Snow fell between them like a curtain of silence, each flake suspended in air that crackled with supernatural tension.
For the first time since her exile, their eyes locked across the frozen battlefield. His burned with molten gold, the fury of an Alpha whose authority had been challenged by someone he considered beneath notice. Hers blazed with silver fire, cold and pitiless as winter itself, daring him to make the first move.
The storm raged around them, but neither figure flinched. They stood like monuments to opposing forces—traditional power versus earned strength, comfortable authority versus desperate survival transformed into terrible purpose.
"Kill her," Kieran snarled, his voice carrying the weight of absolute command that had never been questioned. "End this abomination now."
