Rejected By The Pack: Claimed By The Cursed Alpha

Chapter 10

The darkness of the basement was absolute, a heavy velvet shroud that sought to smother the very memory of the sun. I lay on the freezing stone floor, my breath hitching as the adrenaline from the fight on the field finally ebbed away, leaving behind the sharp, throbbing protest of my bruised ribs. Every inhale felt like a serrated blade scraping against my lungs.

I should have felt small. I should have felt like the "feral" disgrace my father had labeled me before locking me away.

Instead, I felt a low, resonant hum vibrating in the floor—or perhaps it was vibrating in me.

“One month,” I whispered, the words puffing out in a pale cloud of mist in the chill air. One month until the Blood Moon. One month until they led me to the cliff to jump into the Abyss, hoping my death would seal away the "dark energy" they feared.

“They are fools to fear the dark when they should fear the one who commands it.”

The voice didn't come from the hallway. It didn't come from the guards whispering outside the heavy iron door. It vibrated from the very marrow of my bones, deep and ancient, like the grinding of tectonic plates.

I sat up, ignoring the flare of pain in my side. "Who are you?"

The warmth in my chest, the "fragile ember" I had felt in my room, suddenly caught fire. It wasn't the searing, bone-breaking agony of a wolf-shift. It was a flood of molten gold, pouring through my veins and chasing away the damp chill of the stone.

“I am the one they buried,” the voice rumbled, sounding closer now, as if the speaker were standing right behind me in the gloom. “And you are the one they broke. We are the same, Little Moon.”

I reached out, my fingers brushing the cold stone wall, but for a split second, the basement didn't seem so dark. I could see the cracks in the masonry, the dust motes dancing in the stagnant air—and I could see my own shadow. It wasn't the shadow of a broken, wolfless girl. It was large, hunched, and crowned with jagged ears that didn't belong to any wolf of the Silverfang Pack.

The warmth reached my jaw, and the sting of my split lip vanished. The ache in my ribs smoothed out as my body was mended by something forbidden.

“Let them celebrate their rituals,” the presence growled, a phantom touch, cold as ice yet burning like fire, brushing against my cheek. “They believe they are sealing an Abyss. They don’t realize they are opening a door.”

The warmth settled into a steady, pulsing rhythm—a second heartbeat perfectly synced with mine.

Upstairs, I could hear the faint, muffled sounds of the pack. I could hear the echoes of laughter, perhaps from Lyra and Cassian as they celebrated her "triumph". I should have been weeping. I should have been screaming for mercy.

Instead, I leaned my head back against the wall and smiled into the void.

I wasn't Seraphina the Wolfless anymore. I was a vessel for something far older than the pack’s laws.

“One month, Seraphina,” the voice promised, receding back into the depths of my mind but leaving the heat behind. “And the world will learn what happens when you discard a Queen.”

I closed my eyes, the golden heat a shield against the dark. I would wait. I would stay in this cage, playing the part of the sacrifice, until the moon turned red.

Because now, I wasn't the only one waiting in the dark.