CLAIMED BY FIVE ALPHAS

The Labyrinth

The smell of wet earth and pine was gone. It had been replaced by the scent of wilted white roses and suffocating sandalwood candles.

I slowly opened my eyes. The golden light from the crystal chandelier above made me squint. A curved ceiling painted with winged angels stared down at me, their wings broken. This wasn't my home. It didn't even look like a building from the twenty-first century.

The bed I was lying on was too soft. A thick silk blanket covered my body, which was now dressed in a strange, spotless white nightgown. The clothes I had been wearing, once soaked in my father's blood, were gone without a trace.

Remembering that pool of blood, my heart began pounding violently against my ribs. I jolted upright, clutching my chest. The unbearable pain that had made me vomit black blood earlier was gone, but something was wrong. Very wrong.

My world had suddenly become too loud.

I could hear the fibers of the blanket rubbing against my skin with frightening clarity. I could hear the flutter of a moth's wings as it hit the window in the corner of the room. And what threatened my sanity the most, I could hear heartbeats. Not just one heartbeat. Three different heartbeats were pounding from behind the massive mahogany door at the end of the room. They sounded like drums of war.

I crawled off the bed. The marble floor was ice-cold against the soles of my feet. I moved slowly, almost without making a sound, toward the wooden door and pressed my ear against it.

Their voices sounded crystal clear in my ears.

“You two nearly killed her with your pathetic egos.” This voice was new. Calm. Elegant. Yet every word he spoke felt like velvet slowly wrapping around your neck to choke you. “Her human body wasn't ready to withstand the resonance of two Alphas. If I had arrived any later, you would have been carrying nothing but a corpse home.”

“Watch your mouth, Evren.” That was Aurevian's voice. Deep, dark, and filled with restrained anger. “She's mine. The Conclave Law recognizes the right of the first Alpha to find his mate.”

A beautiful, mocking laugh followed. Vaelric. “That law only applies to one territory, Commander. Tonight, fate spat in all our faces. The girl is bound to me too.”

“You two are acting like starving wild dogs,” the man named Evren replied. His voice didn't rise at all, yet somehow it sounded the most dangerous. “We take her to Elarion Palace. Politically, she is an anomaly. The Conclave will hunt her down and execute her before morning if she falls into the wrong hands. I am offering real protection.”

“You're offering her a golden cage, Evren,” Aurevian growled. “And I won't let my woman be taken into a nest of snakes.”

I stepped away from the door with trembling hands. My breathing grew faster. Anomaly. Execution. Fate. My woman. Three monsters were standing outside, discussing the rest of my life as if I were a piece of land they had just discovered. They didn't care that I had just lost my father. They only cared about who had the right to devour me whole.

My father was right. Run. I had to run.

I looked around the entire room. There was no way out except for a pair of massive glass doors leading to a stone balcony. I ran toward them and pushed open the steel hinges. The freezing night air immediately hit my face. The storm had already passed, leaving behind a thick white fog and a huge full moon that looked far too close to the earth.

Below the balcony stretched a maze garden made of neatly arranged black thorn bushes that looked beautiful and terrifying at the same time. The balcony was about five meters high. I climbed onto the carved stone railing and swallowed hard as I looked down at the grassy ground below.

A normal human would probably break their bones jumping from this height.

But I had just vomited black blood, and my veins had glowed silver earlier. I didn't feel normal. I felt as light as the wind, yet my muscles felt tense and strong as steel. Something wild had awakened inside me.

Without thinking twice, I jumped.

I landed with both knees bent. The frozen grass broke beneath my feet. No broken bones. No crippling pain. Only a small tremor running through my calves. I didn't waste time being amazed. I immediately ran through the entrance of the maze made of black thorn bushes.

I ran without knowing where I was going. The fog covered my vision. The thorn bushes seemed alive, shifting and blocking my path every time I turned. My chest rose and fell rapidly, my breath forming white clouds in the freezing air. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I missed my home. I missed my father's smile.

My steps suddenly stopped.

At the intersection of a narrow maze corridor, someone stood blocking my path.

