The Alpha's Reject, The King's Obsession

Chapter 2: Iron and Ash

The snow didn't care about kings. It fell straight down through the black pine branches, freezing the tears on my cheeks into tiny, sharp points of glass.

My ribs felt like someone had scooped out the insides with a rusty spoon. The place where the mate bond used to be—where Jace Scottsdale had ripped the glowing thread of my life right out of my chest—was just a cold, hollow crater. Every breath tasted like copper and old iron.

“He’s looking,” Lyre whimpered, her voice barely a scrape at the back of my mind. “The monster is looking at us, Cassandra. Don't move. Don't give him a reason to snap our necks.”

I couldn't move even if I wanted to. My limbs were locked solid, frozen into the drifts.

The Lycan King didn't shift back into a human shape. He stayed massive, a terrifying mountain of dark muscle and thick, winter-matted fur that swallowed the moonlight whole. His breath came out in slow, hot billows of white steam, smelling of charred pine wood and ancient earth.

Then he moved.

It wasn't the clumsy rush of a wild beast. It was smooth, heavy, and terrifyingly fast. Before I could even blink, a massive paw pressed down gently into the snow right beside my hip, blocking the wind. A second later, hot air blasted against my bare shoulder as his great, scarred muzzle dropped low.

He was sniffing me. Not like a hunter smells a kill, but like a creature memorizing a prayer.

“Mate,” Lyre gasped, her terror suddenly drowning in a wave of blinding, irrational heat that flooded my veins. “The pain... Cassandra, the pain is gone.”

She was right. The jagged, bleeding hole in my soul had stopped burning. In its place, something heavy, dark, and hot was coiling around my heart, sealing the edges shut. It didn't feel light or sweet like the lie Jace had given me. It felt like an anchor dropped into a deep ocean—heavy, unmovable, and entirely absolute.

Drack Collins let out a deep, chest-rattling rumble. It vibrated straight through the frozen ground, shaking the snow off the low branches above us.

“Up,” a voice echoed, not in the air, but straight inside the center of my mind. It was rough as gravel and heavy as an iron gate.

Before my brain could catch up to my body, a massive, clawed hand—or paw, I couldn't tell in the dark—hooked gently under the back of my ruined dress. With one lazy flick of his wrist, the King hoisted me right out of the snow bank as if I weighed nothing at all.

I let out a sharp gasp, my hands flying out to grab onto whatever I could find. My fingers tangled deep into the thick, coarse fur of his shoulder. It was burning hot, radiating a feverish heat that soaked right through my thin, freezing skin.

He didn't walk back toward the Crimson Moon packhouse. He turned his massive shoulders toward the jagged, black wall of the high northern mountains—the forbidden peaks where humans and pack wolves never went.

"Wait," I choked out, my teeth clicking together from the cold. "My... my things. The pack—"

The King didn't even slow down. His stride was so long and smooth that I bounced softly against his shoulder with every step, the freezing wind howling past our ears.

We crossed the invisible border of the Crimson Moon lands within minutes. Normally, crossing into the high crags without permission meant a death sentence from the border guards. But tonight, the forest was completely dead. No patrol wolves barked. No scouts came running from the shadows. The entire wilderness seemed to hold its breath, bowing down to the beast carrying me through the dark.

My mind was spinning. An omega. A nobody who spent her days scrubbing flagstones and dodging slaps from the Beta's new favorite. Now I was draped across the shoulder of the absolute ruler of the Lycans, leaving my entire life behind in the snow.

After what felt like hours of endless climbing, the trees finally thinned out.

Ahead of us, the dark stone walls of an ancient fortress rose out of the mountain like broken teeth against the gray sky. There were no bright lights here, no music, no laughing girls in red dresses. Just towering granite, iron gates, and an oppressive, suffocating silence.

Drack didn't stop at the outer courtyard. He strode straight through the massive iron archway, his heavy claws clicking sharply against the frozen stone courtyard.

Several large shadows detached themselves from the dark archways ahead—guard wolves, huge and terrifying, stepping forward with low snarls in their throats. But the moment they caught the scent rolling off the massive beast carrying me, their snarls choked off instantly. Every single one of them dropped hard onto their front knees, bowing their heads so low their snouts touched the ice.

The King didn't even glance at them. He pushed open a set of heavy oak doors leading into the inner keep, carrying me straight out of the freezing wind and into a vast, dark hall lit only by the dying embers of a massive stone fireplace.

He finally stopped.

With a slow, careful motion that felt completely impossible for a creature of that size, he lowered me down onto my own two feet.

My knees hit the stone floor, shaking so badly I almost tipped right back over. I was freezing, bruised, and covered in snow. My cheap dress was torn at the hem, and my hair hung in wet, tangled clumps around my face.

I kept my eyes glued to the dark stone between my boots, waiting for the axe to fall. Kings didn't rescue omegas out of the kindness of their hearts. Stories said the Lycan rulers were ruthless, cold, and cruel to anything weak.

A heavy, shifting sound filled the room.

I squeezed my eyes shut as the massive weight of the beast began to drop, the air rushing around him as skin stretched, bones cracked, and muscle shifted into a new shape.

"Look at me, little wolf," a voice rasped from the shadows above me.

It wasn't the rumbling growl of a wolf in beast-form anymore. It was deep, rich, and raw, carrying the heavy weight of a thousand winters.

Slowly, I forced my chin up.

Standing before the dying fire was a man. He was tall—towering over me by a full head—with broad shoulders and a chest covered in old, faded scars that looked like lightning strikes frozen into his skin. His hair was long and black as midnight, falling loosely past his neck, and his eyes still burned with that impossible, terrifying silver light.

He wasn't wearing furs anymore. He wore a dark, heavy tunic left open at the collar, and the black iron circlet rested low across his brow.

Drack Collins stepped closer. The heat radiating off him chased the chill right out of my bones. He reached out a large, calloused hand, his long fingers stopping just an inch away from my bruised cheek, as if he was afraid I’d shatter if he touched me too hard.

"Jace Scottsdale is a fool," the King murmured, his silver eyes flashing with a cold, violent promise. "He threw away a kingdom because he was blind. But I am not."