Trial by Submission.
1071 Words
ZARIA.
Red Hollow doesn’t just smell like blood.
It tastes like it.
Iron and ash on the tongue, centuries of wolves tearing each other apart for the right to rule.
The arena isn’t a monument. It’s a graveyard with better lighting. The bones have been swept away but I feel them under my boots, screaming.
I don’t flinch.
I don’t pray.
I arrive.
Leather clings to my skin like armor, fury and power perfuming the air where my scent once marked me cursed. Now it marks me Queen.
Crowds pack the cliffs above the pit, thousands of eyes glinting like coins, claws scraping stone, breath fogging in the cold. Shifters of every rank, rogue and royal alike. They came for a trial.
They’ll leave having witnessed a reckoning.
Levi walks behind me. Not beside. Not ahead.
Behind.
Not because he’s beneath me. But because he trusts me to lead.
There’s a difference.
A dangerous one.
Jasper is already waiting in the center of the ring, stripped to the waist, tattoos glowing with the old magic of the Alpha Kings. Gold eyes locked on mine. Unapologetic. Unafraid. Hungry.
“You came,” he says.
“You challenged me,” I shrug. “I don’t back down from men who can’t even win a fair fight.”
He smirks. “Nothing about us was ever fair, Zaria.”
“No,” I agree. “That’s why you lost me.”
The crowd hushes. Every wolf tuned into the tension like it’s oxygen.
The Arbiter shuffles forward. Old, pale, dripping with sanctity no one believes in. His staff hums with the moon’s power.
“By ancient law, we gather under the full moon to witness the Trial by Submission,” he intones. “Two wolves enter the arena. One will rise. One will bow. And the pack shall accept the will of the bond.”
He looks to Jasper. “Do you challenge?”
“I command,” Jasper answers, his voice booming.
The Arbiter looks to me. “Do you accept?”
I smile slow. “I dare.”
He raises his hand. “Then let the trial—”
“I’m not finished,” I cut in.
Gasps ripple like water. Claws scrape rock. Magic crackles in the air.
Jasper tenses. “Zaria…”
“I accept this trial,” I say, stepping closer, voice a blade. “But I will not be claimed. No mate bond. No marking. No chains wrapped in ceremony.”
The Arbiter blinks. “That is… not how the trial works.”
I close the distance until my breath fogs his face. My growl vibrates the stones beneath us.
“Then rewrite the f***ing rules.”
The arena explodes. Howls, screams, fury, but no one moves to stop me. Because they can’t. Because they won’t. Because deep down every wolf here knows:
I’m not the Omega they cast out anymore.
I’m the storm they unleashed.
JASPER
She’s magnificent.
And I hate her for it.
She moves like fire—beautiful, chaotic, consuming. Every word a blade. Every glance a challenge. And gods help me…
I still want her.
Not weaker. Not smaller.
Mine.
Completely. Utterly. Irrevocably.
When the signal drops, I don’t hesitate.
I lunge.
She dodges. Of course she does.
She’s always been faster. Always been smarter.
But I’m not here to win by force.
I’m here to prove something much more terrifying:
That I’m still the only one who can match her madness beat for beat.
We circle like predators too arrogant to admit we’re prey. Her claws flash. Mine meet hers mid-air. Sparks fly—real ones, from the tether we still pretend doesn’t exist.
“You never could fight me without wanting to f*** me,” she snarls.
“Because war looks good on you,” I snarl back.
She drives a kick into my ribs. I grunt, laugh, spit blood.
Gods, I missed this.
ZARIA
His strength isn’t the problem.
It’s the way he remembers.
Every step I take, he anticipates. Every blow, he absorbs like a language only we speak.
I land a punch to his jaw. He takes it.
Then his hand closes around my throat. Not tight. Not cruel.
Claiming.
I slap it away, spin, s***h claws across his chest. His blood hits the air like thunder. The crowd howls. The old magic trembles.
I don’t hear them.
I hear the pulse between us.
The heat never extinguished, just banked. Waiting.
He grabs my waist. I throw him over my shoulder. We hit the ground in a tangle of limbs and past sins. He pins me. I flip him. He grins. I snarl. My teeth find his shoulder—not to mark. To warn.
“I’ll never belong to you,” I hiss.
His breath is ragged. “Then let me belong to you.”
I freeze. Not from fear. From shock.
Because Jasper—the Alpha King—on his back beneath an unmated Omega, is looking at me like I’m the last wild thing in a world of cages.
The tether howls between us.
He bares his throat.
Submits.
Before the Arbiter can speak. Before the crowd can process. Before even Levi can react.
I rise.
Covered in sweat. Blood. Glory.
I don’t gloat.
I command.
I lift my voice to the masses and roar:
“Your King has bowed. Now you will rise… under me!”
The arena detonates. Not in dissent. In worship.
LEVI
I watch Jasper break.
It isn’t weakness.
It’s something more dangerous.
Clarity.
Because surrendering to her isn’t a loss.
It’s strategy.
He bowed so he could stay close.
I knew it.
She knew it.
But the rest? They saw an Omega bring a King to his knees and crown herself in his place. And they would follow her anywhere.
Even into the dark.
Even if it meant dying.
And me?
I’d already died a hundred times for her.
Now I was ready to kill.
Because the arena didn’t end a war.
It started a reign.
ZARIA
Later, at the cliff’s edge, cloak snapping, wind screaming, the world below kneeling—
Two monsters stand beside me like a prophecy:
Jasper at my right. Bloody. Bowed. Still dangerous.
Levi at my left. Watchful. Silent. Lethal.
I don’t choose.
I lead.
Because for the first time in history…
An Omega doesn’t serve a pack.
She rules it.
And gods help anyone who forgets that.
- Writer
