Savage Bond

Chapter 1:The Stray Taissa I stopped counting days after I buried the last body. Time slips differently when your bloodline is gone. When your pack is ash and bone and silence. When your name doesn’t feel like it belongs to anything anymore. But I remember that night. I remember the cold. I remember the red. They came while we slept. No warning howl. No challenge. Just screams that never shifted back into words. My alpha father was the first to fall. My mother’s last shift was mid-transformation — caught between woman and wolf, mouth open in a snarl. My brother was halfway to me when they gutted him. I ran. Coward. Survivor. Doesn’t matter. All it means is I’m still breathing, and they aren’t. Since then, I’ve trusted no one. I move by instinct — no den, no fire, no allies. Only the smell of rot under my nails and a hundred places on my body that still ache when I shift. And then tonight, I got sloppy. I heard them before I saw them. Four men — maybe five — talking too loud, moving like they owned the night. I was hunting. They were hunting me. I almost got away. I almost made it to the ravine, where I could’ve shifted and disappeared into the trees. But electricity burns hotter than instinct. The shock collar wrapped around my neck before I could shift. My knees hit dirt. My body convulsed. They laughed. One of them dragged me by my hair like I wasn’t even a wolf. Just some stray b***h in the wrong territory. “You’ll fetch a good price,” one of them said. “Alpha blood. She smells expensive.” I bit his hand down to the bone. He screamed. I smiled through the taste of iron. They broke my nose after that. Kicked me until my vision blacked out, then caged me like an animal. That’s where I woke up. Muzzled. Shackled. Collared. Some kind of underground auction, judging by the stench of desperation in the air. Other cages lined the wall. Some were empty. Some weren’t. Most of the wolves were unconscious, twitching in their own filth. I didn’t make a sound. I didn’t beg. But when he walked in — every eye dropped. He didn’t look at anyone else. Just me. Cold, tall, quiet. Wrapped in black from neck to boots. His power walked in before he did. It pressed against my skin like heat, like weight. The air around him shifted — predator’s gravity. Alpha, no doubt. No—Alpha King. The kind of werewolf the old stories warned about. The kind who doesn’t need to growl to make you bleed. He stepped in front of my cage. We stared at each other. I didn’t bow. I didn’t blink. I spit blood at his boots. He smiled like winter — no warmth, all edge. Then he said five words that made the others flinch. “This one’s not for sale.” Chapter 2: The King’s Pet Taissa Waking up in silk sheets after a cage is...wrong. The air didn’t smell like rust and piss anymore. It smelled like cedar, leather, smoke. Expensive things. Clean things. Male things. I sat up too fast. Pain ricocheted down my spine, sharp enough to black out the edges of my vision. My wrists were bandaged. My nose was healed. My bruises — mostly gone. They’d used something strong. Maybe wolfsbane diluted with hemlock — keeps the wolf quiet while the body stitches itself together. I scanned the room. It was dark wood and stone. Too big. Too clean. Fire crackling in a hearth that looked like it hadn’t seen a real winter in years. The bed was a monster of carved blackwood and blood-red velvet. A cage with prettier walls. I got out anyway. My legs barely held me. He was already in the chair in the corner. Watching. Of course he was. Dominic Thorne. Alpha King. The kind of name people don’t say above a whisper unless they want to disappear. He didn’t speak. Didn’t blink. Just sat there like he was waiting for me to figure it out. “What is this?” I rasped. “Why am I here?” “You're here because I took you.” Not an answer. I stared at him. “You planning to chain me to your bed or your throne?” He tilted his head like he was considering it. “Neither. Unless you try to run. Then both.” I bared my teeth. “I’m not yours.” His eyes lit up — not with anger. Not quite. Amusement. Dark and slow. “You are now.” That’s when I felt it — the bond. Shit. He didn’t just claim me. He marked me. No scars. No bite. But I could feel the damn thing like a hook in my ribs. Like a thread tied around my throat, just light enough to ignore if I stayed still, just tight enough to burn if I pulled too far. “What the hell did you do to me?” I whispered. “I made sure no one else would touch you.” He stood. Towered. “You’re under my protection. That means you’re mine.” The possessive growl in his voice made my wolf flinch. Not from fear. From