Blood Oath of the Alpha

Serena POV

The ropes had carved bloody welts into my wrists so deep I couldn’t tell anymore if the trails running down my arms were sweat or blood. With every tug of the guards’ knotted fists, the world went white behind my eyelids, a shock of fire up my shoulders jerking me forward like a wolf at the kill. Stone under my bare feet cut cold enough to bite. I held on to that, to the ache and the cold, because to let go was to give in to the panic clawing at my ribs.

Noise met me before I met the sight of it, a roar of voices gathering at the end of the hall. Snarls. Growls. An occasional bark of laughter, sharp and snide. The closer we came, the more the noise grew until the very walls seemed to pulse with it. Wolves waited. Not a few, not a pack. The whole damn damnation.

The heavy doors at the end of the hall groaned on their hinges and the inside of the great hall slammed against us as if the noise were physical. Heat rolled out first, the braziers searing hot enough to be humid with smoke and the smell of musk and fur. Then the stink of the wolves themselves filled the air, rank sweat and wet leather and iron and blood. I reeled back against it but I willed my chin up.

The great hall was wide and tall, the walls carved with ancient runes, the deep grooves blackened with centuries of soot. Braziers lined the length of the long, empty room, flames high and hungry, swallowing the room in shadows and color. Dozens of them, maybe more. Bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder, wolf eyes gleaming in the firelight, yellow and gold and brighter still on white teeth bared in snarls and hungry grins. They leaned forward as the guards shoved me through the doors, craning necks to watch me stumble.

I gave them no satisfaction. I braced my knees against the shove, only dropping as the ropes tightened and pulled me hard to my knees. My knees cracked sharply against the stone, pain ripping hot through my bones, but I swallowed the sound in my throat.

And then I saw him.

Luca.

Alpha of the Black Oath Pack.

He sat on a throne at the far end of the hall; blackened wood carved with wolf skulls bleached white by soot and time. The firelight painted the thick scars along his jaw in harsh lines, his pale eyes catching and throwing back the light, white as shards of ice. He didn’t look up as they shoved me, but the weight of his stare pinned me more than the ropes ever could.

The noise of the pack died the moment he rose.

“You thought you could run, Valente,” his voice rolled easily, without effort, deep enough to scrape down my spine. “Did you think your blood could hide you?”

The name was a blade thrown across the chamber. Valente. The name of my blood, my curse.

The ripples of whispers came immediately, wolves muttering to each other with reverence, disgust.

I forced my chin up, though the rope burned my arms. “Better to bleed out in the dirt than rot on your leash.”

Growls of the pack rose as one, a single, violent sound, but not one of them moved. Every pair of wolf eyes flicked back to him. Always to him.

Luca’s mouth curved, not in amusement, not even in anger. Hunger. “Defiance,” he said, stepping down the steps of the throne. “Good. It makes the breaking worth the effort.”

He walked slowly and deliberately, heel of each boot clicking on the stone in time to my pulse.

The guards shoved me back to my feet, holding me steady as he circled. He raked his gaze over me from head to toe, a predator sussing out where to sink his teeth first.

He stopped behind me and I felt his shadow fall over mine. Hooked one finger through the rope at my wrists and yanked, pulling until my spine bowed. Hot breath ghosted over the shell of my ear.

“Valente blood,” he murmured. But every wolf in the chamber leaned forward to hear.

“Prophecy. A womb meant to breed power. A queen’s womb.”

The hall exploded with sound. Howls. Shouts. Laughter, thin and brittle as glass. Their hunger was a living thing in the room, making the stones under my knees thrum.

“Not my womb,” I spat, bile burning up my throat.

The rope cut deeper as he pulled. “Every part of you is mine.”

He shoved me forward, palms sliding across rough stone, their laughter reaching a higher, more cutting pitch.

Luca straightened and turned to face the wolves. “By the next moon,” he said, his voice deep and easy, promising pain and death in such a way it was sure to draw blood. “She will carry my mark. And my heir.”

The chamber thundered with their response. Howls. Snarls. The sound of a hundred jaws snapping shut in the firelight until I was deaf with the vibrations of their call.

My gaze snapped to the brazier at the side of the throne. The iron brand lay in its center, red and molten, smoke curling out in sickly streams that stank of burned metal. My stomach rolled and bucked in my gut.

Inside me, my wolf awoke. For the first time in years, she shifted in her cage with unease, white eyes flashing with rage, furious at the pain, furious at my weakness. But she did not surface. She is not strong enough to claw her way free.

Luca crouched before me. His shadow devoured the light, face mere inches from mine. Scars caught the firelight, jagged against pale skin like lightning on a stormy sky. He brushed his lips along my ear, speaking low enough for only me to hear.

“By fire,” he whispered. “By blood. By me.”

He rose and turned, reaching into the brazier.

The small hiss of metal filled the silence as he lifted the brand.