BITE ME, MY ALPHA

CHAPTER THREE

Dominic’s pov

My fist came down on the dining table hard enough to rattle the plates. "I disagree with whatever is going on here." I pushed my chair back, the legs scraping loudly against the floor.

"You can't make decisions for me." "Dominic, sit down and stop yelling." My mother's voice was firm, but I barely looked at her. "How dare you speak to us that way." I turned toward my father. He hadn't moved. He simply stared at me from across the table.

"We will have breakfast and speak about this another time, is that clear?" He lifted his cup and took a slow sip, as if the matter was already closed.

"No." I shook my head. "Nothing is clear."

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to control the anger building inside me. "Whatever this is, I disagree. No one has the right to make decisions for me." My eyes moved around the table. Everyone was watching me. "First it's about me stepping down as the clan leader." I let out a bitter laugh. "And now getting married to some princess I know nothing about."

My father's expression hardened. "Watch your words, Dominic." "Why?" I shot back. "Because she is a princess?" The room fell silent. "Or because you've already made decisions about my future."

My mother's fingers tightened around her cup. "Dominic." Her voice cracked on my name.

I pushed my chair away and stormed out of the house. My mother tried to follow me. "Cordelia." Father's voice cut through hers, sharp enough to still her where she stood. "Sit down."

I didn't wait to hear what came next. I was already walking, my boots striking hard against the stone floor, putting distance between myself and a room that had just decided my entire life without asking me a single question.

"Dominic, wait."

I didn't need to turn around to know it was Dante. I kept walking anyway. "Please don't follow me," I said, "if you don't have an explanation for any of this."

"Dominic." He lengthened his stride to catch up. "And why would your mother make a decision like this?" I spun to face him, my vision edged with a heat I didn't fully trust myself with. "She gets to decide who I marry now?"

His hand landed on my shoulder, steady, almost gentle. "Brother, I understand. I do. But sacrifices have to be made. For the good of this clan."

"The good of the clan." I shook his hand off. "That's convenient, coming from the one person this costs nothing."

Something flickered across his face, too quick for me to name, gone before I could study it. "I promise you, once this alliance is built, our forces will be enough to end Bloodmoon for good. This war ends faster because of it."

"Then let it end some other way." I clenched my jaw. "There isn't another way. You know that as well as I do." He held my gaze, his hand open at his side.

"I can't do this." My jaw ached from how hard I was clenching it. "I need air. I need to not be in this palace." "Dominic..." He reached for my arm, but I was already turning away.

I cut across the courtyard toward the stables before he could finish whatever he meant to say. The horse barely had its saddle secured before I was riding out through the gates, the wind doing nothing to clear the noise in my head. My chest heaved with every breath, and it wasn't the ride that had me breathless, it was everything underneath it. Dante's voice. My father's silence. The word marriage attached to a woman I had never met, for a war I hadn't started.

"Why does everyone keep making decisions for me?" I said it out loud, to no one, my voice swallowed by the trees rushing past.

I wasn't paying attention to the path. I realized it too late. The trail beneath my horse's hooves had shifted into unfamiliar ground, the trees thinner, the border markers nowhere in sight. I pulled the reins, turning back toward the route I knew.

That's when the first arrow cut past my ear.

I didn't have time to process it before the second one followed, then a gunshot cracked somewhere to my left, splintering bark off the tree beside me. My horse reared, screaming, and I hit the ground hard, rolling clear just as a spear buried itself into the dirt where I'd landed.

They'd been waiting. Positioned, patient, exactly where I'd ride past if I came back this way, which meant someone had known I'd be here before I did.

I didn't have time to wonder who. My body made the decision before my mind caught up, bones cracking and reshaping as I shifted, fur replacing skin, claws replacing hands. I came up snarling, already moving.

I tore through the first man before he could reload, my claws catching him across the chest. Another came at me with a blade, and I caught his arm in my jaw, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth as he screamed and dropped his weapon. I was faster than them, stronger than them. I should have ended this in minutes.

Then something hit me that didn't feel like anything I'd been shot or cut with before. It tore through my side like fire, like the wound itself was trying to eat its way out from the inside. I staggered, my legs buckling beneath me for just a second, long enough for one of them to land a second shot, this one into my shoulder. The pain was unlike anything I'd ever felt, sharper, deeper, refusing to dull the way wounds usually did within seconds for someone like me.

Silver.

The thought barely had time to form before instinct took over completely. I turned and ran, crashing through the brush, putting as much distance between myself and the ambush as my legs would carry. Branches tore at me as I ran. My vision blurred at the edges, my heartbeat loud and wrong in my own ears, slowing in a way it had no business slowing.

I didn't know how long I ran. I didn't know, anymore, which direction was home.

The last thing I registered clearly was the ground tilting sideways beneath me, the cold bite of frost-covered grass against my fur, and the sound of my own ragged breathing fading into something distant, like it belonged to someone else entirely.

Then nothing.