Mated to two alphas

CHAPTER 6: BLOOD AND ASH

The Crescent Moon packhouse stank of fear.

Alpha Sterling stood at the head of the war table, his knuckles white, his eyes bloodshot. Three days of humiliation. Three days of knowing the entire shifter world had watched two rival Alphas claim his property like she was a queen and he was nothing.

The doors opened. A thin, nervous wolf scurried in—the pack's tracker. Their best scientist.

"Report," Sterling snarled.

The scientist trembled. "Alpha, I... there's been a complication."

"Speak."

"The tracker. The one we planted in the Bloodhound Alpha's wound. It's... gone."

Silence.

Sterling's voice dropped to a whisper. "Gone?"

"Someone removed it. Magically. We can't trace them anymore. The signal just—"

Sterling's hand was around his throat before anyone could blink. Lifted him off the ground. Squeezed.

"I gave you one job," Sterling hissed. "One job. Find them. Bring me that half-breed's head so I can mount it on my wall and restore my honor."

"Please Alpha, I can—"

Snap.

The body hit the floor.No one moved. No one breathed. Thorne stood in the corner, pale but silent.

Sterling turned to the room. "I need another solution NOW, or you all follow him."

Silence.

Then Thorne stepped forward.

"Alpha." His voice was careful. "The tracker is gone. But we don't need magic to find her."

Sterling's eyes narrowed. "Explain."

"We have her blood."

Sterling froze.

Thorne continued, gaining confidence. "Eighteen years of that half-breed scrubbing our floors. Eighteen years of her bleeding on them. The packhouse is soaked in her DNA. We don't need a magical tracker. We need bloodhounds. Real ones."

A slow smile spread across Sterling's face.

"Get me the best trackers in the territory. Not wolves but dogs. Human dogs. They can't mask their scent from animals that don't use magic."

Thorne nodded. "Already done, Alpha. They're waiting outside."

Sterling looked at the dead scientist on the floor. Then at the door.

"What are you then waiting for? Let them hunt."

Three hundred miles east, I woke with a gasp. My hand flew to my chest. The bond was screaming not in pain, but in warning.

"Elara?" Ryker was instantly awake, his cold hand on my forehead. "What happened little wolf?"

Kael was already on his feet. "Hunters?"

"No." I shook my head, trying to understand the feeling. "Something else. Something... wrong."

The farmhouse was quiet. Dawn light filtered through the broken windows. The seer was long gone. The tracker was gone. We should have been safe.

But I wasn't safe. I could feel it.

"They have something of mine," I whispered.

Kael knelt beside me. "What do you mean?"

I closed my eyes, reaching for the bond. For the strange new awareness that had been growing since my power awakened. And there faint but real, I felt it.

Blood. My blood, it’s being used.

"The packhouse," I breathed. "All those years. All those floors I scrubbed while I was bleeding. They have my blood. They are using it to find me."

"Blood tracking. If they have enough of your DNA—"

"They can follow us anywhere." Kael added. "The tracker was in me. Now it's gone. But her blood is in that packhouse. In the floors. In the walls."

I felt sick. Eighteen years of bleeding for them and now that blood would lead them straight to me.

"How long?" I asked.

Ryker moved to the window. "If they are using human trackers—"

He stopped.

His whole body went rigid.

"Ryker?" I stood, my legs shaking. "What is it?"

He didn't answer. He just pointed.

Through the cracked window, at the edge of the tree line, I saw them. Dogs. Dozens of them. Their eyes glowed in the gray dawn light. Behind them, shadows moved—wolves in human form, armed with silver and death.

They were already here.

"They found us," Kael breathed.

"How?! It's just been minutes—"

"The blood." Ryker's voice was hollow. "They must have started the moment Sterling gave the order. They were already close. The tracker led them here before it was destroyed. They have been surrounding us while we sat here talking."

We were trapped.

The farmhouse had one door. One window. Stone walls that would become a tomb.

Kael's shadows flared. "I will hold them off. You take her and—"

"No."

The word came from me. They both looked at me. I looked at my hands. They were shaking. But not from fear anymore.

From fury.

"The seer said I should stop fighting the bond," I whispered. "We need to stop fighting each other."

Kael's crimson eyes met mine. Ryker's ice-blue gaze held the same question.

I grabbed them both. Pulled them down to the dusty floor with me—Kael on my left, Ryker on my right. Their hands found mine.

Fire and ice.

"Do it," I commanded. "Now. Both of you. Push your power into me."

"Elara, your body can't—"

"It's already killing me!" I shouted. "I’d rather die fighting than watch you two die protecting me!"

Outside, the dogs howled. Closer now. The door rattled.

Kael and Ryker looked at each other. No hatred. No rivalry. Just two mates facing death together.

For her.

They pushed.

Oh Moon Goddess, please make this work.

Fire erupted into my left hand. Ice exploded into my right. The power collided in my chest and instead of tearing me apart, it merged.

I screamed, Not in pain but in release.

The walls of the farmhouse exploded outward.

Silver light—pure, blinding, ancient, blasted from my body in a shockwave that threw the attacking dogs backward like leaves in a hurricane. The wolves behind them went under cover. The door shattered. The windows blew out and when the light faded, I was still there.

Kneeling in the rubble.

My eyes blazing like twin moons.

Kael and Ryker stared at me, their mouths open, their power drained but their faces lit with something I had never seen before.

Awe.

"The farmhouse," Ryker whispered. "It's... gone."

I looked around. The walls were rubble. The roof was scattered across the field. The dogs were whimpering, scrambling backward. The hunters were frozen.

I looked at my hands. Still glowing. Still burning.

But the poison?

Miraculously gone.

I rose to my feet.

The hunters didn't move.

I smiled.

It wasn't a nice smile.

"Come on, then," I said quietly. "You wanted the anomaly."

Come get it, I am all yours.