The alpha's bride

Chapter 17

The next morning, the world didn’t feel the same. I woke tangled in Dastien’s arms, the sheets kicked halfway off the bed, his warmth wrapped around me like armor. For a moment, I let myself believe the night before had been some fever dream—just another one of my visions gone too far. But then I remembered the screams. The way the pack had howled in pain. The shadow I’d seen tearing through the wards. My stomach clenched so hard I thought I’d be sick.

Dastien stirred, his lips brushing the top of my hair. “You’re tense,” he murmured, voice rough with sleep. His accent always deepened in the mornings, and usually it melted me. Today, it scraped against the raw edge of my nerves.

“I saw it again,” I whispered.

His arms tightened. “Tell me.”

I wanted to. God, I wanted to unload all of it. But part of me was terrified. Terrified of what it meant. Terrified that speaking it aloud would make it real. “It wasn’t just an attack,” I said finally. “It wasn’t random. Someone—something—is coming for us. For me.”

Dastien pulled back just enough to look into my face. His amber eyes glowed faintly, the wolf close to the surface. “You’re mine,” he said, like that alone could ward off monsters. “Whoever it is, whatever it is, they’ll have to get through me first.”

The possessiveness in his voice should’ve annoyed me, but instead it steadied me. “I know,” I said softly. “But it’s not just about us. The pack…” My voice broke. “People are going to die if I don’t figure this out.”

A knock rattled the door. “Tessa? Dastien?” It was Michael. He didn’t sound like his usual joking self. “The council wants to see her. Now.”

Dastien cursed under his breath, kissed my forehead, and reluctantly untangled himself from me. “Get dressed. Stay close.”

I pulled on jeans and a hoodie, trying not to shake. The mirror showed a girl with wild hair, dark circles under her eyes, and a haunted expression. “Pull it together,” I muttered to my reflection.

Downstairs, the packhouse buzzed with nervous energy. Wolves moved in and out of rooms, voices low and urgent. The air itself felt charged, like a thunderstorm about to break.

The council sat in the formal room—three elders at the long oak table, their gazes sharp enough to cut glass. My parents were there too, sitting stiffly on one side, while Dastien stood behind me, a solid wall of heat and protection.

“Miss McCaide,” one of the elders, a gray-haired man named Alvarez, began. “We understand you experienced another vision during the attack.”

I swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Tell us exactly what you saw,” another elder pressed.

So I did. I told them about the shadows ripping through the wards, about the cloaked figure whose presence felt colder than death, about the eyes—red, burning, endless—that had locked on me as if I’d been marked.

The silence after I finished was suffocating.

“That matches old prophecies,” Alvarez muttered finally. He glanced at the others. “The Blood Crown.”

My mom flinched like she recognized the name. My dad’s jaw tightened.

“What’s the Blood Crown?” I asked.

But no one answered.

Instead, the third elder—a woman with eyes like steel—leaned forward. “The visions are stronger with you than with anyone we’ve ever recorded. That makes you both a target and a weapon. The question is: can we trust you to control it?”

Dastien growled low in his throat. “She’s mine. You’ll trust her because I do.”

“Careful, boy,” Alvarez snapped. “Bond or not, she’s still untested.”

I wanted to scream. Untested? I’d been dragged from California, turned into a wolf against my will, shoved into a pack I barely understood, and now they wanted to measure me like I was some faulty tool?

Before I could explode, my mom stood. “You can’t expect her to fight your battles.”

Dad rose too, sliding an arm protectively around her. “She’s our daughter. If these prophecies put her in danger, then maybe this isn’t the place for her.”

The air in the room went razor-sharp. Wolves bristled. My heart sank. “Mom, Dad…”

Dastien moved closer, his hand brushing mine under the table. A spark of calm slid through me at his touch.

“I’m not leaving,” I said firmly. My voice didn’t even shake. “If this thing is coming for me, then running won’t save anyone. I need to stay. I need to fight.”

My parents looked like I’d slapped them.

“You don’t understand what you’re saying,” Mom whispered.

“No, I do.” My chest tightened, but I forced the words out. “If I run, it’ll just follow. And more people will die. I’m not letting that happen.”

For a long moment, no one spoke. Then the steel-eyed elder nodded. “She’s right. Like it or not, she’s part of this now.”

Alvarez didn’t look happy, but he didn’t argue.

When the meeting finally broke, my parents left without looking back. The rejection stung worse than claws.

Dastien caught me as soon as we were alone. He held me so tight it almost hurt. “You’re stronger than any of them realize,” he murmured against my hair. “Even your parents.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to sink into his arms and pretend we were just two people in love, not a wolf and a psychic standing on the edge of a war. But the vision kept replaying in my mind. The eyes. The shadows. The sense that I wasn’t just being hunted—I was being claimed.

Later that night, when the pack gathered for patrol, I joined without hesitation. The moon was thin above us, silver light cutting through the trees as we ran. The earth thudded under my paws, the forest alive with scents and sounds sharper than any human could imagine.

For a brief, glorious stretch, I lost myself in the run, in the wild freedom of the wolf. But it didn’t last.

At the edge of the wards, the world went wrong. The air thickened. Shadows pooled unnaturally between the trees. My hackles rose.

Then I saw it. A figure, just beyond the boundary. Cloaked. Still. Waiting.

And those eyes—burning red, fixed on me.

Every instinct screamed at me to run. But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Because in that instant, a voice slid into my mind, low and cold and inescapable.

Bride of the Alpha. Blood of the Seer. You are mine.

My vision blackened.

When I came back to myself, I was on the ground, Dastien crouched over me, fury and terror blazing in his eyes. The pack circled, growling, snapping at the shadows.

But the figure was gone.

And the echo of that voice still pulsed in my skull, like a brand I’d never scrape away.