CHAPTER 2: BLACKWOOD TERRITORY
1820 Words
The carriage didn’t bounce. It glided.
Like Darius owned the road itself. Like the earth remembered to be smooth when the Alpha King passed.
I was still in his arms. Still drowning in cedarwood and storm. His claiming mark burned on my shoulder like a brand. Hot. Permanent. Wrong.
Kade was supposed to mark me. Not him. Not the most dangerous Alpha alive.
“Put me down,” I whispered. My voice cracked. Twenty years of silence and rejection didn’t make for strong words.
Darius looked down at me. Gold eyes had cooled to amber in the torchlight. “No.”
One word. Final. Like he was used to the world obeying without question.
The carriage walls were black wood. No windows. Just thin slits that let in strips of moonlight. Rafe sat opposite us, sword across his knees, eyes anywhere but on me. His Beta aura pressed heavy in the small space. Respect. Fear. Something else I couldn’t name.
“You can’t claim a rejected omega,” I tried again. Pack law was all I had. All I’d been taught for twenty years. “The bond snaps. The Goddess rejects us both. You’ll—”
“I’ll what?” Darius cut me off. He shifted so I wasn’t dangling like a sack. One arm under my knees. One around my back. Like I was something breakable. Something worth holding.
The thought made my stomach twist.
“You’ll die,” I finished. Small voice. “Without a wolf, I’m a curse. Kade was right. I have no value.”
Darius’s jaw ticked. His thumb brushed over my knuckles where I was gripping his shirt. “Kade is an i***t boy who thinks power means tearing others down. He knows nothing about value.”
The carriage hit a dip. I gasped and clutched his shirt harder. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even sway. Rock steady. Alpha steady.
“How fast are we going?” I asked to distract from the way my body reacted to his scent. Cedarwood. Smoke. Rain on stone.
“Fast enough that Silver Moon can’t follow,” Rafe answered from across. Then winced like he shouldn’t have spoken.
Darius shot him a look. Rafe went back to staring at his sword.
We rode in silence. Minutes turned to hours. The moon moved across the slits of light. I counted them to stay sane. One. Two. Three.
Each one was another mile away from humiliation. From mud on my cheek. From Kade’s laugh. From the pack that raised me and called me broken.
“Why?” I finally asked. The question had been burning since the stones. “Why claim me? You could’ve walked away. No one would’ve blamed the Alpha King for following law.”
Darius was quiet so long I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then: “Because when I looked at you on those stones, I didn’t see a wolf-less omega.”
My breath caught.
“I saw a girl the Goddess protected for twenty years,” he said. Voice lower now. Rough at the edges. “Saving you for me. So no one else could touch you first.”
The words hit harder than Kade’s rejection. Because they were the opposite. Because for twenty years no one wanted me. And this man—this king—said I was saved.
Saved for him.
My eyes burned. I bit my lip and stared at his chest instead of his face. The black shirt strained over muscle. A scar cut across his collarbone. Old. Deep. Alpha wars.
“Don’t cry,” he said.
“I’m not.” Lie.
“You are.” His finger came up again. Same as on the stones. Under my chin. Forcing me to look at him. “I don’t like it when my mate cries.”
Mate. He said it like it was fact. Like the claiming mark meant more than law. More than biology.
“I’m not your mate,” I whispered. “I have no wolf. I can’t complete the bond. You know what happens to Alphas who bond with empty omegas.”
They go mad. The stories said so. Alpha needs wolf. Wolf needs Alpha. Without both, the bond is poison.
Darius’s gold eyes flashed. “Then we’ll wake your wolf.”
“How? Kade tried for three heartbeats and got nothing.”
“Kade is weak.” Darius said it flat. No insult in his tone. Just fact. “I am not.”
The carriage slowed. Moonlight flooded through the slits as we emerged from trees into open ground. Cold air slipped in. I smelled pine. Stone. Something ancient. Something powerful.
Rafe opened the door. “Blackwood Territory, Alpha.”
Darius stood with me still in his arms. I yelped and wrapped my arms around his neck on instinct. He didn’t put me down. Just stepped out into the night like I weighed nothing.
Blackwood Territory was nothing like Silver Moon.
No wooden houses. No fences. Just stone. Towering black stone walls carved into the side of a mountain. Windows glowed like watchful eyes. Torches lined the gates, blue flame instead of orange.
Wolves stood at attention as we passed. Hundreds of them. All territories represented by the colors on their armor. All of them dropped to one knee as Darius walked by.
“The Alpha King,” someone whispered. Awe in their voice.
“The rejected omega,” another hissed. Disgust.
