CLAIMED BY FIVE ALPHAS

TheExecuter

The silver-blue light slowly faded, leaving behind an unbearable burning sensation that spread from the back of my neck to the base of my spine. I gasped for air, wrapping my arms around myself as I lay on the frozen grass. Blood still dripped from my nose, staining my white dress. The pain gradually faded, leaving me so exhausted that every muscle in my body felt like jelly.

I lifted my head, my vision blurred and my chest rising and falling with every ragged breath.

The four monsters who had been ready to tear each other’s throats out just seconds ago now stood frozen in silence. The deep-voiced man I had first met in my home stared at me with his jaw clenched. Yet there was a faint flicker in his eyes. Something that looked suspiciously like... fear?

The aristocratic man who had arrived with a silver cane slowly took a step back. His usually calm face had turned pale, as if I were a ticking bomb he had failed to account for.

“That’s impossible,” whispered the dark-blue-eyed man who had held me in the maze. All the venomous elegance had vanished from his voice. He stared at my neck as if he were looking at a ghost from the past. “That mark... it died centuries ago.”

Only the wild, shirtless man still radiated a savage aura, though his breath had caught and his eyes were wide with shock. “A curse,” he growled hoarsely.

I began to tremble violently. A curse? A mark? What were they talking about?

My head was spinning. Just a few hours ago, I had been an ordinary university student waiting for my father to come home for dinner. Now, my father had been murdered in his own study, and I was surrounded by a pack of insane men who could unleash invisible forces and transform into giant wolves.

“You... stay away from me,” I whispered, my voice breaking as I finally lost control of my tears. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know what’s happening to me! I just want to go home... I want my father...”

My words disappeared into the empty air. None of them listened to me. Their eyes remained fixed on the mark on my neck, on the invisible danger I seemed to have brought into this insane world.

Then, in the middle of that suffocating silence, things grew even stranger.

It wasn’t the wind or another tremor in the ground. This time, the darkness itself seemed to come alive. In the corner of the maze, just beyond the shattered wall of thorny hedges, a shadow appeared to detach itself from the ground.

The air in the garden grew thin, but not in the suffocating way it had when these men fought. This was absolute emptiness. A silence so complete that my ears began to ring.

From within the thick shadows, a black boot stepped forward. Not a single dry leaf crunched beneath it.

A new man emerged from the mist.

He was not as tall as the wild monster beside me, nor was he dressed as elegantly as the two men in suits. He wore nothing but black, blending perfectly into the night, while his long cloak swayed gently in the breeze. His face was hidden beneath a hood, but when he raised his head, I saw a pair of eyes that were completely black, as deep and cold as the bottom of a lightless ocean.

His presence immediately put the other four men on high alert. The killing intent in the garden exploded once more.

“Noctyren,” growled the military-looking man I had first encountered. Horrifying black claws emerged from his hands again. “How did you cross the territorial boundary without being detected?”

The cloaked man called Noctyren did not answer. He did not even glance at the four of them. His attention was entirely fixed on me, still crumpled helplessly on the ground, crying and covered in blood.

He continued walking toward me. His steps were slow and steady, carrying an aura of death far heavier than the stench of blood that had filled my home tonight. In his right hand, he held a silver dagger with a curved handle, its sharp blade reflecting the moonlight.

“Don’t come any closer,” I warned, trying to crawl backward, but my calves had gone numb.

The dark-blue-eyed man stretched out his arm, attempting to block the newcomer’s path. “Azrien, stop. Don’t do anything stupid. This girl—”

“I know who she is,” the man named Azrien interrupted.

His voice was so soft that it was almost like a winter breeze, yet somehow, it echoed directly inside my skull. He did not stop walking. Whatever dark magic he was using, the moment he drew closer, the blue-eyed man seemed to be pushed aside by an invisible wall of wind, forcing him to step out of the way.

“You have no right to touch her, Executioner,” hissed the man with the silver cane, now gripping his weapon as tightly as a sword.

Azrien ignored him. He stopped directly in front of me. The cold radiating from his body froze the tears on my cheeks. He lowered his head to look at me, and for the first time, I saw his face clearly. He was still very young, perhaps around my age, with a sharp jawline that somehow carried the weight of profound sorrow.

He did not look at me with hunger, like the wild man. Nor did he look at me with the possessive or calculating gaze of the others.

He looked at me with genuine pity.

And somehow, that frightened me more than anything else I had seen tonight.

“Who... are you?” I stammered, staring at the silver dagger hanging loosely at his side.

“I am the shadow that has watched over you from outside your bedroom window every night, Seraphina,” he said softly. His voice was rough, heavy with a burden I could not understand. “I am the one who made sure no monsters came near you for twenty-two years.”

I blinked, confusion and horror twisting together inside my chest. “You... know me? You knew my father?”

His pitch-black eyes grew dim. He slowly crouched in front of me, completely ignoring the savage growls of the four deadly men behind him, who now seemed ready to tear into his back.

“Alaric was a good man,” Azrien whispered. His leather-gloved fingers gently brushed my cheek. They were ice-cold. “He sacrificed everything to hide you from this filthy world. To hide... the cursed mark on your neck.”

My sobs broke loose again at the sound of my father’s name, spoken with such familiarity and respect.

“Then why didn’t you save him?!” I screamed hysterically. I pounded my fists against his chest with all my strength, but it felt like hitting a block of ice. “Why did you let them kill him?!”

Azrien let me hit him. He did not push my hands away. He only looked at me with a sorrow that chilled my blood.

“Because your father’s death was the key to awakening the mark on your neck, Seraphina,” he answered flatly.

My body went rigid. My hands stopped pounding against his chest. My breath caught in my throat.

“What... do you mean?”

“Your father knew that if your secret was exposed, this world would tear itself apart trying to claim you. He knew that sooner or later, these five monsters would come.” Azrien glanced briefly at the four men behind him. “He did not summon me tonight to save his own life.”

Azrien slowly raised his silver dagger. Its sharp blade pointed directly at the center of my chest.

My heart seemed to stop beating.

“Your father summoned me... to save you from them.” For the first time, Azrien’s voice trembled slightly. “And the only way to save you from becoming their slave... is to make sure you die before they can bind your soul to theirs.”

My world collapsed into nothing.

My father had arranged this? My own father had asked this man to come here and kill me?

“NO!”

A thunderous roar shattered the night. The wild monster and the military-looking man charged forward at the same time, their black claws extended, ready to rip Azrien’s back apart.

But Azrien did not even turn around. His eyes remained locked on mine.

“Forgive me, Seraphina,” he whispered.

The silver dagger came down toward my heart.