He hadn't chased me. He wasn't even out of breath. The man stood casually, leaning against a snow-covered stone pillar with both hands in the pockets of his black trousers. His white silk shirt was slightly open at the chest. His face was the absolute definition of deadly beauty. His skin was as pale as marble carved by angels, and his black hair was perfectly styled despite the strong night wind.

The man's eyes were dark blue. As deep as an ocean trench that had swallowed thousands of ships without ever returning their bodies.

Evren.

The venomous aristocrat.

“This maze was designed by a blind architect in the sixth century,” he said casually, as if we were on an art museum tour instead of running for our lives. “He believed that humans could never find their way out if they ran using fear.”

I stepped backward, searching for a way behind me, but somehow, the end of the maze behind me was already blocked by the shifting shadows of the bushes.

“Stay away from me,” I warned. My voice trembled badly even though I forced it to sound brave.

Evren straightened. He walked toward me. His footsteps made no sound against the dry leaves. “You ran from Aurevian because he was too rough. You ran from Vaelric because he was too greedy. But why are you running from me, Seraphina? I haven't even properly introduced myself to you.”

He knew my name. Of course he did. Predators always knew the names of their prey.

“You're all the same. Liars. Cold-blooded killers.”

Evren stopped only one step away from me. He let out a soft breath, looking at me with eyes filled with a false tenderness that was strangely enchanting. “I have never lied to you. It was the world that lied to you for twenty-two years.”

He slowly raised his hand. I wanted to move away, but the air around him seemed to lock my joints in place. His impossibly cold hand touched my cheek. His long, elegant fingers brushed away a tear that I hadn't even realized had fallen.

The moment his skin touched mine, an invisible explosion struck both of us.

It wasn't a destructive explosion like the one that had torn through the room when Aurevian and Vaelric fought. This was an explosion inside our blood. It felt as if my chest had been sucked into a vacuum. My breath caught violently. I saw Evren's dark blue eyes widen, the perfect mask of his calmness cracking into pieces in a single second.

He jerked forward and wrapped his arms tightly around my waist until our bodies were pressed completely together. His eyes closed as he breathed in the scent of my neck with a desperation he could no longer hide. His massive body trembled slightly. The man who had looked impossible to break suddenly looked like a thirsty traveler who had finally found water after burning in hell for a thousand years.

“Absolutely intoxicating,” he whispered right against my lips. His voice was hoarse, filled with a dark and possessive desire.

I tried to push against his chest, but his hold didn't loosen even slightly. “Let me go.”

Evren opened his eyes and stared at me from such a close distance that I could see flashes of silver inside his blue pupils. There was no elegant smile on his lips anymore. Only absolute possession that refused to accept any argument.

“You can hate me. You can run until your feet bleed and break. But remember this, Seraphina.” He lowered his head, his lips brushing against my ear. “You cannot escape fate, because from tonight onward, we—or rather, I—will be the one writing your destiny.”

Before I could answer his arrogance, a loud thud shattered the silence of the maze.

Something huge and heavy had been thrown over the high wall of the maze. It landed with a heavy thump on the frozen grass, rolling several times and leaving behind a trail of thick, pungent black blood before finally stopping right at the tip of Evren's black boot.

I let out a muffled scream and took a step back, covering my mouth with both trembling hands.

It was a severed head. The massive head of a dark gray wolf, brutally cut off. Its eyes were wide with terror, staring at us with the emptiness of death.

Evren stared at the severed head with a frozen, emotionless face, but his grip around my waist tightened until I winced.

On the dead wolf's forehead was a deep knife wound dripping with blood. The wound formed the symbol of five phases of the moon, lined up in perfect order.

Someone laughed hoarsely from above the wall. The sound of his laughter blended with the terrifying howl of the night wind.

“One dead. Fifteen more will follow soon. Take the anomaly to the center of Lunaria, Evren, and we'll see whose blood stains the snow tonight.”

Evren stared toward the wall, which was now empty and silent again. The darkness had swallowed whoever had spoken without a trace.

The man pulled me forcefully behind his back, shielding me from whatever danger might be lurking in the air. His blue eyes now burned brightly, radiating a deadly threat that promised bloodshed throughout Lunaria.