It was her! She was the one who was dying! She was the one who was calling him! Aidan felt that his whole body was about to explode with rage, with fear, with feelings that he had never experienced before and that, therefore, he was not able to identify at that moment.

With each passing second, that feeling that he was going to die grew... but it was not him who was dying, and yet he felt that if that girl disappeared, he would disappear with her.

She was a lycan, that was obvious from the way the silver affected her. What was inexplicable was the attraction he felt for her, and above all, why she was cursed just like him.

“Could she be another victim of Isrion's lineage?” he thought aloud, but that didn't make sense. If she had been, her father would have protected her instead of locking her up.

She didn't look a day over nineteen or twenty. She was very dirty and her breathing was becoming more and more irregular, as if at any moment she was going to breathe her last breath.

“How long has she been here?” Aidan asked, turning to the guard.

“I don't know... my rotation at the Watchtower started recently and she was already there,” he replied.

“And how long have you been here?!” The Alpha growled in frustration, because nothing annoyed him more than not getting answers.

“A little over forty years ago.”

Forty years! Forty years surrounded by silver! It was a damn miracle she was alive...but unless he got her out of there, she wouldn't be for long.

Aidan mustered all the strength that cell would allow him and lifted her in his arms, shuffling his feet towards the exit. The change was instantaneous, as soon as he crossed the threshold of the door, his body returned to that perfect partial transformation in which his best qualities as a man and as a wolf were fused together; and he felt the strength return to him as he descended each step of the tower before the frightened gaze of the guard.

Walking away from the cell was slowly bringing back each of his senses, his instinct, as if he was detoxing; and it seemed the same thing was happening to her.

Aidan stopped just as he came out of the tower and saw her eyes open with difficulty. They were very dark and opaque, and he saw a small tear roll out of them as her chest rose, trying to get air, as if she had been choking until that moment.

“Hey!” He shook her gently, trying to make her react, but her body was dead weight, and her eyes were only looking at the sky.

A horrible parting sensation spread through the Alpha's chest, a dull and desperate pain that he could not explain. He didn't want her to die, he had no idea who she was, but he was sure he wouldn't bear it if she died.

“Hey... girl...” he had never in his damned life been gentle with a woman, nor a she-wolf, nor anyone!... but with her he couldn't behave any other way.

Her dark eyes were fixed on him, and he saw her lips moving, she was trying to speak, trying to tell him something, so Aidan put his ear to her mouth, and the warmth of her breath made every fiber of his body shiver with pleasure. What the hell was that!

“Rak... Raks…”

It seemed that at any moment she was going to faint again.

“Come on, girl, wake up, come on...”

“Rak... Raksha...” was all she managed to say and her eyes were directed to the forest far beyond the Watchtower.

Aidan looked up, staring at the dark line of trees visible through the main gate, and began to walk towards it. If he could have thought, he would have realized that he wasn’t analizing it, he wasn’t measuring the consequences, he wasn’t even noticing that he was releasing a prisoner of the crown. He was only following his wolf's instinct and it was helplessly driving him to save her.

Out of the silver cell.

Out of the Watchtower.

Out of the prison.

Out of the ancient magic that crowned that damned place.

Aidan was about to reach the main gate when he saw her, pacing desperately from one side of the forest line to the other, less than fifty yards away... that frost-white she-wolf seemed to be waiting for him. For him? Or for her?

“Raksha?” It was only a whisper, but the she-wolf instantly raised her ears in recognition and took a step in his direction.

 He crossed the main gate and the bridge, but the first step he took across the moat... The first step that Alpha Aidan Casthiel, heir to the wolf throne, took on the land of the ancient lineage was to fall to his knees with the girl in his arms.

There were words to describe the sense of helplessness and strength he felt at the same time, but nothing in his more than six hundred and fifty years had prepared the future king for what he was feeling.

Every fiber of his body, every piece of his soul, seemed to grow, to expand, to strengthen. And if he could have looked in the mirror, he would have noticed that the blue of his eyes changed drastically to a bright pale blue. He had never felt more alive, stronger or more powerful... and at the same time so vulnerable.

His body was a perfect mass of muscles ready to kill, the world was too small for him, he was capable of making armies kneel before him... but underneath that scar, his heart trembled for the woman in his arms. It was she who made him feel this way; it was she who completed him.

An absurd premonition struck him. It couldn't be! It was impossible! His human and rational part denied it, he was cursed! But his wolf, that voice he had never heard before, seemed to cry out to him.

Was that girl... his mate?

Was that what it felt like to have a destined mate?

Was that it?

He laid her down on the soft earth and only then did she seem to react. Her body arched, tensed, and her head turned looking for the she-wolf, as if sensing her.

Aidan never thought there was still any strength left in her, but he himself could not move when he saw her make a supreme effort to get up. He saw her walk, staggering at first, as if she were a zombie, while her cheeks filled with tears, and after a few steps she began to run towards the she-wolf.

Never, even if he would’ve had thousands of years to dream, would the Alpha have imagined what he witnessed next. Those two bodies seemed about to collide in the race, and with only a couple of yards to go the girl jumped, turning towards him, and her back collided against the she-wolf's chest, plunging into her, creating a flash of light that blinded the Alpha for a second and the guard standing behind him.

Aidan watched as the she-wolf's body outlined the woman's, slowly dematerializing, merging with her. He could see the girl's fingers moving inside the silhouette of light that was the she-wolf's paws, the animal's massive shape molding and clinging to her body like another skin, one that was definitely changing her.

He didn't know if he was impressed, frightened or ecstatic to witness such a transformation. He had never witnessed a fusion before; he didn't even know it was possible. The force of the change kept the girl's feet inches off the ground, as if she were anything but a material being.

He watched her throw back her head and every millimeter of her skin began to change, from the roots of her hair began to spread a frosty white, every trace of dirt and blood seemed to be expelled from her skin, her eyes turned such a light blue that it almost seemed white, and when at last the she-wolf disappeared, when her spirit and body were lost within the woman, the full force of her essence as a lycan struck Aidan with the certainty of disaster:

She was his destined mate!

The one he thought he would never have!

The one Isrion's lineage had denied him!

His father’s prisoner... was his destined mate!

All the light emanating from that transformation seemed to disappear then, and Aidan watched her fall to the ground as if she could finally rest. He ran to her, making sure she was still breathing. The girl was still weak and unconscious again, but the Alpha's heart seemed at last, after so many centuries, to be at peace.

“The prisoner must be locked up again, now, while she is still out!” said a frightened voice behind him. “King Caerbhall must be informed at once! He must know what happened!”