Mated To The Enemy Alpha

Diremanes

DRAVEN'S POV

The meeting with my pack council had gone well. The plans for fortifying the borders against Volkava and his beasts were finally in motion.

I felt almost…satisfied. It was a rare feeling. Karl even said I looked pleased and I drank the second glass of wine.

“I suppose I am.” I said walking out of the hall.

“I couldn't find Zuri at the meeting.” Karl said.

“Ahh….Yes. I asked her to serve the Thornshade...her first punishment. I know she's been dying too.”

Karl laughed and I chuckled. I told her nothing severe, just something to scare her especially after she came to me last night—a detail I confidently left out. I don't want her growing too comfortable under my roof.

I mindlink Zuri. “Come meet me.”

“Yes, Alpha.” She replies. As Zuri appears I dismiss Karl.

Earlier, when I had tasked her with this, Zuri was all smiles, promising she’d “teach the little healer her place.”

So when I asked her what punishment she gave—I didn't expect what she said next—

“I asked her to feed the Diremanes.”

I completely froze.

For a second, I wasn't sure I’d heard right—

“You what?!”

I didn’t wait for her reply. My feet moved, storming heavily down the corridor and through the northern gate to where the Diremane pens lay.

My blood had turned to ice. The Diremanes weren’t trained for mercy. They were wild breeds trained to kill.

I hate Thornshade but I gave my word I wouldn't kill her.

As I got close to the pen, the familiar smell of my Diremanes was in the air but I smelt something else—but I couldn't place my fingers on it. Images of her being shredded apart from limb to limb came to my mind.

How could Zuri do this?

By the time I reached the pens, I stopped dead in my tracks…

The scene I was expecting wasn't what was in front of me.

These massive creatures bred for war, for killing were lying around Elara like tamed beasts. She sat in the center of them, her hand buried in the thick silver mane of the largest one, stroking its ear as it let out a low, content rumble.

Impossible.

My Diremanes were trained to heed just my orders or blood of royalty. I've trained with them ever since I was a pup, so I'm in utter shock to see all four of them laying around her, not devouring her, not ripping her apart—they were just watching her, their tails low, heads bowed.

I noticed she clutched her left side, blood was dripping. It was a cut. It had to the Diremanes. Their eyes flickered to me as they sensed my presence. They backed away from her, their tails brushing the ground.

She raises her head and looks at me, her face pale but a small smile crossing her face faintly as she stands up. Pointing to the cut, she said with a trembling voice, “They weren’t exactly friendly at first but I —I think they like me now.”

Then she swayed. I caught her before she could fall. Although I was relieved, she was lighter than I had expected, but fragile, and somehow she felt right in my arms. Too right.

Something primal awoke inside me when I saw her in the midst of the Diremanes— bleeding but alive. I carried her without thought and she didn't resist or fight me. She nozzles her face in my neck and her scent hits me—lavender, honey, and something uniquely hers.

My pulse kicked hard and my body reacted.

When I got to my quarters Zuri was waiting there. Her face changed—shock, anger, disbelief. She scoffs. “You brought her here?”

I entered and gently laid her on the couch. “She’s injured.”

“Well she deserves it!” she snapped. I could feel the anger oozing from her. “You said she needed to learn. So I taught her a better lesson.”

“She could've died.” My voice, dangerously cold.

“That’s the whole idea. The Diremanes should've ripped her apart at first glance!” she yells.

I saw red. I turned sharply and she flinched back.

Elara stirs.

“Leave.”

“Draven—”

I took a step forward. My voice dropped to a growl.

“Out. Zuri.”

The mood I was in told her I wasn't joking. She knew to obey. She left without another word, slamming the door hard.

I turned to Elara whose breathing had become slow, and steady. She’d been trying to heal herself.

I crouch beside her, ripping open the left side of her cloth.

She hissed softly, I whispered, “Hold still.”

My fingers brushed her warm smooth skin–and the scent that rose from her made my pulse falter. I was hard as a rock. My body shouldn't respond this way.

I focused on cleaning the cut but every contact, every touch—burned me. The cut wasn't that deep and she'd healed most of it. But the longer I took in dressing her wound, the harder it became to ignore the way her skin felt beneath my touch.

She was warm and soft. I couldn't tell if it were my hands trembling or her trembling under my fingertips.

My wolf began growing restless. Her pulse fluttered beneath my hand, and I began to sweat. She was affecting me in a way that shouldn't be.

This was wrong. I shouldn't feel this way. She was my enemy, a rejected mate—my mistake.

Get a grip, Draven.

I hurried up to clean the wound so I could take her back to the room to rest there. When I leaned in closer to check the wound, she opened her eyes—those impossible green eyes, the rarest of eyes I've ever seen.

And I just froze.

“You shouldn't care.” She whispers weakly.

“I don't.” I say but I don't break eye contact. I couldn't. Her eyes seem to draw me in.

She tries to move her head, “I'm fine. They didn't cut me deep. Just…a…graze.” She said as her eyes moved to my lips then back to my eyes.

I could feel the bond I'd broken…flaring. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Her lips parted and my eyes fell to them, she whispered, “You’re…too close.”

I opened my mouth to speak and I could barely recognize my own voice. I sounded like I was out of breath. “Maybe you should put some distance between us.”

She didn’t. Rather, she slowly licked her lips.

And that was my undoing.

Every ounce of restraint, every wall I’d built—shattered.

I didn’t think. I just moved.

My hand grabbed her face, and I kissed her.

Hard. Desperate.

Her lips tasted like something I’d been denied—soft, sweet, intoxicating and it's enough to make me ache with need.

And then— when she kissed me back, something deep inside me snapped. I couldn’t tell where her heartbeat ended and mine began.

And for the first time in forever—I didn't understand this aching feeling but I didn’t want to break free.