Bound To the Cruel Alpha

Chapter Fifteen

Draven

The corridors leading to the banquet hall thrummed with sound. There was the sound of music, laughter, the clatter of plates and goblets. Draven’s boots struck hard against the polished stone as he moved, cape flaring behind him like a shadow. He did not need heralds, but he had them all the same. At the door, two guards straightened, lifted their spears, and the chamberlain’s voice rang out with the practiced precision of a bell.

“Alpha Draven Thorne. The Crimson Butcher of Grayfield. Breaker of the Black Fang Uprising. Protector of the Northern Territories. Blood-sworn shield of his people.”

The words rolled through the air like a proclamation of thunder, and then the great doors groaned open.

The hall erupted.

His soldiers were the loudest, their voices raw with drink and loyalty. They shouted his name, slammed fists against tables, clattered mugs in rhythm. One started a chant—“Thorne! Thorne! Thorne!”—and soon half the room was joining, the sound swelling like a storm. Nobles clapped, some with genuine admiration, others with the thin smiles of those who wanted to be seen clapping harder than their rivals.

Draven stepped through it all with the calm weight of a wolf who knew exactly where he stood in the order of things. His gaze swept the hall. He caught sight of his sister, Kaelen, seated at a long table among nobles. She leaned back with her chin propped in one hand, a wineglass turning idly in the other. Beside her, some perfumed young lord leaned too close, trying to capture her attention with some joke or compliment. Her smile was polite but thin.

The Alpha’s presence washed over the hall like cold water. Men who had been too loud fell quiet as he passed; women’s laughter faltered into whispers. His cape whispered against the stone as he crossed the length of the hall to the dais at the front, where his commanders waited.

Corren rose as Draven approached, grinning as though the world were his to mock. He clapped a broad hand against his chest in salute, and the soldiers cheered louder still.

Draven took his seat at the head of the table, Corren dropping easily into the chair at his right. A servant darted forward with a goblet of dark wine, which Draven accepted without looking at him. He raised it, just enough for the light to catch the golden rim.

“To the pack,” he said.

A single phrase, no flourish. It was enough. The hall echoed with answering shouts: “To the pack!” Tankards rose, mugs clanged, and wine sloshed across tables as the feast began in earnest.

Platters of roasted boar with crackling skin arrived, trencher loaves dripping with gravy, bowls of honeyed root vegetables, spiced fowl glistening with fat. The smell was rich, almost cloying, mingling with the sharper tang of ale and sweat.

Draven set his goblet down. He tore a piece of bread, chewed, swallowed. But the hunger wasn’t there. His mind was in many places but not there.

A small group of musicians approached the dais, carrying fiddles and a drum. They bowed low, voices eager.

“My lord Alpha,” one said. “It is the highest honor to play for you tonight. We thank you for granting us the chance.”

Draven looked at them once, his expression as flat as he could manage.

They shifted, uneasy, until Corren leaned forward with a grin and spoke in Draven’s stead. “The Alpha thanks you. Play loud enough that these drunken mutts can keep their feet moving.”

Laughter rippled. The musicians brightened, bowed again, and hurried off. They struck up a tune almost at once, one every man and woman in the hall knew by heart. A song about the pack, about family, about strength bound together by blood and the moon. Draven's father used to sing it to him, a long, long time ago.

The first verse rose:

Through blood and through fire we stand as one,

By moon’s cold light, by the rising sun.

No chain can break us, no foe can sever,

A pack that endures will endure forever.

The drumbeat picked up, hands began to clap, and voices joined in, half-drunk and off-key but full of heart.

The second verse followed:

When shadows gather and storms draw near,

The howl of the pack is what none shall fear.

From father to son, from sister to brother,

We bleed for the pack, for there is no other.

The chorus thundered then, the whole hall singing it as one:

One heart, one soul,

Bound by the moon we are whole.

Through blood, through night,

The pack is our strength, our light.

Feet stamped against the floor, couples spun into the open space near their tables, skirts and cloaks flaring. The hall grew bright with motion, flushed with the warmth of dancing and drink.

Corren shoved back his chair suddenly. “Lady Kaelen,” he called across the tables, voice carrying easily. “Care to save me from watching men trip over themselves?”

Kaelen’s head lifted, her eyes glinting as she set down her cup. Relief flickered through her posture, a breath of air after the suffocating presence of the noble beside her. She rose with grace, inclining her head. “With pleasure.”

The soldiers roared their approval as she joined Corren on the floor. Draven’s mouth twitched in something dangerously close to amusement as he watched the noble’s face sour at being abandoned.

Then he looked back and saw that Corren’s seat had been filled.

Namira.

She sat there as though she had always belonged, spine tall, lips curved in that careful smile that gave nothing away. Her gown shimmered in the light, and her eyes were fixed on him with practiced sweetness.

Draven set his goblet down with deliberate slowness. “What do you want?”

“I see you didn’t go with the green one,” she said lightly, reaching across the small distance to let her fingers trail along the edge of his black cape. “A pity. We would have matched.”

She was always looking for an excuse to touch him. Once, he had admired it—her boldness, her refusal to flinch where others shrank back. But now he saw it for what it was: not boldness, but a claim. A hand closing around something she thought already hers.

“Namira,” he said, voice low and edged. “If you don’t mind, I am trying to have dinner.”

“But you haven’t eaten anything since you sat down.” Her smile widened, teasing. “I’ve been watching.”

“You’ve been watching me,” he repeated, tone sharpening. “Did your father tell you that was the way to my heart?”

Her composure wavered just a fraction, but she tilted her chin, recovering quickly. “At some point you’ll have to begin to see my father and me as two different people. I am your betrothed, not my father.”

“Are you now?” Draven let out a short, humorless laugh. “Forgive me. Sometimes I get the two of you mixed up.”

The jab landed. Her lips parted, but before she could form an answer, a noble appeared at her shoulder, bowing with exaggerated courtesy.

“My lady Namira,” he said warmly, “that gown is exquisite. A work of art. Is it from the seamstress of White Vale? I thought I recognized the embroidery.”

Namira’s face turned like a flower to the sun. “You have an excellent eye. Yes, it is from White Vale. Though I had it altered by my own handmaid to suit—”

Their voices merged into a babble of fabrics and stitches and dyes, words that slid past Draven like gnats. He had no patience for it. Not tonight. Not when the chains still burned against his skin in memory.

He rose. The scrape of his chair against the stone cut through the chatter. Dozens of heads turned, eyes sharpening as he strode from the dais.

The banquet would rage until dawn. The soldiers would drink until they fell asleep on the floor, the nobles would preen and scheme, the music would circle back on itself until every verse blurred into the next. But Draven was finished.

The weight of eyes followed him as he left the hall, whispers chasing at his heels. He didn’t care.

The Alpha of the Crimson Howl had no need to linger in this hall anymore.