The Alpha Who Rejected Me Is Begging at My Door

Chapter 6 – Promises in Blood

The scout’s blood was the wrong color.

Too dark, almost black in places where it should’ve been rich red. It oozed instead of flowing, thick and sluggish, as if something inside him curdled it as it touched the air.

“Hold him,” I barked.

“I am holding him,” Jarek grunted from behind the bench. “He’s the size of a small horse, Lyris.”

The young wolf arched off the table with a ragged howl as my fingers probed the wound. The gash along his ribs was deep but clean—no torn flesh, no bone shards. It shouldn’t have been bleeding like this. It shouldn’t have smelled like acid and rusted metal.

Nyra pressed her weight onto his shoulders, teeth bared. “Hey. Eyes on me,” she snapped at him. “You pass out, and Lyris is going to be very offended.”

He tried to laugh, choked instead. “S-sorry,” he gasped, voice breaking. “Didn’t… mean to interrupt your party.”

“Next time bring a bottle of wine,” I muttered. My hands moved on autopilot—clean, assess, clamp. Underneath the routine, my wolf snarled at the alien stink searing my nostrils.

Maelis appeared at my side, skirts hitched, her usual serene expression sharpened to a blade. She held out a small clay jar. “Salve. For the outer burn. Whatever he threw at our ward ate more than spirit.”

I glanced up. “You were near the line?”

“I felt it.” Her eyes flicked to the shimmering edge of the clearing where the invisible barrier of our protection met the forest. Even from here, my skin prickled. “They targeted a weak point. On purpose.”

“Fantastic,” I said through my teeth. “Let’s make sure he lives long enough to tell us exactly who ‘they’ were.”

I poured water over the wound. The liquid hissed on contact, a faint wisp of vapor curling up. The wolf jerked, grinding his teeth.

“Sorry, Kai,” I said automatically, then cursed myself. “What’s your name?”

He blinked, unfocused. “Tomas,” he managed. “Ma’am.”

“Don’t ‘ma’am’ me. That’s how people die.” I dabbed the edges of the gash, feeling along the muscle. Nothing lodged, nothing torn beyond repair. “Good news: you’re not dying tonight. Bad news: this is going to sting like hell.”

“Already does,” he croaked.

“Then you’re prepared.” I reached for the jar from Maelis.

Around us, the clearing had shifted from festival to triage center. The pups were gone, tucked safely inside the house. Adults moved with controlled urgency—barricading entrances, checking weapons, reinforcing wards. The music was long silent. Smoke from the bonfire mingled with the copper of blood and the bitter tang of whatever had burned Tomas’s skin.

Somewhere out there, in the dark between trees, Coren and Soren ran the border.

The bond hummed, a taut wire at the back of my mind—alive, moving, edged with adrenaline. I shoved down the urge to cling to it and squeeze. He needed my calm, not my panic.

“Lyris.” Maelis’s voice pulled me back. “Look.”

She lifted Tomas’s arm gently. Black threads crawled out from the edges of the wound under his skin, like ink bleeding through parchment. Not infection. Not natural.

“Poison,” I said, throat tight.

“More than that.” Maelis dipped a finger in the salve, daubed it near one of the dark tendrils. It faded slightly, but didn’t vanish. “Something that clings to magic as well as flesh.”

“Varik,” Nyra hissed.

“We don’t know that,” Maelis said automatically.

We all knew.

I smeared the salve along the cut, coating every raw inch. Tomas hissed, knuckles whitening. The black lines hesitated, then slowly, grudgingly, began to recede.

“Good,” I said, more for myself than anyone. “Your blood isn’t allowed to do weird things in my clearing without permission.”

A breathless chuckle bubbled out of him. “Yes, luna.”

The word hit harder than his wound.

I focused on bandaging, wrapping the clean cloth snugly around his ribs. “You hold that pressure,” I ordered Nyra. “If he tries to sit up, knock him out.”

“With pleasure,” Nyra said.

I straightened, my lower back protesting. Sweat stuck my hair to my neck. I dragged my forearm across my forehead.

“How many more?” I asked Maelis quietly.

“Just him,” she said. “For now. The others on patrol have minor burns, splinters. Scare tactics. He took the worst of it.”

“Because he was closest,” Tomas mumbled, blinking at me. “I… stepped forward when I saw it. Thought it was just a rock. My bad.”

“You stepped between it and the ward?” I said sharply.

He winced. “Didn’t think. Just moved.”

Stupid. Brave. Wolf.

I exhaled slowly. “Next time you feel the urge to throw yourself in front of strange magic, don’t.”

“Yes, luna,” he said again, softer.

I flinched this time.

Maelis’s hand brushed my arm, grounding. “You did well,” she said under her breath. “Quick thinking. He’ll live.”

“Living isn’t the bar I’m aiming for,” I muttered. But I nodded.

A sharp pulse rattled through the bond—pain, then the sharp flare of impact, then a wash of controlled fury. I swayed, grabbing the edge of the bench.

“Lyris?” Nyra’s head snapped up. “What is it?”

“Coren,” I said. “He—”

The door to the packhouse banged open. Dargan stood there, framed in firelight, his lined face more serious than I’d ever seen it.

“They’re driving them off,” he said. “Whoever it was. No one crossed the main line. Just… prodding.” His gaze cut to me. “Alpha sent word: stay inside the wards. They’ll be back before dawn.”

Prodding. Testing. Just like the nights before.

My hands curled into fists.

“Fine,” I said. “We’ll be ready when they do more than prod.”

I turned back to Tomas, checking his pulse, the color returning to his lips. The black lines under his skin had retreated almost completely.

“Rest,” I told him, one hand on his shoulder. “You did good.”

He smiled faintly, eyes already sliding shut. “Sorry about your… party.”

“We’ll reheat it,” I said dryly. “Try not to bleed on the cake.”

He laughed once and went under.

Noise rose again around us—a lower, rougher sound. Fear muttering in corners. Anger sharpening voices. Someone started to relight scattered candles. Someone else cursed under their breath about “cowardly bastards who won’t just come at us head-on.”

I moved through it all, checking burns, pressing herbs into hands, snapping at anyone who looked like they were about to spiral. Working was easier than thinking. Easier than feeling the constant throb of Coren at the edge of my awareness, alive but riding the razor between predator and protector.

Later, when Tomas was stable and most of the injuries were wrapped and dosed, when the pups were half asleep in a heap on the packhouse floor and the adults whispered in tight knots, I let myself step outside alone.

The clearing was a mess. Half-melted candles, overturned benches, food abandoned to the insects. The big bonfire had burned down to sullen embers.

I wrapped my arms around myself and stared toward the dark where the forest swallowed the path.

“You couldn’t let us have one night,” I whispered to the trees, to the unseen eyes beyond them. “Just one.”

The bond gave a tiny, answering tug. Not words. Not yet. Just a promise like a hand squeezed in the dark: I’m coming. I’m not done fighting for this.

I closed my eyes, breathed in smoke and blood and damp earth, and sent back the only thing I could through the bond without distracting him.

Then hurry up, I thought. We have a festival to finish.