CLAIMED BY FIVE ALPHAS

Accepted

The voices inside my head were not the whispers of ghosts. They were alive, pulsing with a deafening savagery.

I gripped the marble sink in front of me until my knuckles turned white. My mismatched eyes—one reddish gold, the other silver-blue—stared blankly at my reflection.

“Burn their bodies until not a single speck of ash remains.” That was Aurevian's voice. Deep and heavy with military authority, accompanied by the sound of cracking bones and roaring flames somewhere outside.

“This blood... tastes bland. Nothing like hers.” Theron's growl echoed at the base of my skull, followed by the brutal sound of flesh being torn apart.

I clamped both hands over my ears and sank to the ice-cold bathroom floor. But it was useless. You couldn't shut out a sound that came from your own blood. My breathing grew frantic with panic. The five ancient monsters' consciousnesses were fighting for space inside my small human brain. It felt as though my head would shatter into pieces.

“Stop,” I sobbed, burying my face between my knees. “Please... make it stop.”

The voices didn't fade. They only grew louder. I could feel the pain of the cut on Azrien's shoulder. I could smell the tobacco and rusty metal surrounding Vaelric. I could feel the cold night wind against Evren's face. The boundary between them and me had completely collapsed.

If this continued, I would go insane before sunrise.

In utter desperation, I squeezed my eyes shut and reached for whatever energy remained in the tattoo at the nape of my neck. It now felt as cold as a block of ice. I imagined a massive wall of thick steel, then, with every last shred of sanity I had left, I unleashed a single command from deep within my soul.

SILENCE!

It wasn't a physical scream. Not even a sound escaped my throat. It was a telepathic command that exploded through our shared blood network like a stun grenade.

In that instant, the world inside my head fell silent.

The silence was so complete that I could hear water dripping from the faulty faucet. Theron's growling, Aurevian's commands, and Azrien's pain vanished at once, as if someone had pulled the power cord from a broken radio.

I gasped for air, slumping against the marble wall. My chest rose and fell rapidly. Had I just... blocked them out? Before I could process the magical silence, my bedroom door was smashed open from the outside.

It wasn't opened. It was destroyed, its wooden hinges torn loose. I flinched and scrambled backward in panic.

Evren Elarion stood in the doorway.

The aristocrat who always looked immaculate now resembled a man who had barely survived an execution. His dark hair was a mess, his silk shirt was wrinkled, and his chest heaved violently. His dark blue eyes swept across every corner of the room with almost frantic desperation before finally locking onto me, curled up on the bathroom floor.

Within two long strides, he was in front of me. Evren dropped to his knees and immediately grabbed my shoulders with both of his ice-cold hands.

“Seraphina! Are you hurt? Did someone break in?!” His voice trembled violently. He turned me around, examining every inch of my arms for physical injuries that weren't there. “Tell me where the attack came from!”

“No one attacked me,” I squeaked, slowly pulling away from his painfully tight grip. “I was alone.”

Evren froze. His hands hovered in the air as he stared at me, his brow furrowing deeply while he tried to make sense of my words.

“Then... what was that shockwave? That absolute command that forcibly severed the telepathic connection between all five of us in the middle of a battle?”

I swallowed. “You... heard it?”

Evren let out a harsh breath. Suddenly, all the tension drained from his body. The aristocrat lowered his head and laughed softly. His laughter sounded exhausted, almost intoxicating, yet filled with a dark kind of awe. He sank onto the marble floor in front of me, stretching out his legs as though he had lost every ounce of strength.

“Heard it?” Evren fixed his gaze on mine. A silver glimmer rippled softly through his blue pupils. “Seraphina, you just made Aurevian drop his sword in the middle of the battlefield, sent Theron crashing into the snow, and made me leap across three balconies just to make sure you were still breathing.”

Evren leaned closer. The scent of silk velvet and winter radiated from him, his pheromones stirring something strange in my stomach.

“You weren't simply 'speaking' inside our heads, darling. You took control of our central nervous systems,” he whispered hoarsely. “When you screamed 'silence,' you didn't just quiet our thoughts. The wolves inside us were literally forced to their knees and silenced.”

I trembled at his words. This wasn't a gift. It was a nightmare.

“I don't want this kind of power, Evren. I don't want to be inside your heads. Your voices... they're driving me insane.”

Evren's eyes softened. The mask he wore as a politician had completely disappeared while he was alone in the room with me. He slowly raised a hand, silently asking for permission before letting his long, cool fingers brush my temple.

I didn't push him away. The pull of his blood inside me made his touch feel like a sedative.