I buried my face in Darius’s neck. Shame burned hotter than the claiming mark.
His arms tightened. “Eyes up, Aria.”
“I can’t.”
“You will.” Command. Not suggestion.
Slowly, I lifted my head. Hundreds of wolves stared at us. At me. Mud still on my cheek. White dress torn at the hem. Bare feet.
The wolf-less omega. Brought to the heart of power by the most powerful Alpha alive.
Whispers followed us through the gates: “She has no wolf.” “He’ll regret this.” “Bloodline ends with him.”
Darius heard it all. His face didn’t change. But the air got heavier. Alpha power rolled off him in waves until the whispers died.
Inside was a courtyard. Then stairs. Then doors twice my height. They opened before we reached them.
Servants lined the halls. All female. All omegas, from the softness of their scent. All bowed low.
“Prepare the East Wing,” Darius ordered. “Luna’s suite.”
Luna. Mate of the Alpha King. Queen of all territories.
The word made me dizzy.
“Wait,” I said as he started up the stairs. “I can’t stay in the Luna suite. I’m not Luna. I’m not even—”
“You are what I say you are,” Darius interrupted. We stopped in front of massive doors carved with wolves and moons. “And I say you’re mine.”
He kicked the doors open with his foot. Still holding me.
The room inside stole my breath.
Black marble floors. Silver sheets. A bed big enough for five wolves. Windows from floor to ceiling showing the mountain drop below. Moonlight poured in like water.
But my eyes went to one thing: a mirror. Full length. Silver frame. Standing against the far wall.
Darius finally set me down. My legs wobbled. Bare feet on cold marble. He caught my elbow before I fell.
“Look,” he said.
Not a command this time. A request.
I turned to the mirror slowly. Dreading it. Twenty years of seeing a girl with no wolf. A girl the Moon Goddess skipped.
The girl in the mirror had mud on my cheek. Torn dress. Hair tangled from the wind. And a glowing silver mark on her shoulder. Darius’s mark.
But her eyes… her eyes weren’t empty anymore.
For the first time in twenty years, they weren’t dead.
“Do you see it?” Darius came up behind me. Didn’t touch me. Just stood close enough that his heat warmed my back. “You’re not broken, Aria. You’re dormant.”
“Dormant wolves don’t exist,” I said. Voice shaking. “You’re either born with a wolf or you’re not.”
“Says who?” He reached past me and his hand covered mine on the glass. Big hand. Scarred knuckles. Alpha hand. “Kade? The elders? People who’ve never seen a wolf like yours?”
My wolf like mine.
I swallowed hard. “What kind of wolf would I have, Alpha? If I even have one.”
Darius’s reflection met my eyes in the mirror. Gold and serious. “The kind that makes other wolves kneel without trying. The kind the Goddess hides until the right Alpha comes.”
He turned me to face him. Both hands on my shoulders now. Gentle, but I could feel the power restrained in his fingers.
“Full moon is in three days,” he said. No softening the blow. Alphas didn’t lie. “If your wolf doesn’t rise by then, the elders will demand your death. Pack law for unshifted omegas over twenty.”
The words hit like ice water.
Three days.
I’d had twenty years and nothing happened. Now three days to grow a wolf or die.
“Why tell me that?” I asked. Tears threatened again. “If you’re going to kill me anyway—”
“I’m not going to kill you,” Darius snapped. Then softer: “I claimed you, Aria. Death is not an option. Not for you. Not ever.”
He stepped back and walked to the window. Hands clasped behind his back. Alpha King staring at his territory like it was his to command. Because it was.
“But the elders don’t answer to me on this,” he said. “Old law. Even I can’t break it without challenge. And challenge means blood.”
“Then let me go,” I whispered. Stupid words. Desperate words. “Before they come for you too.”
Darius turned back to me. Slow. Deliberate. Every step made the floor shake.
“Listen to me, little omega,” he said when he stood inches away. “I don’t want an heir. I don’t want a perfect she-wolf. I want you. With wolf or without.”
His hand came up to my cheek. Thumb brushed over skin where mud had been.
“So we have three days,” he said. “Three days to wake what the Goddess hid. Three days before I tear this world apart to keep you.”
Outside, thunder rolled. Storm coming.
And somewhere deep in my chest, something answered it.
A quiet growl. So soft I thought I imagined it.
But Darius heard it. His eyes flared gold to black.
He leaned down until his forehead touched mine. Breath mingling. Alpha scent overwhelming.
“Did you hear that?” he whispered.
I nodded. Because for the first time in twenty years…
Something inside me growled back.
---
- Writer
