The Alpha King's Forbidden Bride

Blood and Binding

ZYLIA

The helicopter blades chopped through night air like mechanical vultures. Below us, my territory burned.

Orange flames licked at what used to be the packhouse, and smoke columns twisted toward the stars like desperate prayers.

My chest felt hollow, not from the broken mate bond anymore, but from watching everything I'd ever loved turn to ash.

"There." I pointed toward the safe house hidden in the eastern forest. "That building with the reinforced walls."

Lorcan leaned forward, his shoulder brushing mine. Even through the chaos, my wolf stirred at the contact.

Traitor.

Less than two hours ago, she'd been mourning Dylan. Now she practically purred whenever the Alpha King got within arm's reach.

"How many survivors?" His voice cut through the helicopter's roar.

"Maybe thirty." The number tasted like poison. "We had sixty-eight pack members this morning."

His jaw tightened. "Not anymore."

The pilot's voice crackled through our headsets: "Sir, we've got movement below. Multiple hostiles surrounding the safe house."

Through the window, I counted them.

Twenty-three rogues, maybe more. Massive, scarred, moving with the coordinated precision that meant someone was commanding them.

They circled my people's last refuge like sharks scenting blood.

"Land us fifty yards out," Lorcan ordered. He was already unbuckling his harness, movements sharp and economical.

"Miss Clyde, stay in the helicopter until I give the all-clear."

"Like hell." I grabbed his wrist, and electricity shot up my arm. Both of us froze. "Those are my people down there."

"Those are rogues down there. Trained killers who will gut you before you can shift." He pulled free from my grip, but his eyes lingered on the spot where I'd touched him. "I don't need a dead bride on my wedding night."

The helicopter touched down with a bone-jarring thud. Lorcan was out the door before the blades stopped spinning, moving like liquid death across the clearing.

I'd heard stories about the Alpha King's fighting prowess. Legends, really. Tales of single combat victories that seemed too brutal to be true.

They weren't legends.

The first rogue never saw him coming. Lorcan's claws opened its throat in one fluid motion, black blood spraying across dead leaves.

The others converged, snarling, but he moved between them like he was dancing instead of killing.

A rogue the size of a small car lunged at his back. Lorcan spun, caught it mid-leap, and slammed it into a tree with enough force to c***k the trunk. Bone snapped like kindling.

Another came from his left. He caught its jaws in his bare hands and wrenched them apart with a wet tearing sound that made my stomach lurch.

"Goodness!" I whispered.

The s*******r lasted maybe three minutes. When it was over, twenty-three rogues lay scattered across the forest floor like broken toys, and Lorcan stood in the center of the c*****e without a scratch on him.

He turned toward the helicopter, and for a moment... just a moment, his eyes flashed pure gold. Not human gold. Something older. More primal.

"All clear," he called, voice steady as if he'd just finished a light jog instead of single-handedly massacring an army.

The safe house door opened cautiously. Simone emerged first, followed by the remnants of my pack.

They looked like refugees; hollow-eyed, bloodied, broken. Children clung to their parents' legs, too traumatized to cry.

My heart shattered into smaller pieces.

"Luna Zylia!" Little Danielle, only six years old, broke free from her mother's grip and ran toward me. "You came back! Mama said the bad wolves might have eaten you too."

I caught her in my arms, breathing in her familiar scent of vanilla and pack-bond.

"I'm here, baby. I'm here."

But for how long?

"We need to move quickly." Lorcan's voice cut through the reunion. "More rogues will come. They always travel in waves."

Simone approached cautiously, his Beta instincts warring with submission to a more dominant Alpha. "Your Majesty. We... we're in your debt."

"Yes. You are." Lorcan's smile held no warmth. "Which brings us to business."

The safe house's main room had been converted into a makeshift medical bay.

Wounded pack members lay on cots and sleeping bags, their injuries testifying t to the rogues' brutality. The air reeked of antiseptic and despair.

Ridley; Lorcan’s assistant, materialized from somewhere with a leather briefcase.

"The contract," Lorcan said simply.

My hands shook as I read the terms.

Everything he'd promised was there; the money, the protection, the two-year arrangement but buried in the legal jargon, new clauses jumped out like vipers.

