MARKED BY THE ROGUE KING

Chapter 3: Teeth in the Dark

The rogue camp wasn’t a place you could blend in.

Especially not when you were me—freshly marked, freshly shifted, and freshly whispered about.

Eyes followed me. Some curious. Some cold. Some… hungry.

I kept my shoulders back and walked like I wasn’t dying inside.

“Training grounds are this way,” a gruff voice said.

It was Ryker, the Rogue King’s second-in-command. Tall, built like he’d been carved from stone, and absolutely not a fan of mine.

“Nice to see you again too,” I muttered.

He didn’t smile. “Don’t get cute. I’m not here to make friends.”

“Good. I’m not here to make any.”

He led me to a clearing filled with the sound of fists hitting flesh. Growls. Snarls. Dust kicking up in the heat.

The rogues were sparring like their lives depended on it. Maybe they did.

Ryker stopped. “You want to survive here? You fight. You bleed. You win.”

I raised a brow. “You offering to go first?”

This time, he smiled—but it wasn’t nice.

“No. She is.”

From the edge of the ring stepped a girl with blood-red braids, eyes like frost, and a scar that split her lip. She didn’t speak.

She just shifted.

Right there. Right in front of everyone.

A wolf of black and silver, long-limbed and lethal.

And then everyone turned to me.

Your move, Elara.

I didn’t hesitate.

Didn’t flinch.

Didn’t give the rogue pack the satisfaction of seeing fear.

I let the heat rise, let my bones twist, skin stretch, power burn—and then I shifted.

My wolf burst free, silver-gray and wild. Not polished like the royals, not scarred like the rogues. Untamed.

A low growl rumbled through the clearing.

The red-braided rogue lunged first—fast and brutal—but I was faster.

I dodged, barely, her claws grazing my shoulder. Pain flared, but I welcomed it. Let it fuel me.

She came again, jaws wide—

I ducked under her leap, slammed into her side, rolled us across the dirt.

She bit down on my leg. Hard.

I howled, snapped at her neck, missed by inches. Blood on my tongue, hers or mine—I couldn’t tell. Didn’t matter.

The bond with the Rogue King pulsed like wildfire through my veins.

Focus.

But his voice was in my head again.

“You’re stronger than her. Stop fighting like you’re not.”

I growled louder—my growl.

I slammed her to the ground, my paw on her throat, teeth bared.

Her wolf stilled.

I won.

But I didn’t let go.

Not until I was sure they all saw.

Not until I looked up—and met his eyes across the ring.

The Rogue King. Watching me like I was becoming exactly what he hoped for.

A Queen built for war.

The campfire burned high that night.

Not for celebration—rogues didn’t celebrate.

They tested.

I sat near the outer edge of the circle, still aching from the fight. My leg throbbed. My pride buzzed. I hadn’t just survived—I’d made them watch me win.

A tankard of something strong-smelling was shoved into my hand.

“Drink.”

A girl with half-shaved hair and eyes like broken glass. I didn’t know her name—but I knew a dare when I saw one.

I raised the cup, sniffed it. Burnt herbs, bitterness, something sweet underneath.

Something… wrong.

“Problem?” she asked.

I smiled. “None.”

I brought it to my lips.

Then paused.

Held her gaze.

And dumped the whole thing into the fire.

The flames hissed. Popped. Turned an unnatural green for half a second.

Rogues muttered. Someone whistled low.

“Good instinct,” said a voice behind me.

The Rogue King.

I didn’t turn. “Was it yours?”

“If it was, you’d already be dead.”

My heartbeat slowed. Only a little.

He sat beside me without asking. The others melted away like mist. That’s what power looked like.

“What’s the test this time?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. Just looked at me like he was trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces.

“You scare them,” he said finally.

“Do I scare you?”

His lips twitched. “Not yet.”

I leaned in just enough for him to smell the smoke on my skin. “Then I’m not trying hard enough.”

By morning, someone had scrawled “ROYAL w***e” in ash outside my tent.

Cute.

I stepped over it barefoot, unbothered. Let them think their words could claw deeper than a rogue’s fangs.

Ryker met me at the training grounds again, arms crossed, face stone.

“There’s talk,” he said.

“There’s always talk.”

“They want to challenge you.”

My spine straightened. “To what?”

“Prove you’re not just his mark. That you’re pack.”

I scoffed. “Let me guess. Another fight?”

“Not this time,” Ryker said, tilting his head toward the forest. “Hunt. Alone. Bring back what they fear.”

“And if I fail?”

