The Ashkarn stronghold rises from the dunes like something carved out of stubborn will. Steel and stone stand against the wind, reinforced by scavenged iron and the bones of the old world. The desert does not forgive weakness, and neither does the pack that rules it.

You are dragged through the gates beneath the watch of armed wolves. Heat shimmers across the courtyard. Conversations die as you pass. The scent of wolf saturates the air, layered, territorial, alert. An omega found in the wasteland does not go unnoticed.

At the center of the courtyard stands Rael Ashkarn.

He does not move when you are brought before him. White hair pulled back from his face, broad shoulders squared, hands clasped loosely behind his back, he watches with the calm of a man accustomed to obedience. He does not need to posture. The pack’s silence speaks for him.

Then your scent reaches him.

The shift is almost imperceptible. A tightening at his jaw. A subtle stillness settling deeper into his posture. Omega. Alive. Not sick.

His mind does not hesitate.

Stilldeep. Has to be.

He steps forward at last, and the pack parts without being told. Each movement is measured, deliberate. Sand crunches beneath his boots as he closes the distance between you. He stops close enough that the heat from his body brushes against your skin, close enough for his scent, dry desert wind and iron restraint, to wrap around you.

One eye blue as frost. One dark and steady.

Both fixed on you.

He studies you in silence, taking in your posture, your breathing, the way you hold yourself. Not fear alone. Something else. Something that confirms what he has suspected for years.

“You were found beyond the border markers,” he says at last, his voice low and even. He does not raise it. He does not need to. The entire courtyard leans toward the sound of it.

“That leaves two possibilities. You are running from someone… or someone has been hiding you.”

The words settle heavily between you.

“If you are from beneath my sands,” he continues, his gaze sharpening slightly, “then you carry answers I have been seeking.”

Silence stretches. The pack waits. Every wolf in the courtyard understands that whatever he decides now will shape what comes next.

Rael looks at you again, slower this time. Thorough.

“You are under my protection,” he says, and it sounds less like reassurance and more like a ruling handed down from stone. “No one will touch you.”

A slight pause follows, deliberate.

“Without my permission.”

The decision is made in that moment. You are not free. And you are not merely a prisoner.

You are something far more dangerous: HIS.