Chapter Three
1574 Words
Chapter 5
ELIRA
Third dawn didn’t bleed. It burned.
The sky over Bloodfang was the color of an old bruise. Purple-black, edged in fire. The kind of sky that promised blood before noon.
Neris wrapped my shoulder in fresh linen. Her hands were steadier today, but her eyes weren’t. “Three dawns,” she murmured. “No hybrid’s ever seen three. No prisoner, period.”
“I’m not a prisoner,” I said. The lie tasted like iron. “I’m a message.”
She paused. “To who?”
“To him.”
I didn’t need to say his name. We both knew.
The guards came before the sun cleared the walls. Six this time. Blackfangs, not regular brutes. Varik wanted me dead, and he wasn’t taking chances.
They didn’t speak. Didn’t kick. They just chained my wrists behind my back with silver-dipped links and marched me through the tunnels.
The pits were waiting.
And they were full
KAEL
The entire Dominion had turned out.
Nobles in their furs. Warriors in their leathers. Merchants, healers, even the pups kept behind their mothers’ legs. Third dawn was law. Third dawn was spectacle.
But third dawn had never meant this.
My father’s voice rang in my head "A king does not hesitate, Kael. A king does not explain. A king does not feel."
I felt everything.
Her scent hit me before I saw her. Blood and wolfsbane and rain. Underneath it, that impossible lightning note that made my wolf claw at my ribs.
Mine.
I crushed the word. Buried it under ice.
She walked into the pit with her head high. Shoulder bleeding through the linen. Silver chains cutting her wrists. She should have looked broken.
She looked like a queen who’d forgotten she was in chains.
Dain stood to my right. Silent. Judging. He knew. Of course he knew. He’d always been closer to Mother’s temple teachings than Father’s war doctrine.
Kaia stood to my left. Spear in hand. Smiling. The vial from her father was hidden in her bracer. I didn’t know that. Not yet. But my wolf did. It snarled every time she shifted.
“Third dawn,” Varik bellowed to the crowd. “By Alpha law, the hybrid earns death… or dominance.”
The crowd roared. Death. Death. Death.
Elira didn’t flinch. She found my eyes across the pit.
And she smiled Blood on her teeth.
It wasn’t a surrender. It was a challenge.
ELIRA
The gate didn’t open.
That was the first wrong thing.
Usually it screeched. Usually something feral came charging out. Usually I had maybe three seconds to plan how not to die.
Today, the gate stayed shut.
Instead, Varik nodded to the far wall.
A second gate. One I hadn’t seen before. Smaller. Reinforced with black iron.
It opened.
What walked out wasn’t feral.
It was worse.
A male. Tall. Broad. Skin covered in ritual scars that marked him as Forgotten—wolves exiled for losing their minds to the moon sickness but kept alive for one purpose executions.
He wasn’t mindless. He was aware. And he was looking at me like I was a bone he’d been promised.
The crowd went dead silent. Even Kaia stopped smiling.
“Zarek Morven sends his regards,” Varik announced. “A gift for the Shadow Alpha. To commemorate third dawn.”
My blood went cold.
Zarek. The Rival Alpha. The one who wanted Bloodfang’s throne and Kael’s head on a spike.
And he’d sent a Forgotten to kill me. In front of the whole Dominion.
Message received.
KAEL
Rage. Cold. Absolute.
Zarek wasn’t just challenging me. He was mocking me. Using my laws, my pits, my prisoner to spit in my face.
The Forgotten’s name was Rykar. Once a Beta of the Eastern Claws. I’d met him before he lost his mind. He’d been honorable.
Now he was a weapon. And he was staring at her.
My wolf went feral behind my ribs. Not in bloodlust. In protection.
No one touches her but me.
The thought was violence. Was treason. Was truth.
Dain’s voice was barely a breath beside me. “If she dies, you’ll never forgive yourself. And neither will your wolf.”
“I don’t—”
“You do,” he cut me off. Gentle. Damning. “Brother, I’ve seen that look once before. On Father’s face, the night Mother died. He didn’t claim her. And it killed him slower than any blade.”
My claws dug into the stone of the ledge. Cracks spiderwebbed under my hand.
Rykar stepped forward. The chains on Elira’s wrists meant she couldn’t even lift her arms to defend herself.
This wasn’t a trial. It was an execution.
And the whole Dominion was watching to see if I’d let it happen.