He didn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

I turned, ready to shift, when he appeared again. The Rogue King. Eyes darker than dusk, jaw tight.

“I didn’t order this,” he said.

“But you won’t stop it.”

Silence.

“You want them to tear me apart, or crown me yourself?” I asked.

His gaze dipped to my lips for just a second too long.

And then—

He stepped closer.

Too close.

The air between us snapped like static.

“You’re already mine,” he said low, voice brushed with something dangerous. “They just haven’t accepted it yet.”

I should’ve shoved him away.

Should’ve snapped something sharp and defiant.

Instead…

My breath hitched.

And I said, “Then let me make them bleed for it.”

The forest was a mouth with no bottom.

Dark. Silent. Watching.

I shifted mid-run, fur brushing the cold earth, breath misting in the air. The moon above me was thin, but bright enough to make the blood in my veins hum.

I was supposed to hunt something dangerous.

But something was already hunting me.

The scent hit first—musk, rot, copper.

Not rogue.

Not wolf.

Worse.

I slowed, every muscle tense. The trees closed in, bark like ribs. A snarl rumbled from the left.

I turned.

And it leapt.

A blur of fangs and fury, twice my size.

I barely rolled aside, claws grazing my flank. Pain lanced through me, but I stayed up. Growling. Snapping.

Shift back. Use your hands. Fight smarter.

My bones cracked as I shifted to human mid-dodge, grabbing a branch and jabbing it straight into the creature’s eye.

It screamed—a sound no wolf should ever make.

Not natural. Not pure.

It bled black.

And behind the trees, watching silently…

The Rogue King.

Of course.

His eyes glowed faintly, lips parted slightly. Not in shock. In interest.

He wanted to see if I’d survive without him.

I killed the beast. Gutted it. Dragged its heavy corpse back with shaking arms, dirt on my skin and blood between my teeth.

When I dropped it at Ryker’s feet, silence fell.

The Rogue King approached, gaze roaming from the body to me.

“I asked for fear,” he murmured.

“You brought them a nightmare.”

I spit the blood from my mouth.

“Next time,” I said, “I’ll bring a kingdom.”

The rogues didn’t clap.

They didn’t cheer.

They watched.

As I stood blood-slicked and bare before the fire, the creature’s corpse at my feet, their silence said everything.

She’s still breathing.

She’s still standing.

She’s one of us—or worse.

The Rogue King circled the fire and stopped in front of me.

Still shirtless. Always in control. Always unreadable.

He reached out—slow, deliberate—and ran his thumb along my jaw.

It came away red.

Then he brought it to his lips and tasted it.

Not my blood. The beast’s.

Heat flared between my thighs.

“You didn’t just kill it,” he said softly. “You owned it.”

My pulse stuttered.

“And now?” I asked.

“Now…” His hand drifted down to my collarbone, his thumb brushing lightly over the mark he’d given me. My skin buzzed. “Now they won’t dare touch you. But I still might.”

The words burned like whiskey in my chest.

He leaned in, breath brushing my neck, and whispered, “You’re mine, Elara.”

I turned my face to his—lips an inch from his—and said, “Then claim me like you mean it.”

His hand slid to my waist.

But before he could close the gap, Ryker’s voice cut through the heat.

“Enough.”

The Rogue King didn’t flinch.

But he didn’t kiss me either.

Just smirked like he’d already had me.

And left me standing there—wanting more, and hating him for it.

Sleep came late.

I lay on rough furs inside my tent, heart still racing, body still thrumming from the brush of his fingers.

But when my eyes closed, it wasn’t rest that found me.

It was fire.

In the dream, I stood at the edge of a battlefield. Rogues howled behind me. Wolves I didn’t know bled out on scorched grass.

And in the middle of it all—him.

The Rogue King, shirtless again, blood on his hands, crown of thorns twisted into his dark hair.

He turned to me slowly.

Eyes glowing like embers. Mark on his neck pulsing with mine.

“Elara,” he said, voice low and twisted by power. “Do you see what we could become?”

I looked down at my hands.

Clawed. Bloody. Glowing.

“You’ll burn the world for me,” he whispered.

And I didn’t say no.

I stepped to him. Reached for him.

But behind him—a throne of bones.

Mine.

I gasped awake.

Breath ragged. Skin slick. Thighs damp with heat I couldn’t explain.

The mark on my neck burned like it had been kissed by fire.

Not a dream.

A vision.

Or a warning.

Because one truth had become painfully clear:

If I stayed near the Rogue King… I wouldn’t just survive.

I’d destroy.