Chapter 3 His Queen or his prisoner: The Pack's venomous welcome
Aurelia
I walked out of the woods like a condemned queen being paraded to her throne.
Two lines of shifter warriors flanked me, their heads still bowed, with bare chests glistening under the moonlight, the scent of pine and raw power thick in the air.
Every step felt wrong, too loud, too exposed, because the only thing I could feel was him.
Alpha Zhayad stalked three paces behind me, close enough that the heat rolling off his skin licked at my back like invisible flames.
I didn’t need to turn around to know his eyes were locked on me. I felt them dragging over every curve, every shiver, branding me all over again.
My spine prickled; my thighs clenched involuntarily. The memory of his mouth still burned on my lips, rough, punishing, addictive.
And the ache between my legs hadn’t faded one bit.
I hated how my body sang for him. I hated that I wanted to run back into the dark and let him finish what he started against that tree.
The woods opened up, and I froze. A fleet of matte-black SUVs waited in perfect formation, their engines purring low like caged beasts.
They were sleek. Expensive. The kind of vehicles that screamed money, power, and blood.
Headlights cut through the night, bathing everything in cold white, and dozens of pack members, dressed, unlike the warriors, dropped to their knees the instant they saw us.
Silence fell so completely I could hear my own pulse hammering in my ears.
Alpha Zhayad stepped up beside me. The air shifted, grew heavier, and charged. He didn’t touch me, but he didn’t have to; the mate bond snapped tight like a leash around my throat.
My breath hitched. My nipples tightened again beneath the thin, ruined fabric of my dress, and I prayed the shadows hid it.
He leaned in, just enough that his lips brushed the shell of my ear, his voice a dark velvet growl meant only for me.
“Get in the car, little viper. Unless you want me to bend you over the hood right here and show the entire pack how thoroughly their new Luna can scream.”
Heat exploded across my chest, down my belly, pooling hot and liquid between my thighs.
My knees nearly buckled. A whimper lodged in my throat, and I swallowed it down with what was left of my pride.
I lifted my chin, forced my legs to move, and walked toward the closest SUV like I wasn’t trembling with rage and raw, humiliating need.
The back door opened before I reached it. A shifter warrior, tall, scarred, eyes respectfully lowered, stood ready.
I climbed in, the leather cool against my bare, overheated skin. Zhayad followed a heartbeat later, sliding in beside me with predatory grace.
The door slammed shut. The privacy partition rose with a soft hiss.
Suddenly it was just us, sealed inside this dark, luxurious cage.
The car lurched forward. Gravel crunched beneath the tires.
Zhayad didn’t speak. He didn’t have to.
He turned his head slowly, green eyes glowing in the dim light, and looked at me like I was already naked, already spread open and begging beneath him.
The weight of that stare dragged over my throat, my breasts, lower, slowly, deliberate, filthy.
My breath stuttered. I pressed my thighs together, but the movement only made the ache worse.
“You’re shaking,” he murmured in a voice low and dangerous, dripping with satisfaction. “Cold? Or wet?”
I bared my teeth. “Go to hell.”
A dark chuckle rumbled out of him. He reached over, lazy, unhurried, and wrapped one large hand around the front of my throat.
His thumb stroked once over my racing pulse.
“Careful, mate,” he whispered, leaning in until his lips grazed mine, until I could taste the promise of violence and pleasure on his breath.
“Keep talking like that and I’ll have you coming on my tongue before we reach the compound. And I won’t be gentle.”
My core clenched so hard I saw stars.
I was trapped. I was soaked. I was furious.
And goddess help me, I had never wanted anything more in my life.
When the convoy rolled through the towering iron gates of the Onyx Fang compound, my breath caught and refused to come back.
This wasn’t a pack house. This was a kingdom carved out of night and money.
Floodlights bathed everything in sharp silver, turning the sprawling estate into something out of a fever dream.
Three-story buildings of black glass and steel rose up to the sky, their edges glowing with embedded blue light that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Waterfalls spilled from rooftop gardens, cascading down the sides in shimmering sheets that caught the moonlight and threw it back in a thousand fractured pieces.
Luxury cars lined the courtyard in perfect rows: Bugattis, Paganis, custom G-wagons matte-black like the SUVs we rode in, each one gleaming like it had never seen a speck of dust.
The air itself smelled expensive: cold stone, night-blooming jasmine, and underneath it all, the unmistakable bite of power.
Everywhere I looked, wolves moved with lethal grace. Guards in tailored black fatigues, rifles slung low but fingers never far from triggers.
And crowning it all: the Alpha’s residence.
A brutal, beautiful fortress with floor-to-ceiling windows, perched on a cliff that overlooked the entire valley like a predator surveying its territory.
Lights blazed from every level, turning it into a dark jewel set against the sky.
The car rolled to a stop at the foot of marble steps wide enough for twenty people to walk through.
Warriors were already kneeling in perfect formation, two rippling lines that stretched all the way up to massive double doors carved with the Onyx Fang crest: a wolf’s head, one fang black as midnight.
My door opened, and cold air rushed in, kissing the fever still burning under my skin.
Alpha Zhayad stepped out first. The second his boots hit the ground, every head bowed deeper.
The silence was absolute, reverent and terrifying.
Then his hand appeared in front of me, palm up. An order wrapped in civility.
I stared at the long fingers, calloused knuckles, faint scars crossing the back like a map of violence.
That hand had pinned me to a tree, claimed my mouth, promised ruin and rapture in the same breath.
I hated how much I wanted to feel it again.
Swallowing the last scraps of my pride, I slipped my hand into his.
His fingers closed instantly, possessive, crushing. Heat shot up my arm and detonated low in my belly.
He pulled me out of the car in one smooth motion, drawing me against his side like I belonged there.
Like I’d always belonged there.
“Welcome home, little viper,” he said in a voice low enough that only I could hear the dark satisfaction threaded through it.
“Try not to look so terrified. They can smell fear. And right now, you smell like mine.”
His thumb traced the inside of my wrist, right over the frantic thud of my pulse, and every wolf in the courtyard lifted their heads at once.
Hundreds of eyes locked on me. Hungry. Curious. Wary.
He led me to the very entrance of the Alpha's residence, and it was right then that the pack matron appeared like a ghost.
She shot me a disapproving glare and smiled at the Alpha.
“Alpha Zhayad, welcome home.”
“Ravina, please take my mate to the west wing of the quarters. Her needs are to be well taken care of, and I will not hesitate to throw you out if she complains of even the air.”
The matron's smile faltered. I was taken aback by the fact that the Alpha was threatening her in my name.
“Of course, Alpha. I will make sure she lacks nothing.” She said.
She took my hand and pretended to be leading me away gently, but as soon as we were out of the Alpha's sight, she pulled me to a different direction and shoved me against the wall.
“You filthy little nothing,” she hissed, twisting my arm.
The hatred in her eyes nearly shredded me to pieces.
“What black magic did you use in bewitching the Alpha? You, I don't know who and what you are? I will expose you, witch. I will tear down your secrets and feed them to the Alpha. You will never be our Luna, not on my watch.” She snarled, leaning in until I could smell the bitterness rolling off her tongue.
Fear gripped me, because I was terrified. Did she know who I was? What I was?
“You're a nobody, Aurelia. You're unfit for this pack. You don't belong in the Onyx Fang pack, and I will not blink until I kick you out.” Her smile was thin as she spoke, and real icy fear slid down my spine.
“I will expose you and make sure that you are sent to the pyre to burn.” She said finally, venom dripping from every word.
Fuck. She knew. She knew I was a witch.
