CLAIMED BY FIVE ALPHAS

The Second Mate

The word hung in the air, heavier than the stench of death choking the room.

Mate.

One absurd word that meant absolutely nothing in my dictionary of sanity. Yet the way the man said it, as if the word had been dragged from the deepest part of his chest, sent a shiver down my spine. His golden eyes held no softness as they stared at me. They looked at me with naked hatred, as if I were the monster in this room.

The man pulled his hand away from the wall as if the stone beside my head had suddenly turned into molten lava. He took one step back, his jaw tightening until the muscles in his neck stood out.

“Impossible,” he growled. His voice was low, trembling with pure rage. “You’re only human. The smell of your blood... you can’t possibly be mine.”

I ignored his rambling. My gaze slipped past his broad shoulder and landed on my father's body lying stiff in the middle of the pool of blood. A sharp pain tore through my chest. I wanted to run to him, hold him, and beg him to open his eyes. But my legs were frozen.

“Dad...” I whispered as tears began streaming down my face again, cutting through the dust on my cheeks. I forced myself forward, but the man blocked my way again.

His large, rough hand grabbed my wrist. The moment our skin touched, a burst of heat shot through my veins, making me gasp. It didn't hurt. Instead, it felt strangely familiar. And that frightened me even more.

“Let me go, you bastard!” I struggled against him, pounding my trembling fists against his chest, which was hard as steel. “You're all murderers! Let me hold my father!”

Instead of releasing me, his grip tightened. He pulled me against him until my chest collided with his body. The scent of rain, pine, and blood flooded my senses.

“Listen carefully, human,” he hissed right in front of my face. His eyes burned as they pierced into mine. “I don't know what filthy curse you carry, but my wolf has just claimed your soul. You are not going anywhere. From this moment on, you live in my cage.”

I spat directly in his face.

A deadly silence fell over the room. The man's jaw twitched. His eyes darkened, changing from bright gold into the hungry, savage yellow of a wild beast. He raised his hand, his long fingers brushing against my jaw before tracing down toward my neck with a threat that felt all too real.

Before he could do anything, the headlights of cars pierced through the shattered windows, blinding my eyes. It wasn't just one car. Dozens of pitch-black vehicles rolled silently into our driveway, their engines making almost no sound as they cut through the storm like a procession of ghosts.

The man in front of me released my neck, his body immediately turning to shield me in an alert stance that was deadly enough to freeze my blood. A low growl rumbled from his chest. It wasn't a human sound. It was the sound of a wild beast whose territory had just been invaded.

The doors of the cars opened at the same time. Dozens of men in suits stepped out with military precision, carrying automatic weapons as they immediately secured the perimeter. They didn't look like the cheap assassins who had just been slaughtered in this living room. They looked like a royal army.

From the longest car in the middle of the convoy, someone stepped out.

He didn't run. He didn't carry a weapon. The man walked through the storm with slow, calculated steps, as if every raindrop moved out of his way out of fear. His dark gray three-piece suit was perfectly tailored without a single flaw. A silver cane carved with a wolf's skull tapped softly against the broken wooden floor of the porch.

When he stepped into the living room filled with corpses, his incredibly handsome face showed no surprise. His eyes, silver and cold as ice, swept across the room, taking in every body, pool of blood, and piece of debris with the calculation of a businessman counting his losses.

“I spent half a million dollars bribing an informant on the city council just to make sure I arrived here first,” the man said. His voice was smooth and calm, carrying an authority that seemed to freeze the air around us. “Yet you beat me to it, Vaelorian. You truly have no sense of artistry when it comes to closing a deal. This slaughter is highly inefficient.”

Vaelorian, the man who had just claimed me, let out a low growl.

“This doesn't concern you, Veyrenth. Take your men and leave, or I'll add your corpse to the ones already lying in this room.”

The man named Veyrenth only gave him a faint smile. It was an aristocratic smile that seemed to hide a thousand knives.

“I never leave before I get what I want, Aurevian.”

The man's silver eyes slowly moved from the pile of bodies, past Aurevian's shoulder, and finally locked onto me.

The smile on his face disappeared instantly.

The silver cane in his hand stopped tapping against the floor. His face, as calm as a frozen lake, suddenly cracked. I watched his pupils widen, his chest stop moving as if he had forgotten how to breathe. The air around him suddenly became sharp, filled with the scent of cold metal and a snowstorm.

The aristocratic man dropped his cane. The sharp clang of silver hitting the floor echoed loudly through the silence.

“Impossible,” he whispered. All traces of calmness had vanished from his voice. He stared at me with an expression of shock that looked almost like pain. “That... can't be.”

Aurevian immediately moved, hiding half of my body behind his broad back.

“Don't you dare look at her, Vaelric Veyrenth. Back away. She's mine.”

Those words triggered something terrifying.

Vaelric stared at Aurevian, his face now filled with a rage as cold as glacial ice. “Yours?” he hissed sharply. “My wolf says otherwise, Vaelorian. Step away from my fate.”

Fate. Mine. Wolf. My head was spinning. My father was dead, and these two insane men were fighting over me as if I were an item at an auction.

“Take one more step, and I'll tear your head from your neck,” Aurevian threatened, his fingernails lengthening into terrifying black claws.

“You can try, Commander,” Vaelric replied, undoing the buttons of his suit with one deadly movement.

At that very moment, the air inside the room shattered.

I didn't know how to explain it, but it felt as if gravity had suddenly multiplied. Two invisible forces collided in the air. A dark, heavy, suffocating aura radiated from both men. They hadn't even touched each other, yet the clash of their energy caused the remaining pieces of glass in the windows to explode at once.

The walls shook. The wooden floor beneath our feet cracked.

To them, it was a display of dominance.

To me, it was a death sentence.

My human body wasn't made to withstand such overwhelming supernatural pressure. My lungs felt as if they were being crushed from the inside. The air refused to enter my throat. I fell to my knees, clutching my burning chest.

I tried to scream, but no sound came out. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. My vision slowly turned dark red.

Then, pain beyond the limits of human endurance exploded through my veins. It felt as if my own blood were boiling, trying to break through my skin from the inside.

I coughed violently. Something thick and foul-smelling flowed from my mouth and dripped onto the floor.

It wasn't red.

The blood I vomited was pitch black.

Aurevian and Vaelric immediately stopped their aura clash. Both of them stared at me with the same look of horror.

My consciousness began to fade. In the final seconds before darkness swallowed me, I lowered my head and stared at the veins on my wrist. They were no longer blue. A faint silver light was glowing through them, growing brighter beneath my skin, as if a dead star had just been forcibly awakened inside my body.