Claimed by the Demon Alpha

Chapter 7: The Search

Rex POV

Pain wakes me.

Every muscle screams. My shoulders burn where the chains bit deep. I force my eyes open and see my hands---human hands, not claws.

I'm back.

No relief comes. Just hollow exhaustion. This isn't the first time. Every time the dragon takes over, I give Keanu the same order: lock me in this chamber. Chain me down with iron carved with binding runes. The High Priestess promised they would contain the beast.

They don't.

The broken chains lie scattered across the floor like discarded bones.

Then the memory hits.

Her.

A girl. Last night. She came to the dragon. I didn't see her face---everything was a blur of pain and rage---but I remember her scent.

Vanilla. Jasmine. Something else I can't name. Soft. Warm. Alive.

And the light. God, the light. Her body glowed---gentle, bright, like captured moonlight. The moment that radiance touched me, the dragon stopped. Just... stopped. No more thrashing. No more fury tearing me apart from the inside.

For the first time since this curse began, the beast receded peacefully.

The iron door creaks open. Keanu enters, his face carefully neutral.

"A girl came here last night," I say. My voice is rough, scraped raw.

Keanu's eyes sweep the chamber. No blood. No body. "There's no one here, my King."

"She was real. She touched me. She---"

"Your Majesty." His voice is gentle. Too gentle. "These episodes always leave you disoriented. The visions seem real, but---"

"It wasn't a vision."

"Then tell me what she looked like."

I open my mouth. Nothing comes.

I don't know.

Doubt creeps in like poison. Maybe Keanu's right. Maybe my mind is finally breaking.

He begins unlocking the chains still wrapped around my wrists. "It's normal, my King. After what your body endures, hallucinations are expected."

The chains fall away. He retrieves my royal robe and offers it.

I stand, wrapping the silk around myself. But something nags at me. Something I can't dismiss.

The scent.

It's still here. Faint but real. Clinging to my skin like it was made to be there.

I've heard it described a hundred times. Every wolf knows the stories before they can even shift. Your fated mate's scent doesn't smell like perfume or sweat or something ordinary. It reaches inside you. Past your ribs. Past twelve years of isolation and blood and the thing that replaced your soul. It grabs something you thought was already dead and pulls.

I've spent twelve years telling myself the mate bond wasn't possible for me anymore. The dragon killed that. The curse killed that. The Moon Goddess wouldn't be so cruel as to send a fated mate to a man who would only destroy her.

But that scent.

"Find her." The words come out different than I expect. Quieter. More urgent. "Bring every woman from the waiting room before me. One by one."

Keanu pauses. "My King?"

I turn to face him fully. Something is tightening in my chest---something dangerous and unfamiliar. Hope. I haven't felt it in so long I almost don't recognize the shape of it.

"That scent." I press my fist to my sternum, trying to describe what I barely understand myself. "I know what it means. I know what she is."

Keanu's expression shifts. Careful. Watchful. "You believe she's---"

"My mate." The word feels enormous leaving my mouth. Heavy with everything I've spent twelve years grieving. "She's my fated mate. She has to be. Nothing else explains what happened to the dragon. Nothing else explains why I can still smell her." I pause. "Why it won't leave me alone."

Silence.

Then Keanu nods, once. He asks no more questions. He knows what this means. He knows what it would mean---for the curse, for the kingdom, for everything.

"I'll bring them," he says quietly.

Selene POV

"Every bride will see the King today."

Keanu's announcement crashes over me like ice water.

No. God, no.

My chance to escape---gone. I have no one to blame but myself. I should have run faster last night. Should have kept going instead of walking toward that dragon's roar like something was pulling me forward against my will.

Is he looking for me? Does he know someone came to the dragon?

What will they do to me when they find out?

Istha, the High Priestess, appears in the doorway. Her skeletal face is hard as stone. "Bathe. Dress. You'll be presented to His Majesty within the hour."

The other women rush to prepare. They scrub their skin raw, perfume themselves, arrange their hair with shaking hands. The white gowns they're given are sheer---meant to seduce, to tempt, to survive.

I don't bother. I stay in my simple shift, hair loose. Let them think I've given up. I'm busy looking for exits, counting guards, calculating odds.

The blonde woman from before sneers at me. "Look at her. Does she want to die? The King will tear her apart for showing such disrespect."

"Good," I snap. "I'd rather be torn apart than die in his filthy bed."

She recoils. The others mutter.

Istha's voice cuts through the room. "Silence!"

We freeze.

She moves through us slowly, black robes trailing. "When you enter His Majesty's presence, you will not speak unless spoken to. You will obey every command. You will submit." Her dark eyes sweep the room. "Your lives depend on it."

Several women start crying quietly.

Keanu appears. "Line up."

We file into the corridor. Colder here. Darker. Torches cast shadows that look like grasping hands. The air smells of old stone and something metallic underneath.

Blood.

At the end of the corridor stands the door. Massive black wood inlaid with crimson patterns. Ancient symbols carved into the frame.

One woman whispers, "It's beautiful."

I think: It's a coffin.

When I pass Keanu, his hand grabs my arm. "You're last."

Of course. Fine. More time to think.

The first girl goes in. Beautiful. Trembling. The door closes like a death knell.

Two minutes pass.

The door opens. The girl doesn't come out.

"Next," Keanu says.

The second girl collapses. Guards drag her through, nails scraping stone. Sobbing. Begging. The door shuts. Cuts it off.

None of them come back.

By the time it's my turn, my whole body is shaking.

"Your turn."

Each step toward that door costs me something. The symbols pulse. The air changes. Heavier. Older.

This is how I die.

Keanu opens the door. I step inside.

The room is vast. Heavy curtains block most of the light. Shadows pool in every corner. No blood. No bodies.

Where is he?

Behind me, the door closes. The sound echoes.

And then it hits me.

A scent.

I stop walking.

I don't understand what's happening. It's not a smell I know---something dark and deep, like forest after a storm, like iron and woodsmoke, like something ancient that has no proper name. It has no right to feel familiar. I've never been here before. I've never smelled this before in my life.

But my body responds like it has.

My pulse does something strange. Stumbles. Catches. A warmth spreads through my chest that I don't want and can't explain, and for one disorienting moment my feet don't want to run. They want to move toward it.

I don't understand it.

I don't get the chance to.

Strong arms wrap around me from behind.

I scream, whirling around.

And see a face that steals the rest of the air from my lungs.

Handsome. Devastatingly, impossibly handsome.