The Alpha's Forgotten Heir

Chapter 10

The storm had passed, but the cave still felt charged with electricity—like the air had been burned clean, leaving only the raw, dangerous edge between them.

Darius stood at the entrance, shirtless, rain still dripping down the ridges of his chest. His shoulders were tense, his knuckles bloodied, and his wolf still prowled close enough to the surface that his golden eyes glowed faintly.

Seraphina hated how beautiful he looked like this—half-wild, half-Alpha, all hers. Or at least, he had been.

“Are you going to say something,” she asked finally, voice low but steady, “or just keep glaring at the trees like you can burn them down with your mind?”

He didn’t turn. “If I open my mouth right now, Seraphina, I don’t know if I’ll stop.”

Her heart thudded painfully. “Then say it.”

That got him. He pivoted sharply, his eyes pinning her where she stood. “You knew,” he said, each word a low growl. “You knew he was mine. All this time, you let me believe I had nothing left to fight for.”

The air between them tightened until she could barely breathe.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” she whispered, throat thick. “You rejected me, Darius. You told me you never wanted a mate. That you’d choose the pack over me every single time.”

He stalked toward her, steps slow, deliberate. “So you chose for me?”

Her back hit the cave wall before she realized she’d been retreating. “I chose to protect him,” she said, chin lifting. “If you’d known about Kaelen, you would’ve claimed him. And then what? Your brother would’ve painted a target on his back even sooner. He would’ve been dead before his first shift!”

Darius stopped only inches from her, his breath warm against her lips. His hands braced against the wall on either side of her head, caging her in.

“You think I wouldn’t have burned the world down to keep him safe?” His voice was rough, guttural. “You think I wouldn’t have ripped Lucien apart with my bare hands if I’d known?”

Her pulse hammered so hard it hurt. She hated that her body betrayed her—that even now, anger and longing blurred together until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

“You weren’t there, Darius,” she said, softer now. “You weren’t there when he took his first breath. When he cried in the middle of the night. When he shifted for the first time and I had to hide him in the cellar so the elders wouldn’t sense him. You weren’t there for any of it.”

His jaw clenched like he’d been struck. For a moment, she thought he’d pull away.

He didn’t.

Instead, he grabbed her face—gently, but with a force that left no room for escape—and kissed her.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t careful. It was years of fury and hunger and grief igniting at once, a fire that roared through both of them.

Seraphina gasped against his mouth, her hands fisting in his hair before she could think better of it. The taste of him—salt and heat and something that had always felt like home—made her dizzy.

He pressed closer, the hard lines of his body pinning her to the wall, and she let him. The bond between them thrummed like a live wire, stronger than it had ever been, demanding, claiming.

“Tell me to stop,” he rasped against her mouth.

She should have. Goddess help her, she should have.

Instead, she dragged his mouth back to hers.

For a long, breathless moment, there was nothing but heat and hands and the ragged sound of two people who had denied themselves for far too long. His fingers slid to her hips, his claws just barely grazing her skin, making her shiver.

She arched into him, and he groaned—low and rough—like the sound hurt him.

“Seraphina…”

Her name on his lips nearly undid her.

And then—

A howl split the night.

Both of them froze, the sound cutting through the haze like a blade. It wasn’t just any howl. It was a warning. A summons.

Darius pulled back first, breathing hard, golden eyes blazing. “That came from the east ridge.”

Her stomach dropped. “That’s near the river.”

“The border.” His voice was all Alpha now. “We need to move. Now.”

They grabbed their weapons in silence, the heat between them still burning but shoved aside by the urgency slamming into their veins.

Outside, the night was damp and eerily still. The moon hung low and swollen, casting silver light over the forest. Darius shifted without hesitation, his massive wolf form a blur of gold and shadow as he took off toward the ridge.

Seraphina followed, her own shift quick and fluid, paws pounding over wet earth.

They reached the river within minutes—and stopped dead.

The water ran dark with blood.

And carved into the mud at the edge of the bank, as if someone had painstakingly traced it with claws, was a message:

“Bring me the witch by the next full moon—or the boy dies.”

Seraphina’s wolf stiffened, a sound of pure, low terror rumbling in her chest.

Beside her, Darius’s golden eyes flared, and a growl ripped from his throat, vibrating through the earth.

“This ends,” he swore, shifting back to human, his voice shaking with fury. “No more hiding. No more running. We’re taking the fight to them.”

Seraphina shifted back too, her body trembling, but her chin lifted. “Then we’d better be ready, Alpha. Because they just declared war.”