Alpha Bound

Chapter 9: Feral Blood

It started with a scream.

High-pitched, guttural—cutting through the early morning mist like a blade. The sound echoed through Silverrest, and the village stirred before the sun had even breached the horizon.

Kael was the first to reach the southern edge of the hunting grounds. His wolf was already restless beneath his skin, alert and pacing. Behind him, Ronan and two warriors sprinted to join him.

A scout—one of the younger mixed-blood patrols—was crouched low over something in the grass, breathing hard, his face pale.

“They came out of nowhere,” he rasped. “No scent… no warning.”

Kael stepped forward and saw what the scout had found:

A deer—ripped apart at the neck and belly—but not eaten.

Savaged.

A kill meant to provoke.

Or claim.

By midday, the wind carried new scents—musk, blood, and something darker. Older.

The guards doubled. Aria stood on the council platform with Elder Mira, watching with calm, but inwardly, her instincts burned.

She could feel them.

They weren’t rogues.

They weren’t pack.

They were something else.

By nightfall, they came into the clearing.

Six of them. Wolves in two-legged form, tall and lean, covered in war paint made of ash and blood. Their hair hung in tangled braids. Their eyes burned golden and silver and in one case—black.

They didn’t speak.

Didn’t growl.

They stood just beyond the stone line of Silverrest’s sacred ground, silent and still.

The oldest stepped forward.

His skin was lined with scars. His canines extended even in human form. He wore a necklace of teeth.

And when he spoke, it was not in the common tongue.

“Children of the Broken Packs…

The wild has returned.”

Kael and Aria approached together, their presence undeniable.

“You are trespassing,” Kael said, voice deep and calm but edged with warning.

The leader tilted his head. “Trespass? This land was ours before your laws. Before your borders.”

“You’re Feral-born,” Aria said softly.

A murmur spread through the gathered pack.

The man nodded slowly. “We are the Skarhun. The untamed blood. We do not kneel. We do not bind.”

“You were thought extinct,” Mira whispered from the council steps.

The leader’s black-eyed second growled. “Extinction is a story told by cowards who fear what cannot be caged.”

Kael narrowed his eyes. “What do you want?”

The leader looked past them—toward the dens, toward the pups.

Toward Aria’s son.

“We felt him howl,” the Skarhun Alpha said. “The Moon stirred. The wind cracked. The bloodline awakened. He belongs to the wild.”

Aria stepped forward, her voice ice-cold.

“He belongs to us. To me.”

The Skarhun smiled.

“Not for long.”

Council Meeting – Midnight

Kael slammed his fist into the table. “They want to take him. Train him. Or worse—use him.”

“They’ve waited for centuries,” Mira said, voice strained. “The Lunaris line is sacred to more than just the packs. To the wild-born, it’s prophecy incarnate.”

Ronan growled. “We should’ve killed them on sight.”

“No,” Aria said. “We need to know what they really want.”

“They want to raise him feral,” Kael said. “No rules. No balance. Just raw instinct.”

“They see him as their savior,” Mira murmured. “But he’s not theirs. He’s ours.”

That night, Aria couldn't sleep. She sat beside her son’s bed, running her fingers through his soft black curls. He looked peaceful. Innocent.

But the power beneath his skin was growing.

She had felt it during the last full moon—when he cried and the wind howled in time with his breath, when the earth trembled beneath their den.

She didn’t know how to train him.

But she knew who shouldn’t.

At Dawn – The Challenge

Kael called a meeting with the Skarhun Alpha at the edge of the sacred glade.

“You come into our territory. You threaten our blood. You claim prophecy,” Kael said. “But power must be earned.”

The Skarhun’s grin widened. “Then let’s earn it.”

They fought.

Claws. Teeth. Shifting mid-strike. The battle was primal and vicious—an Alpha’s duel in its truest form.

Kael was fast and brutal. But the Skarhun was unpredictable—he moved like a storm, untamed and unbound.

For a moment, Kael faltered—his leg slashed, his back to a tree.

But then Aria’s voice rang out:

“You are Alpha of more than just the pack. You are Alpha of this land.”

Kael surged.

He tackled the feral Alpha, forcing him to the ground, fangs at his throat.

And the Skarhun… laughed.

He yielded.

But not in defeat.

In respect.

“You are strong,” the Skarhun said. “Worthy of him. For now.”

Kael released him.

“This boy is not your savior,” Kael growled. “He is his own.”

The Skarhun stood. “Then teach him the wild within, or it will destroy him.”

He turned, the others falling in step behind him.

“But know this, Shadowfang—when the Blood Moon returns, the wild will come to claim its own. One way or another.”

As the Skarhun disappeared into the forest, Aria joined Kael, blood on his hands, fire in his chest.

“That was a warning,” she said.

Kael looked at the sky, already knowing.

“No. That was a beginning.”

That night, their son stood in his sleep.

Eyes wide open.

And the earth beneath the den cracked—just a hairline fracture, but enough to make the stones shift.

Enough to make Kael and Aria rise from their bed in silence.

Their son didn’t speak.

But he raised his hand toward the ceiling… and the wind answered.

