Fated to the Dread Alpha

The Weight of Bloodlines

Lizzy’s POV

The room was quiet except for the soft rustle of fabric and the muted clink of hairpins. Holly hadn’t said much since helping me change. She was polite. Gentle. But always a little too careful, like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"You don’t have to treat me like glass," I said finally, meeting her eyes in the mirror.

She paused, lips parting. “I just… I don’t want to be disrespectful.”

“By brushing my hair?”

Her fingers twitched. “Omegas aren’t supposed to touch higher ranks without permission. Especially not… potential Lunas.”

“Lizzy,” I corrected. “I told you to call me Lizzy.”

She looked up at me again, hesitation giving way to something softer. A smile, almost.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like you,” she said.

I laughed. “Let me guess—someone who talks too much and ends up in the kitchen when she’s supposed to be preparing for a royal dinner?”

Holly grinned now, genuinely. “Someone who sees people. Not ranks.”

I turned to her fully. “You’re not just an Omega, Holly. You’re a person. A damn good one. You helped me when I didn’t even know what I needed.”

She blushed, looking down. “You’ll make a good Luna, Lizzy.”

“I’ll settle for not passing out in front of the Dread Alpha.”

Her smile faltered at that.

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Just… be careful. The Dread Alpha doesn’t see people the way you do. He sees tools. Or threats.”

The dining hall was a cavern of shadows and stone. Long tables stretched beneath vaulted ceilings carved with ancient glyphs. The sconces burned with soft blue flame, casting everything in an eerie light. It felt less like a place to eat and more like a place where people were judged and fates decided.

At the head of the room, seated beneath the crest of the Lycan bloodline, was Alaric—the Dread Alpha himself.

His presence was oppressive. Quiet, but vast. His aura curled like smoke, dark and commanding, bending the room around him.

He didn’t greet me when I entered. He didn’t need to.

His eyes found me like a blade to the throat.

“You walk like her,” he said. No preamble. No warmth.

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“If you weren’t the spitting image of Christine,” he murmured, voice like gravel and shadow, “I’d call you a liar and be done with it.”

My breath caught. “You knew her well.”

He said nothing for a moment, eyes distant.

“She was beloved.”

Alaric’s dark gaze didn’t waver as he leaned back in his chair, his voice slow and deliberate as if testing me for fractures.

“Tell me about your father,” he said. “Alpha Gray.”

I kept my shoulders square. “What about him?”

“I’ve done some digging.” His fingers tapped the table. “Interesting, isn’t it? That a pack Alpha wouldn’t register his own daughter as heir—especially when her mother was Lycan-born.”

The words landed like stones in my stomach.

“He did,” I said carefully. “Just not me. He named his Beta’s daughter as the heir… Sabrina.”

“And not you.”

I nodded stiffly. “Because of tradition. And because my wolf never surfaced. He always told me that a Luna had to be strong—and I wasn’t. Not to him.”

Alaric’s stare sharpened, like he was seeing something he’d suspected all along.

“Your wolf didn’t emerge because you weren’t among your kind,” he said. “A Lycan wolf won’t awaken—not fully—unless it breathes the same air, feels the same bond, walks in the presence of its own.”

His tone wasn’t pitying. It was factual. Absolute.

“You were dormant,” he added, as if that explained everything. “And Gray used that to dismiss you.”

I opened my mouth—but no words came. The truth settled like frost in my chest.

I wasn’t chosen.

Not because I was weak.

But because I had been cut off from who I really was.

And he’d known it.

I didn’t know how to respond.

Thankfully, the door swung open just then—and in walked salvation.

Kai strolled in with his usual swagger, every step confidence wrapped in charm. Varek followed behind, darker, quieter—but his eyes found mine instantly.

Kai took one look at my pale face and stepped forward with a smirk.

“Hope we’re not too late to the family reunion.”

Alaric didn’t even blink. “You’re late.”

Kai slid into the seat beside me. “Fashionably so.”

“Your mate seems stunned,” Alaric said, nodding toward me. “Perhaps you should explain why her father treated her like a ghost.”

Varek didn’t answer. He stared at me like he was trying to read the thoughts I couldn’t say aloud.

Another man entered then. Stocky. Severe. With graying hair and a constant scowl like it had been carved into his face.

Bjorn. Varek’s father’s Beta.

The one who had supposedly served this family for over a century.

And the moment his eyes landed on me, I felt it.

Disdain.

Well-hidden. But unmistakable.

He bowed his head to Alaric, nodded stiffly at Varek and Kai, then took his place across from me.

“So,” he said, voice low. “You’re the one causing all the noise.”

I tried to match his stare. “Just existing. Funny how that works.”

Kai snorted.

Bjorn tilted his head. “You don’t know much about our kind, do you?”

“I’m learning.”

“Then you should know the Rites aren’t just ceremony,” he said. “They’re a purge. Fire and blood. A test not of strength—but of endurance. Will. Spirit. Those who don’t break… die.”

I swallowed hard.

Alaric sipped his wine. “He’s not wrong.”

My voice was small. “People die?”

“They try to prove a point,” Bjorn said with a shrug. “To challenge tradition. The bond only survives if both are worthy. Most Lycans are. You, half-breed? We’ll see.”

“Enough,” Varek snapped.

I stood.

“I’m not hungry anymore.”

I turned and left the hall without another word.

I didn’t make it far.

I reached my room before the tears came.

Everything I’d done—everything I’d given up—was it just another game to them? Another spectacle to be judged, paraded, destroyed?

I didn’t hear the knock.

I didn’t hear the door open.

But I felt him.

Kai.

“Do you always sneak into a lady’s room when she’s crying?”

“Only when I know I can make her laugh,” he said gently.

I turned, wiping at my face. “Nice try.”

He walked in, holding two steaming mugs. “You didn’t eat. So I brought soup. Don’t thank me—it was Holly’s idea.”

I took the cup, the warmth a balm.

“She’s kind,” I murmured. “Everyone else… not so much.”

“They’re scared,” he said, sitting beside me on the edge of the bed. “Lycans were bound to this realm. Then you show up—proof that the bond still chooses. That prophecy might be real. People hate what they can’t control.”

“Do you?” I asked.

He blinked. “Hate you?”

“No. Fear me.”

He smiled, slow and sure. “I think you’re extraordinary.”

Silence stretched between us.

It wasn’t awkward.

But it wasn’t simple, either.

“I just…” I whispered. “I wish it was him here. Not you.”

He didn’t flinch.

“He’s with the Elders,” Kai said. “Preparing for what comes next.”

“The rites?”

“And your training,” he said. “We start at dawn. I’ll be leading it.”

I looked at him, really looked. His posture was easy, but there was steel beneath it. The Beta. The right hand of the realm’s deadliest Alpha.

“You don’t have to be kind to me, you know.”

“I’m not kind,” he said, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. “I just like you. For you.”

I looked away.

It was all too much.

He rose then, setting the mug aside.

“I’ll see you in the morning, Lizzy.”

And then he was gone.

I curled beneath the blanket, the fire flickering low.

And when sleep finally came—it came twisted and cruel.

Flashes of blood.

A woman’s face that wasn’t mine, but could have been.

A baby boy.

A wolf howling in chains.

And Varek—walking away, into darkness. Leaving me behind.

Always leaving.