THE WOLF KING'S STOLEN BRIDE

Raina was halfway down Church Lane when glass split the night. A shop window cracked, and tiny stars scattered across wet pavement. She didn’t turn. People who look back get caught.

The street smelled of rain and frying oil. Neon from the takeaway threw a rotten pink across the bricks. Raina kept her hood low, fingers worrying her scarf. The crescent on her shoulder itched under the cloth—a weak throb she’d learned to ignore. Grandma called it a curse. Tonight, it pulsed like a small alarm.

A woman screamed. It was sharp and real, making Raina’s stomach flip. She hurried, because hurrying is safer than thinking. Two men dragged someone between them; one was already face down in a pool of darkness. The other barked at the crowd. People stepped back like they’d seen a ghost.

Then a voice cut through the chaos. “Leave her be.”

It was low and rough, and men glanced over their shoulders without meaning to. A tall man stepped into the lane like someone who belongs in shadow. He was all black coat and straight movement; your eyes slid down him, and he held them. Amber eyes caught the neon and kept it. They flicked to Raina, and something hot flickered under her scarf.

A man shoved a woman to the ground. The tall stranger closed the space between them without hurry; a hand on a throat, a soft snap, and the thug hit brick. He moved like a blade. The saved girl stumbled but looked at Raina with wet, frightened eyes. “Get inside,” he told her, quietly. “Now.”

Raina’s knees nearly buckled. She should have run. She should have turned and melted into the crowd. Instead, she stood where she was, glued by the way the stranger watched her like a man who knew the geography of fear.

He spoke again, and the words hit harder than they should have. “You. Don’t be frightened.”

Something in the line was both a command and a claim. Raina’s mouth went dry. Men pushed out of the shadows again, masks up, knives glinting. The air smelled like blood and diesel.

The tall man moved. He closed the distance with a speed that made the attackers drop like cut ropes. They fell quickly and clean; nobody ran to help. Raina’s scarf slipped from her shoulder, and moonlight kissed the bandage. The mark flared—a bright, painful flare she felt through the cloth. One of the attackers looked up with a slack, frightened face. “That’s her,” he croaked.

That word made tiny things inside Raina click into place. She tried to step back, then a heavy hand caught her elbow. The tall stranger gripped it like he was lifting something precious and dangerous. Up close, she saw a pale scar across his throat and smelled cigars and rain. His voice was both bored and dangerous when he told the man on the ground, “You hurt me. No one else touches her.”

A knife flashed. The stranger moved with the quiet