The Alpha's Biggest Mistake: Claiming the Hidden Heiress

Chapter 4- Dark Grounds

The midday heat of the training grounds was nothing compared to the warmth radiating from Silas’s chest. The rest of the warriors had been dismissed, leaving only the two of us in the center of the dusty ring. The smell of turned earth, sweat, and his overwhelming Alpha musk hung thick in the air, wrapping around me like an invisible cage.

"Your stance is completely wrong," Silas growled, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that sent a sudden, traitorous shiver straight down my spine.

He didn't just tell me how to fix it; he moved behind me to do it himself.

His large, calloused hands gripped my waist, his fingers digging into my skin through the thin fabric of my shirt with a bruising, heavy pressure. He pulled me back against him until there wasn't a single breath of space left between us. I gasped, my back arching into his hard, knotted chest. He felt like granite massive, unyielding, and dangerously hot.

"Keep your core tight," he muttered, his breath brushing against the raw, pulsing mark on my neck. He leaned down, his lips almost grazing the jagged edge of the brand he had given me. "You’re soft, Elena. If a rogue gets their hands on you like this, they’ll break you in half."

"Then let go," I managed to squeeze out, though my voice sounded thick, my heart hammering against my ribs from a sudden, dizzying rush of heat.

"Never," he whispered, his grip tightening until I was flushed completely against the rigid evidence of his arousal. He slid one hand slowly up from my hip, his palm tracing the curve of my ribs until his fingers rested right beneath the frantic thud of my heart. "You’re mine to break. Remember?"

He turned me in his arms with a sudden, beastly force, pinning my back against the heavy wooden training post behind us. He loomed over me, a mountain of raw muscle and predatory intent, his eyes swirling with that terrifying, molten gold. He reached up, his thumb catching my lower lip and pulling it down, his gaze fixed on my mouth with a hunger that felt less like a lesson and more like a threat.

"You look at me like you hate me," he rasped, his face inches from mine, his canine teeth catching the sunlight as they began to elongate. "But your pulse is racing, Elena. Your skin is burning everywhere I touch you."

He lowered his head, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin right beneath my jaw, a sharp, possessive nip that made my knees go weak. I clutched at his broad shoulders, my fingers digging into his skin just to keep from sliding into the dirt. The sheer, crushing power of him was suffocating, wrapping around me until I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't remember that I was supposed to be his enemy.

But deep inside, beneath the chaotic fire he was waking up in my body, the Blackwood blood hummed a dark, silent warning.

Silas thought he was pinning down a stray to teach her submission. He didn't realize that every time he touched me, he was fueling a fire that would eventually consume him whole.

"Say my name," he commanded, his lips pressing a hot, bruising kiss against my throat, right over the mark. "Tell me who owns you."

"Silas..." I choked out, my eyes fluttering shut as the beastly weight of him pressed harder against me, sealing his own fate with every breathless word.

The wooden post creaked behind me, splintering slightly against my spine under the sheer, brutal momentum of his body. Silas didn't back off. If anything, the sound of my shallow, desperate gasps only made him press harder, his chest flattening my breasts until every breath felt like inhaling pure fire.

"You're too quiet, Elena," he growled, his voice thick, his jaw scraping against the sensitive skin of my collarbone. His hands left my waist, sliding up under the hem of my grimy sweater. His palms were rough, calloused from years of gripping sword hilts and tearing throat-flesh, and the contrast of his cold hands against my burning skin made me shudder violently. "A good little mate screams when her Alpha marks his territory."

"I am not... your mate," I bit out, my fingers digging blindly into the thick muscles of his upper arms. I tried to push, tried to find an inch of space, but it was like trying to shift a mountain with my bare hands. "You said it yourself in front of everyone. I’m just the trash."

Silas let out a low, dangerous soundhalfway between a laugh and a snarl. He caught both of my wrists in one of his massive hands, slamming them against the wood above my head. His grip was a steel cuff, bruising and absolute.

"Then let me taste the dirt, Elena," he whispered, his eyes flashing a blinding, predatory gold that looked almost demonic in the midday light.

He didn't wait. He dropped his head and bit me.

It wasn't the mating mark he’d already ripped that into my skin the night before. This was a punishment. His sharp canines pierced the flesh right at the junction of my neck and shoulder, a sudden, sharp burst of pain that instantly melted into an overwhelming, dizzying wave of heat. I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat, raw and broken, as my back arched off the post.

He drank the single drop of blood that welled up, his tongue hot and wet against the wound, soothing the sting until my entire body felt loose, heavy, and completely at his mercy. He shifted his weight, his thigh forcing its way between my legs, pinning me open beneath him while his free hand reached down, tearing the flimsy material of my leggings with a sharp rip that echoed through the empty dirt ring.

"Look at me," he commanded, his breath panting against my lips, his scent completely clouding my mind. "Look at what the trash does for her King."

I forced my eyes open, my vision swimming with tears of pain and a shameful, desperate lust. I looked into his golden eyes, seeing the raw, unhinged beast that everyone in the Northern Territories feared. He thought he was breaking me. He thought this brute, primal display was sealing my submission forever.

But as my blood dripped onto his collarbone, the ancient Blackwood ember inside my chest didn't just hum it roared. The silver lines beneath my skin flared behind my eyelids, a silent promise of the bloodbath that was coming for him.

"Silas..." I gasped, my fingers twitching against the wood as he pulled me flush against his rigid length, ready to take everything I had left in the dirt. "You... will regret this."

"Let me," he growled, slamming his mouth back onto mine, suffocating my warnings with a kiss that tasted of my own copper blood and his dark, ruinous desire.