The Alpha Who Couldn’t Reject Me

The Last Vale

The figure emerged into the moonlight.

Liana’s breath hitched.

A hood concealed most of the stranger’s face, but her mother's voice, it was unmistakably her mother's, clear and steady and laced with certainty despite the age and the cold tone it carried, came floating toward her.

Old.

Cold.

Certain.

"You're the last Vale."

Kael lunged before Liana could even process what was happening.

He shielded her body with his, turning himself into an obstacle between herself and the intruder. His wolf seethed below her skin.

"Show me your face."

The voice chuckled dryly.

"You still give orders like everyone lives in fear of your might, Alpha Draven."

Kael’s jaw set with tension. "Who are you?"

Instead of answering, she held up one hand. A sliver of silver, sharp and honed, gleamed between her fingers.

Liana automatically reached down and drew the knife at her thigh.

The intruder c****d her head, a flicker of amusement in her hidden eyes. "Good."

Kael threw a look back over his shoulder at her, but his focus stayed in front of them. "Liana, stay behind me."

Her lip curled in defiance. "I am not hiding behind you."

"Liana, now is not the time to argue."

"It is always the time to argue when you expect me to take your orders like a dog."

For one, fleeting moment, something akin to amusement flickered in the depths of his silver eyes. It was gone the instant before the stranger threw the blade directly at Kael.

Kael caught it. As his fingers closed around the hilt, though, his face went slack, and he recoiled. Blood trickled from his palm where the metal had met his flesh.

His skin hissed.

He dropped the weapon.

Liana stared. "Silver?"

"No." His eyes did not leave the blade. "Something older."

The stranger took a step back. "You should not have brought her here."

Kael's voice dropped to a lethal low. "You knew that we were coming."

"I knew the Vale blood would call to the rest. That it would eventually find its way back to here."

Liana pushed past Kael, moving towards the stranger. "Where is my mother?"

There was silence. The stranger tilted her head slowly, her eyes never leaving Liana. "She is alive."

Liana’s heart gave a painful thump in her chest, a beat of disbelief. "You're lying."

"Am I?"

"Then tell me where she is!"

The stranger gave a chilling smile, hidden beneath her hood. "Ask your Alpha."

Liana whipped her head around to Kael. His face was like stone. "What does she mean?"

Kael remained utterly still, unwavering, unblinking. "I do not know where your mother is."

"Then why would she tell me to ask you?"

"Because she wants you to doubt me, Liana."

"Perhaps I should."

His silver eyes darkened with something unreadable.

Before either of them could say another word, a mournful howl, then another, and another sliced through the tunnels. Kael’s head snapped toward the opening, his silver eyes narrowing.

"We're surrounded."

Liana's stomach plummeted. But the stranger was already melting back into the oppressive darkness.

"Wait!"

Liana surged forward in pursuit. Kael caught her arm, his hand clamping tightly around her wrist. "Don't."

She spun around. "Let go of me!"

"Liana-"

"I need answers, Kael!"

"And that person out there wants you dead, which I strongly advise against."

She ripped her arm from his grasp. "Then help me find out why!"

Heavy, pounding footsteps thundered through the tunnel, closing in rapidly. Kael's expression hardened. "They're here."

Three wolves burst into the chamber, their eyes glowing with an unnatural, burning red. Not wild wolves; even a pack's rogues lacked such fierce, untamed fury. Black iron collars circled their necks, etched with the exact same symbol from the old contract Liana had recognized. Her blood ran cold.

"The symbol..."

Kael moved to her side, his presence a warm weight against her shoulder. "Stay close."

"I can fight."

"I know," Kael answered, his eyes meeting hers. "Which is why I am telling you to stay close, and not to stand behind me."

Before she could respond, the first of the beasts launched itself. Kael threw himself forward and shifted, bone and muscle rippling into place, muscles bulging beneath sleek, ebony fur. In an instant, his colossal wolf stood where he had been, silver eyes blazing, and met the attacker head-on with a primal roar. Liana drew her knife.

A second creature hurtled toward her. Ducking under its snapping jaws, she drove the blade deep into its shoulder. It let out a sharp howl of pain and reeled back, but instead of blood, dark, foul-smelling smoke seeped from the wound.

Liana froze.

"What are you?"

The creature snarled, black veins appearing and rapidly spreading across its skin. Kael's wolf, on the other side of the chamber, slammed the third attacker against the stone wall and pinned it. Its movements went still.

Silence returned. Liana looked down at the sprawled bodies. "They weren't rogues."

Kael shifted back to his human form, panting heavily. "No." He approached one of the corpses and knelt, pulling the black collar from around its neck. "There are no pack markings."

Liana stepped forward, taking the collar into her own hands. "Who sent them?"

Kael's grip on the collar tightened. " I do not know."

A soft, metallic rustle sounded from beneath the wolf's body. Liana crouched down beside it, her fingers brushing against something tucked between its fur. Kael reached under and pulled out a folded piece of black cloth, from which something small had been sewn. It was a silver crescent, and beneath it, in stark, black thread, were two words.

VALE HEIR

Liana’s heart leaped into her throat. "They knew who I was."

Kael's expression was grave. " Yes."

"Before tonight?"

"Apparently so." Her eyes met his. "How long have they been watching me?"

Kael did not answer, but suspicion flared within her, hot and insistent. "You knew."

" I had suspicions."

"That isn't an answer!"

"I found records of your family before we entered the tunnels."

"You didn't tell me."

"I did not know if they were real."

"And now?"

He looked at the dead creatures. "Now I know you have been hunted."

Liana crossed her arms. "Why?"

Kael’s gaze drifted back to the entrance where the stranger had vanished into the dark. "Because of whatever your mother was hiding..." His silver eyes met hers again. "...and you are the key."

An unnatural cold began to seep into Liana's bones, and a faint metallic heat radiated from her wrist. She gasped. Kael saw it instantly. "Liana?"

She peeled back her sleeve, revealing the crescent mark on her skin. It no longer gleamed silver. Instead, it glowed a fierce, deep crimson.

Kael stared.

For the first time since they had met, raw, palpable fear flashed in his eyes.

"What?"

He lunged toward her.

"Do not touch it!"

Liana tilted her head, confused. "Why not?"

"Because I have seen that mark before."

Her heart stopped. "Where?"

Kael's eyes were fixed on the throbbing crescent. "In my father's records."

Her voice was a whisper, almost nonexistent. "What did they say?"

Kael hesitated for a long moment. Then he spoke the words that shattered her world. "They called it the First Blood mark."

The silence in the tunnels seemed to press in on her, colder, heavier, more suffocating than before. "What does that mean?"

Kael raised his eyes to meet hers. " It means that your family was not destroyed because it was dangerous. They were destroyed because someone was terrified of what you would become."

A distant, desolate howl drifted down the tunnels. Then another, closer this time. His wolf stirred restlessly beneath Kael’s skin, and he pulled Liana closer. " We need to go."

Liana turned her gaze to the black cloth in his hand and then picked up the silver blade the stranger had thrown. Her fingers closed around the hilt, the cool metal fitting her grasp perfectly. " If someone has been hunting me for this long..."

Her eyes flashed.

" I am done running."

Kael looked at her, and deep within him, his wolf gave a guttural sound – not a warning this time, but a sound of recognition, for the frightened girl his pack had exiled had become something far, far more dangerous. And whatever was hunting the last Vale would have to do so through them both.