"What's this?" I pointed to paragraph seven. "If the contracted party bears a male heir, the marriage becomes permanent and irrevocable?"

"Insurance." Lorcan's expression didn't change. "Royal bloodlines require protection."

"You didn't mention permanent." I retorted.

"You didn't ask." He answered calmly.

My wolf snarled, but before I could respond, Ridley cleared his throat.

"There's also the fidelity clause, Miss Clyde. Section twelve."

I found it. I read it. I read it again because surely, I was hallucinating.

"If I'm unfaithful, you kill my pack?" The words came out strangled. "Every single one of them?"

"Motivation is important in marriage." Lorcan leaned back in his chair like we were discussing the weather. "I require absolute loyalty."

"This is insane."

"This is business." He gestured toward my injured pack members. "Sign it, or watch them die anyway when the next wave arrives."

Little Danielle tugged on my bloodstained dress. "Luna Zylia? Are you okay? You look sad."

I knelt beside her, smoothing her tangled hair. "Just tired, sweetheart."

But tired didn't cover it. Exhausted, maybe. Hollowed out. Trapped between a monster and the deep blue sea, with thirty lives hanging in the balance.

I signed the contract with Dylan's rejection blood still staining my fingers.

"Excellent." Ridley produced a second set of documents. "Now the marriage certificate."

"Now?" The word came out as a squeak.

"The contract isn't valid until we're legally bound." Lorcan stood, straightening his jacket. "Simone, I assume you can perform the ceremony? As pack Beta, you have the authority."

Simone looked like he'd rather eat glass, but he nodded. "If... if that's what Luna Zylia wants."

What I wanted was to wake up from this nightmare. Instead, a couple of hours later, I found myself standing in front of thirty wounded pack members, about to marry a man I'd met three hours ago.

The ceremony was brief. Brutal in its simplicity.

"Do you, Zylia Clyde, take Lorcan Callahan as your mate and husband?"

My throat closed. Around us, my pack watched with hollow eyes, waiting for salvation wrapped in a marriage contract.

"I do."

"Do you, Lorcan Callahan, take Zylia Clyde as your mate and wife?"

"I do." His voice carried the weight of absolute certainty.

"Then by pack law and Continental authority, I pronounce you husband and wife." Simone's voice cracked. "You may... you may kiss your bride."

Lorcan stepped closer. His hands settled on my waist with surprising gentleness, and my traitorous wolf practically melted.

"Just a formality," he murmured, low enough that only I could hear.

"Right. Formality."

He leaned down. I tilted my face up and our lips met ....

Lightning.

Electric shock exploded through every nerve ending. My wolf howled with recognition, with want, with something that felt suspiciously like completion.

Lorcan jerked back, his golden eyes wide with shock.

"What the hell..." He started.

The safe house door exploded inward.

Dylan stood in the doorway like an avenging angel, his copper hair wild and his eyes blazing with fury.

Behind him, ten pack warriors from the Sable Claw territory.

"You bastard." His voice shook with rage. "You married her. You actually married my..."

"Your rejected mate?" Lorcan's voice could have cut glass. "Your discarded toy? Yes, brother. I did."

"She was mine first!"

"She was never yours." Lorcan moved in front of me, protective instincts flaring. "You made that very clear in front of two hundred witnesses."

Dylan's hands clenched into fists. "I challenge you. Alpha's right of combat. Winner takes the Luna."

"Dylan, no..." I started.

"Accepted." Lorcan's smile turned predatory. "Though I should warn you, little brother. I won't go easy on you just because we share blood."

Dylan shifted.

Not fully, just enough to grow claws, to gain speed and strength. He lunged at Lorcan with a roar of pure fury, aiming for his throat.

And something inside me snapped.

"STOP!"

The command exploded from my chest like a sonic boom. Alpha authority... no, something stronger, something primal and absolute, slammed into both brothers with the force of a freight train.

They froze mid-lunge. Then dropped.

To their knees.

Both of them. Dylan and Lorcan, the two most powerful Alphas in North America, forced into submission by a single word from a rejected, broken Luna.

The safe house fell dead silent. Even the wounded stopped breathing.

Lorcan stared up at me, his golden eyes wide with something that might have been awe. Or terror.

"That's impossible," he whispered. "What the hell.... just happened?”