind. Always trying to disappear. And yet her eyes insisted on following me.

She didn't understand that it only made everything worse.

The more she stared, the clearer it became that she didn't belong in my world.

I didn't feel pity. Pity is useless to an alpha.

I felt anger.

Anger that she wouldn't accept the place she occupied. Anger that she clung to an illusion that never existed. Anger that she put me in a position where I had to be cold so I wouldn't be unfair.

I owed her nothing.

Lisa, on the other hand, awakened something in me that went beyond desire. She awakened a future. When I thought of the pack, I saw her at my side. When I pictured leadership, I heard her steady voice. When I thought of strong children, I thought of her.

That wasn't romanticism. It was logic. It was instinct. It was choice.

Luara never awakened her wolf. Never awakened anything in me beyond impatience.

And maybe that was her mistake all along: believing that silent feelings would make her worthy of something that can only be earned through presence, strength, and courage.

The world isn't kind to those who wait.

The pack, even less so.

And I wouldn't let anyone confuse my tolerance with an open door.

My path was set.

My luna was at my side.

And whoever insisted on looking where they didn't belong… ended up getting hurt.

Not out of cruelty.

But because they never learned to leave the wrong place.

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