“The wall you built just now was the right move. You need to imagine an iron curtain at the base of your neck,” Evren explained in a soft, soothing voice, guiding me like a mentor. “We've lived with this bond since birth, but to your human mind, the Fivefold Resonance is a tsunami. Don't let us in until you're ready. Lock us out.”

“Are you angry?” I asked hesitantly, looking into his blue eyes. “I just... forcibly silenced all of you. Isn't being controlled an insult to an Alpha?”

Evren's thumb gently brushed my cheekbone. His gaze traveled across my face as if I were a masterpiece of art that had been lost for thousands of years and finally found again.

“For an Alpha, submitting to another Alpha is an insult,” Evren corrected, his voice as deep as the ocean at midnight. “But submitting to our one true Mate... that is our sacred nature. You don't hold chains around our necks, Seraphina. You hold our heartbeats in the palm of your hand. Whether you destroy us or take care of us is entirely your prerogative.”

His words were beautiful, yet deadly. He was offering me absolute obedience, but for some reason, I felt as though I were the one being lured into his cage.

“Then... what happens now?” I asked, trying to change the subject before the gravity between us swallowed what remained of my sanity. “The Silver Legion has retreated. Are we... safe?”

Evren's hand against my cheek went still. The atmosphere in the room suddenly grew heavy.

He withdrew his hand and let out a long sigh. Then he stood and walked toward the glass window, gazing at the city lights glittering below.

“The Silver Legion didn't retreat because they've surrendered. They withdrew because their commander has to report directly to the High Chancellor that the Lunareth anomaly has awakened,” Evren replied. His voice had returned to its usual cold, political calculations. “An hour ago, while you were still unconscious, Caelor Varyn rang the silver bell in the Conclave Tower.”

I frowned. “The silver bell? What does that mean?”

Evren slowly turned around. Shadows covered his face, making his jawline appear even sharper and more ruthless.

“It means Caelor has ratified The Blood Edict,” he hissed. “That law has only been used once in history, two thousand years ago, when they wanted to wipe out the Lunareth bloodline.”

My body stiffened.

“Right now,” Evren continued, his voice echoing through the silent room, “all five Alpha Sovereigns have officially been stripped of their titles by the Conclave. The five of us have been declared traitors to the throne for refusing to surrender you. From this moment on, there is no law. No trial. Anyone—soldier, civilian, or hired assassin—who brings your head before the Chancellor will be crowned the new Sovereign.”

My world collapsed for the second time that night.

“They're... hunting us?”

“Not us. They're hunting you, Seraphina.” Evren walked back toward me. “And they'll have to get through the corpses of the five deadliest men in the world before they can lay a finger on you.”

Evren held out his hand, offering to help me up from the cold floor. I stared at his elegant, pale hand. A hand full of deception, but also the hand of a man who had just sacrificed his entire kingdom and title to defend me. With trembling breaths, I accepted it.

But the moment our palms touched, a surge of energy far more powerful than before shot through my body.

It wasn't telepathy. It wasn't a voice.

It was a memory.

Evren's eyes flew wide as the connection erupted beyond his control. My grip on his hand tightened involuntarily. Vaelric's penthouse disappeared from view. My world transformed into a sea of fire and a rain of ashes.

I was no longer inside my own body. I was looking through the eyes of someone from the past. A massive stone altar stood before me. A silver-haired woman with a five-phase moon mark at the nape of her neck knelt in front of it, weeping and begging for forgiveness.

Then the hand I was using—the hand of a man holding a silver sword—rose high into the air.

“Forgive me, Elyndra. But this world cannot have a god above its kings,” a voice strikingly similar to Evren's echoed inside my head.

The silver sword came swinging down, severing the Lunareth woman's head from her neck.

I screamed in horror and yanked my hand away from Evren as if he were the fires of hell. I stumbled backward until my back slammed hard against the wall. My breaths came in ragged gasps, and tears streamed down my cheeks.

“Seraphina?!” Evren looked just as panicked, stepping toward me. “What happened?!”

“Don't come any closer!” I screamed, pointing at him with a trembling finger.

My mismatched eyes stared at the aristocrat in horror, my chest torn apart by the feeling of betrayal. I had just uncovered the most terrifying secret of this blood bond. Evren's blood flowing through my veins had transferred more than just power and telepathy.

It had transferred the sins of his ancestors.

“That was... your ancestor,” I whispered, my lips trembling. “Two thousand years ago... your ancestor was the one who beheaded the Lunareth Queen.”

Evren stopped dead in his tracks. His face, usually so composed and unreadable, turned as pale as a corpse.

I stared at the dried blood beneath my fingernails, one by one. There were five monsters' bloodlines inside my body now. And tonight, I had just realized that the five men who had sworn to die protecting me... were direct descendants of the murderers who had slaughtered my entire family two thousand years ago.