The entrance to the crypt was older than the packs.

Hidden beneath the Moonclaw cliffs, carved into raw stone and sealed with iron roots twisted like a cage, it pulsed with energy—not life, but something ancient and waiting.

Only four people alive even knew of its existence.

Now, Kael and Aria stood before it.

And they were about to awaken what had been silenced for centuries.

“Are you certain?” Elder Mira asked for the third time, her voice unsteady with age and warning.

“No,” Aria replied. “But the dreams are growing worse. The wind is no longer whispering… it’s screaming.”

“And the earth trembled again last night,” Kael added. “He’s changing. Rapidly. We can’t guide him if we don’t understand what he’s becoming.”

Mira sighed and laid a hand on the seal. “The Bone Ritual hasn’t been performed since before the Silverfang split. The price is... unpredictable.”

Aria’s silver eyes didn’t waver. “So is our son.”

Mira stepped back. “Then speak your oaths… and enter.”

The Descent

Inside, the air was thick with dust and memory. The walls pulsed with quiet breath. Bones lined the shelves in perfect symmetry—skulls of Alphas, warriors, seers, all facing forward, as if still watching.

Aria shivered. “They’re judging us.”

Kael scanned the walls. “Let them.”

They reached the heart of the crypt—the Circle of Remains. A stone ring etched with lunar phases surrounded a pit filled with powder-white dust.

At its center: the Throne of Bone—a chair sculpted entirely from the fused spines of wolves long gone, topped with the skull of the first Alpha of Silverfang.

Mira spoke the words.

“Those who seek the truth of blood

Must bleed before the bones.

The living and the dead shall bind,

And secrets shall be shown.”

She drew a dagger of carved obsidian.

“Choose,” she said. “Which one of you bleeds first?”

Kael stepped forward without hesitation.

But Aria stopped him.

“I’ll go.”

The First Cut

The dagger bit into her palm, the blood thick and silver-tinged.

The moment her blood struck the dust, the room shifted. The bones rattled. The air dropped to freezing.

Then the dust glowed.

And the skulls began to whisper.

Aria’s vision blurred—she stumbled and fell into the center of the ring. Kael lunged, but Mira stopped him.

“She must go alone,” the elder said. “If you follow her, she’ll never return.”

Kael growled, low and primal—but stepped back.

Inside the Ritual

Aria opened her eyes in a world of shadow and light.

She was standing not in the crypt—but in a version of it, twisted by time. The walls were endless. The bones whispered her name.

A voice echoed.

“Daughter of Moonclaw. Mother of Lunaris.

You seek truth.

But truth cuts deeper than any claw.”

The first Alpha appeared—his fur ghost-white, his body massive and radiant.

“Your son is not cursed,” he said. “He is convergence. The meeting of power long separated. Shadowfang. Moonclaw. Lunaris. Wild.”

“He’s losing control,” Aria said. “We feel it. See it.”

The Alpha turned, revealing a vision.

Her son—older now, maybe fifteen—his eyes glowing, his body levitating slightly above the ground as winds tore trees from their roots.

He screamed.

And wolves howled in terror.

“You must prepare him,” the Alpha said. “But first… you must understand what was done.”

The Broken Bond

The vision shifted again.

Aria saw the original betrayal—Silverfang’s first split. Two brothers: one who wielded fire and one who embraced the moon. They fought. Not for power—but because one dared to bind with the wild.

The wild-borns were feared. Their power was erratic. Untamable. The packs turned on them. Massacred them. Buried them deep in unmarked graves.

The survivors scattered into the feral lands… and became the Skarhun.

But before they vanished, they swore a prophecy:

“The child of all bloods will return.

Marked by the moon.

Forged by shadow.

Unleashed by fire.”

Aria dropped to her knees.

“It’s him,” she whispered. “Our son. He’s the prophecy.”

The Alpha nodded.

“But prophecy is not fate. It is a door. He can open it—or burn trying.”

Aria reached for the vision, for her son—

And the bones screamed.

Return to Flesh

Kael caught her as she collapsed out of the trance.

She was pale. Shaking. Her palm still bleeding.

But her eyes burned brighter than ever.

“I saw it,” she gasped. “The truth. The Skarhun… the split… the bloodline. Our son isn’t dangerous by accident. He was born to change everything.”

Kael didn’t flinch.

“Then we train him to survive it.”

Mira, who had been silent, stepped forward.

“There is more,” she said. “Now that the bones have tasted her blood… others will feel it. Old things. Buried things.”

“Let them come,” Kael said darkly. “We’ve awakened. We’re ready.”

Back in Silverrest

The moment they returned to the den, their youngest son looked at them, fully awake—his eyes shimmering not silver, but blue fire.

And for the first time, he spoke words beyond a child’s grasp.

“The bones told me too, Mama.

They said I’ll burn the sky…

unless I remember who I am.”

Aria froze.

Kael stepped beside her, his voice calm but fierce.

“We’ll remind you. Every day. Until it’s yours to control.”

The boy smiled faintly, and the wind inside the room stopped.

Just… stopped.