recognition. I hated that more than anything. He walked toward the door. I backed up on instinct. “You can eat,” he said. “Or not. But you’re not leaving this house. And no shifting.” “Or what?” He didn’t look back when he spoke. “I’ll put you back in the cage.” And then he was gone. Just like that. Like he hadn’t just rewired the shape of my world in ten minutes flat. **Chapter 3: Scent of Smoke and Silk** *Taissa* The walls didn’t bleed. That was the first surprise. I expected stone and chains and maybe a surveillance camera in the corner. Instead, I woke up in a room that looked like it had been pulled from a royal bloodline fantasy. Warm lighting. Velvet curtains. A fireplace glowing with soft orange light. A library built into one wall. And the bed? Ridiculous. Oversized, dark wood carved with snarling wolves and thorned vines. Luxury. It pressed in on me, suffocating. I didn’t belong here. My body still remembered the cage. I sat on the edge of the bed, muscles tight, still in the loose black tunic someone had put me in. My bare feet didn’t dare touch the plush rug beneath. Everything smelled like cedar smoke and leather and something darker—him. Dominic. The bond pulsed quietly under my skin. Not pain, exactly. More like heat. Like gravity. Like the moment right before a lightning strike. *Talk to me,* I whispered inside. My wolf stirred, groggy. Still healing. *He’s ours,* she murmured. *No. I didn’t choose this.* *Fate did.* I hated the word. Fate had never done me any favors. Still, the mate bond tugged at something deep. My wolf wanted to curl closer to his scent, not run. She ached for it. For him. I shoved the feeling down and stood, shaky but upright. I found a bathroom tucked behind a carved wooden door. It was bigger than most motel rooms I’d hidden in. Marble, gold fixtures, rainfall showerhead. I stripped, wincing at the bruises still fading on my ribs. The water scalded away the grime, the blood, the stink of fear. I stayed under until my skin turned red and raw. Until I could almost pretend the girl in the mirror wasn’t feral. I wrapped myself in a thick towel and stared into my own eyes. Bruised but alive. Still here. *Why me?* I asked no one. No one answered. I walked back into the bedroom, tension still curled in every tendon. This place didn’t make sense. Nothing here made sense. Why the luxury? Why the tenderness in the healing? Was it guilt? Strategy? Or something worse—something that felt like care. The fire crackled softly. I caught myself turning toward the scent of him again. That subtle pull, that ache. "Don’t you dare," I told myself. But the wolf inside me was already pressing her nose against that bond like it was a door she wanted opened. --- **Chapter 4: Amber Eyes** *Taissa* I was sitting in the library corner of the room, picking at my healing fingernails, when the knock came. Light. Two taps. I tensed. No one knocked in a prison. Which meant this wasn’t a prison. Not exactly. The door opened. She stepped in like she owned the sun. Golden hair braided back, smile too bright for this gothic nightmare of a house. Piercing amber eyes—wolf eyes. She carried a tray piled with food: roasted meat, fresh bread, strawberries, a glass of red wine. "You must be Taissa," she said. "I’m Calista. Dom’s sister." I stared. The name didn’t register. But her energy did. Open. Light. Not a threat. "Why am I here?" I asked. She set the tray down on the desk and sat cross-legged in the armchair across from me. "Because my brother doesn’t let things he cares about get thrown to the wolves." The irony hit too late. "He doesn’t know me." She tilted her head. "Doesn’t need to. He felt the bond, didn’t he?" I didn’t answer. She didn’t push. "This place... where is it?" "We call it Ashmoor. It’s the Alpha King’s stronghold. The capital of what’s left of real pack structure. You’re safe here." Safe. The word felt like a dare. "Why was he at the auction?" Her expression changed. A flicker of pain. "He was tracking someone. Someone tied to what happened to your pack." I went still. "You know about that?" She nodded. "He won’t talk about it, but he knows. And he was there for *you*, Taissa. Not the others. He went straight to your cage." "Why?" "Because you’re his mate. And he doesn’t fail the ones he’s meant to protect." My throat tightened. I hated how easily those words settled inside me. Calista stood, brushing invisible dust from her dress. "He won’t say it, but he’s not letting you go. That means you’re family now. So get used to me." She grinned and left. And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel completely alone. ---