ELIRA
I couldn’t fight. Not like this.
Rykar moved like liquid death. No wasted motion. No growl of warning. He was trained, even mad.
Forty feet. Thirty. Twenty.
I did the only thing I could.
I talked.
“Rykar of the Eastern Claws,” I said. My voice carried. “You knelt to Alpha Bran before the sickness took you. You swore to protect the weak.”
He paused. One step. His head tilted. Something flickered in his rotted eyes.
The crowd murmured.
“You remember,” I pressed. “You remember your pack. Your daughter. Lilia. She had your eyes.”
Rykar stopped. Ten feet away. His claws flexed.
Varik snarled from above. “Kill her, Forgotten!”
Rykar’s head snapped toward Varik. A growl built in his chest. Not at me.
At him.
Hope. Stupid, dangerous hope.
Then Kaia moved.
KAIA
This wasn’t the plan.
She was supposed to die to a feral. Quick. Clean. Then Kael would move on, and I’d pour the Moon’s Leash into his wine tonight while he grieved a prisoner. He’d never know what he lost.
But this… this connection… the way he looked at her…
No.
I pulled the vial from my bracer. One throw. It would shatter at her feet. The fumes alone would sever any fledgling bond. Make him hate her.
I raised my arm.
“KAIA, NO!”
Dain’s voice. Too late.
I threw.
KAEL
Time slowed.
I saw the vial. Saw the silver liquid. Smelled the wrongness of it. Moon’s Leash. Banned by every pack. Made to kill bonds. To kill mates.
It arced toward her.
My wolf broke.
I didn’t think. Didn’t command. Didn’t rule.
I moved.
Shadow poured off me. The ledge exploded under my feet as I launched into the pit. Forty feet down. I hit the dirt between Elira and the vial half a second before it landed.
It shattered on my shoulder.
Pain. White-hot. Not physical. Deeper. Like someone had taken claws to the thread tying my soul to my ribs.
The crowd screamed.
Rykar roared and charged not at Elira. At me. At the threat.
Elira’s eyes went wide. “Kael!”
She said my name. Not Alpha. Not monster.
Kael.
The Moon’s Leash burned through my veins, trying to find a bond to sever. Trying to find the thing I’d been denying for three days.
And it found it.
Agony. The bond lit up like a silver brand between us. For one second, I felt her. All of her. Rage. Fear. Hope. Defiance.
Then the Leash tried to cut it.
I roared. The sound wasn’t wolf. Wasn’t human. Was shadow and fury and mine.
I caught Rykar mid-lunge. One hand around his throat. My claws sank in.
“YOU DON’T TOUCH HER,” I snarled. My voice shook the walls. Alpha command and something older. Something mated.
Rykar choked. Went limp.
I dropped him. He didn’t get back up.
Silence. Absolute.
I turned.
Elira was on her knees. The silver from the Leash had splashed her too. Her eyes were squeezed shut, face pale with pain.
I went to her. Dropped to my knees in the blood and dirt. Didn’t care who saw.
My hand hovered over her cheek. Shaking.
“Look at me,” I whispered. No command. A plea.
Her eyes opened. Moon-bright. Glassy with pain. With recognition.
The bond, wounded but alive, screamed between us.
ELIRA
It hurt. God, it hurt.
Like someone had tied my heart to his and then set both on fire.
Mate.
The word wasn’t Dain’s anymore. It was in my blood. In my bones. In the way his scent was suddenly the only air I could breathe.
I hated him.
I wanted him.
I knew him.
His hand finally touched my cheek. Calloused. Warm. Shaking.
And for one second, Kael Viremont, Shadow Alpha of Bloodfang, looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that could kill him.
Then the horns sounded.
DAIN
The gates burst open.
Not pit gates. Dominion gates.
Warriors in Zarek Morven’s gray poured into the stands, blades drawn.
“FOR THE TRUE ALPHA!” they bellowed.
Varik drew his sword. “Protect the King!”
Too late.
Chaos. Blood. The crowd became a stampede.
And in the middle of the pit, my brother was on his knees, holding a half-dead hybrid, with a severed mate bond bleeding silver between them.
Father was going to kill him.
Zarek was going to kill him.
And Kaia… Kaia had just tried to kill the only thing that could save him.
I drew my blades and jumped into the pit.
“Brother,” I said. “We can't "
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