Suprema: The Twin Alphas' Forsaken Queen

Blackthorn Pack, Elara The miasma had reached Rick's heart by the time they dragged him through my door. I knew because I could smell it. Sweet, wrong, like fruit rotting in summer heat. The grey veins climbed his neck, seeking the pulse beneath his jaw. He had three minutes. Maybe four. "Hold pressure," I told the soldiers, not looking up from my mortar. "Harder than you want to." They didn't move. Blackthorn Pack born wolves, trained to command rogues, not take orders. I crossed to the table in two steps. Rick's skin was clammy, too pale, the grey moving visibly now. I reached for the dark vial on my shelf for the Witch Bloom petals extract, my grandmother's remedy, the kind of "sorcery" that had kept me in silver-dust servitude for three years. The door slammed open. "You dare." Madame Thorne's voice cut through the room's stink of blood and herbs. She swept in, lavender and ice, her obsidian eyes finding the vial in my hand. "That is Witch-blood. Forbidden Dark Arts isn't practiced here." "Standard protocol drains him empty before it clears the poison," I said, my voice steady despite the adrenaline. "Witch-bloom binds the miasma, carries it out through the lymph. He keeps his blood. He keeps his life." She didn't answer. She crossed the distance in three strides, her hand cracking across my face with practiced force. My head snapped sideways, the vial slipping from my fingers, rolling harmless across the stone. "Superstition dressed as medicine," she hissed. "You pollute my pack with rogue taint, then claim salvation?" I tasted blood, but said nothing. Silence had rules. Noise had consequences. Madame Thorne turned to the soldiers. "Remove the Beta. Carry out the standard protocol. Let the Moon Goddess decide his worth." They moved to lift Rick. His breathing hitched, shallow, rattling. "He dies in two minutes," I said, the words escaping before I could cage them. "Your protocol will kill him. My method.. " "Your method is heresy." Madame Thorne's hand caught my hair, dragging my head back. Her nails dug into my scalp. "But you crave usefulness, don't you? You crave to be seen as essential. Very well. You will prove your obedience instead." She released me with a shove. I hit the edge of the table, hip bruising against wood. "The North Ridge scouting report," she said, smoothing her sleeves. "Kaelen is to review the supply routes tonight. You will deliver it to the barracks within the hour." A trap. Obvious, elegant, designed to break what little standing I had. The guards obviously have orders to refuse me entry. The report will arrive late. I will appear incompetent... which was worse. "If I refuse?" "Then your cousin Rylan leads the dawn patrol through the demon breach." She smiled, cold and knowing. "The one with eighty percent casualties. Choose, Elara. Obedience or blood." I chose. I always chose. I had been choosing for three years, every silence, every swallowed truth, every moment of servitude that kept Rylan's name off the death lists. "I'll run," I said. She held out the leather-bound report, heavy with disaster. "One hour. Or his life is your fault." I took it. The door closed behind her, lavender fading, leaving only the copper stink of Rick's dying and the witch-blood vial still rolling on the floor, useless. I ran. The compound blurred with servants' corridors, storage yards, the long stretch of parade ground where Blackthorn soldiers trained. My lungs burned. The report was heavy against my chest, its contents unknown to me, its lateness already calculated. The barracks gate rose ahead. Two guards, stone-faced, spears crossed diligently guarded it. "Halt. No entry without clearance." "North Ridge report. Alpha Kaelen needs this intelligence now." I threw the words between breaths. "Every minute I stand here, our position degrades. Do you want to explain to the Alpha why his supply routes were compromised?" They exchanged glances. The trap closing. "We follow orders," the taller one said. "No exceptions." Ten minutes ticked. Rick was dying. Rylan's name was being written on a patrol list. I was failing, exactly as designed. Then, I caught the scent I recognized. Cold steel, damp earth... and my eyes lit up in hope. Sure enough, it was Gamma Raven. He took one look at me, winded and shaking, and the useless guards. Snatched the report from the station. "Are you fools trying to compromise our intelligence?" He pulled me through. I found Elder Ivandor, shoved the report onto his table, gasped out Rick's condition as desperate currency. Ran out before thanks or punishment could find me. Back through the corridors. Slower now. The hour was gone. The trap had sprung somewhere, I just couldn't see where yet. I pushed through the infirmary door. It was empty. The table where Rick had lain was clean, the witch-blood vial gone. Madame Thorne's efficiency. I sank against the wall, my hands trembling. I had failed him. Saved myself, saved Rylan, and let another man die to do it. The arithmetic of survival. The only math I knew. The door scraped open. I expected soldiers. Expected Madame Thorne's second punishment, the silver-dust ration, the next degradation. Instead, it was Sarah. My warmth, earth, and the only friend who knew my silence was strategy, not nature. "Elara." She crouched, her eyes finding the bruise blooming on my cheek. "The kitchen maids are talking. Rick died not long ago. Standard protocol failed. They're saying you could have saved him." I said nothing. The words I couldn't speak pressed against my throat. The truth about witch-bloom, about my lineage, about the curse that would kill Rylan if I claimed my own name. "They're also saying," Sarah continued, her voice dropping, "that Alphs Thorne is bringing someone to dinner tonight. A survivor from the Western territories." Too late. I was already calculating - the curse kept me silent, but my face, my hands, my inability to pretend surprise when confronted with the unknown. Someone from the west, where the Vane Pack had burned. I pressed my palms flat against the stone floor, feeling the cold seep into my skin. The west. The river. The fire that took everything. There were survivors we never found... bodies unrecovered, names unspoken. I had made myself forget them to survive. "Who?" I asked, the word barely audible. Sarah shook her head. "The maids only heard the name. Something like... Lia? The sound meant nothing. A stranger's name, similar to nothing I knew. I had buried my past too deep for echoes to reach me. "Elara?" Sarah's voice sharpened. "You're shaking." I looked at my hands. She was right. Tremors I couldn't control because of Rick. From the table where he had died, from the witch-blood vial rolling useless on the floor, from the arithmetic of survival that had cost another man his life. I had chosen Rylan. I had chosen myself. I had let Rick die because Madame Thorne commanded obedience, and I had obeyed. The curse locked my throat. I couldn't speak my lineage, couldn't claim my power, couldn't even scream that I was more than the servant they had made me. But I could mourn. I could let the grief come, finally, now that the choice was made and irreversible. "Don't go to the hall," Sarah repeated, gripping my shoulder. "Whatever this is, whatever he wants - let them have their dinner without you." I nodded. The motion mechanical, disconnected from decision. I would hide. I would calculate. I would survive, as I had survived everything else. But survival felt different now. Heavier. Rick's blood under my fingernails, his grey-veined throat, his last rattling breath while I stood silent and let Madame Thorne take the vial from my hand. I sat in the dark of the infirmary, the witch-blood vial still missing, and listened to the sounds of the pack preparing for guests. A woman from the west. A survivor. Someone Kaelen would want to protect, to shelter, to claim. I thought of Rick instead. Of the way the grey veins had paused when the extract touched his tongue. It was proof that my method worked, proof that I could have saved him if I had been faster, braver, less afraid. The woman from the west was nothing to me. I had fresh ghosts now. Closer ones. The ones I had made myself.