Page 18

Lexa

I woke drowning in heat—slick with sweat, lungs burning, my heart pounding against my ribs like it was trying to claw its way out.

Every breath scraped raw through my throat, and my limbs felt too heavy to move, like I was sinking into a bed of fire.

My skin prickled with fever, but I knew—this wasn’t sickness.

It was her.

The wolf.

She was there, just beneath the surface, no longer silent, no longer buried in the safe dark where I had locked her away for years.

She stirred now, alert, pulsing under my skin like a second heartbeat.

I could feel her presence—hot, wild, suffocating.

A part of me that had always been other, something I had carved out with blood and magic, something I had rejected with everything I was.

And now she was awake.

A whisper of awareness crept in slowly—details that made my stomach tighten. The bed beneath me was not my own. The sheets were far too soft, the scent in the room too clean, too sharp with smoke and leather and something deeper, darker—him.

I tried to sit up, and every muscle screamed.

My body was stiff, wrung dry like I’d fought an entire war inside my own bones.

When I managed to push myself onto my elbows, I finally saw it—this room.

Spacious, dimly lit, warm from the fire still flickering in the hearth.

Thick drapes drawn. Silver pitcher on a carved table beside the bed. My breath caught.

This wasn’t the guest chamber. This was his.

Andros’s. My heart spiked hard in my chest, a sick twist rising in my throat as panic surged up in waves.

I gripped the covers, fingers trembling, trying to piece together the edges of my shattered memory.

I remembered the pain, the heat, the second rune tearing itself from my spine. The screaming. The desperation.

But nothing else. I looked around the room, frantic, and that’s when I saw him.

He was seated near the fire, body draped in shadow, one arm resting on the chair’s arm, the other cradling a goblet that he hadn’t touched. He hadn’t removed his armour fully—just his coat, now folded across the nearby bench—and his boots were still damp with snow.

His blue eyes were already on me. Watching. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. He just stared, dark and still, like a predator waiting to see if the prey would flee or fight.

I sat up further, clutching the blanket to my chest as if it could shield me from the weight of his gaze, from the growing horror clawing through my ribs.

“What…” I swallowed, my voice raw. “What happened? What did I—what did we—?”

He rose from the chair in a single fluid movement, all power and command wrapped in silence, and walked toward the bed with that same relentless calm that made him more dangerous than any roar ever could.

“You didn’t sleep with me,” he said, his voice flat, clipped, like the effort it took to keep it controlled was work. “Not that you didn’t try.”

I flinched as the words hit, sharp and heavy, dragging guilt through the fog of my exhaustion. My mouth opened, then shut again, nothing coherent forming. I didn’t remember trying. I didn’t remember anything past the second rune cracking.

“I don’t—” I started, but he cut me off with a slight shake of his head.

“You were burning up. Ranting. Delirious. Trying to seduce me one second, cursing me the next. You fought like hell until your body couldn’t take it anymore. Then you screamed like the world was ending, and collapsed.” His jaw clenched. “You nearly died.”

The weight of those words stole the breath from my lungs. I turned my face away, shame scraping deep, but he wasn’t finished.

“I should let you rot for what you said. For what you did to yourself. For hiding behind that filth carved into your back and thinking you could walk into my home, insult my pack, insult me, and still expect to be spared.” His voice was rough now, rougher than before.

“But instead, I’m feeding you. I’m keeping you warm. I’m making sure you live.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, pulling a cloth from the basin on the table.

The moment the coolness touched my forehead, I nearly wept—not because it was kind, but because I didn’t understand how he could still offer that after everything.

His fingers brushed damp hair from my face with a gentleness that didn’t belong to a man like him.

Not someone who had seen the things he had done.

Not someone who had earned every whisper of fear that followed him down the halls of this citadel.

“You can stop cursing her,” he murmured quietly, like the fury in him had burned too hot to sustain and now left only ash. “Your wolf. She didn’t betray you last night. You didn’t fuck me. You didn’t lose yourself.”

I stared up at him, too weak to reply, throat too dry to form any defence, even if I had one.

He looked down at me—still angry, still dangerous—but something in his gaze had shifted. It wasn’t lust. It wasn’t power. It was something quieter. He was furious, yes, but he hadn’t turned away. He hadn’t left.

The warmth of his bed was suffocating. Too soft.

Too safe. The blankets trapped me like chains, like velvet bindings I couldn’t rip through no matter how hard I tried.

My body ached. My skin still burned, though the fever had begun to ease.

The wolf inside me was curled and quiet—for now—but I could feel her there, breathing beneath the surface, not broken, not banished.

I was weaker than I’d ever felt before.

But desperation… that was still mine. I turned to him, to the man who sat at my bedside like a silent storm, eyes sharp with judgment, arms crossed, his anger simmering beneath the quiet, calculated control.

“Andros,” I whispered, and gods, I hated the way my voice cracked on his name. “Please… just one rune. One more. I’ll get the coin. I’ll work—I’ll kill if I have to. Just enough for her to carve another one. I’ve survived with three before, I can do it again.”

His expression didn’t change. Stone. Ice. Rage simmering behind his gaze like a fire kept barely caged.

“But not two,” I added, more breath than voice now. “Not for long. You don’t understand… I’m not strong enough for this. I—I’m not.”

The words slipped out like blood from a wound. Bitter. Exposed. Andros rose from the edge of the bed, slow and deadly, towering over me like judgment made flesh.

“Don’t you fucking make me tie you to this bed,” he growled, low and venomous. “Because gods know I will , Lexa.”

His voice sent a tremor through my bones.

“You think I’m playing with you? You think I’ll watch you drag yourself through another carving? Another spell that eats you from the inside out while you lie to yourself and call it freedom?”

My chest heaved, panic clawing at my throat. “You don’t get it. You don’t know what it’s like—”

“No,”His voice cracked like a whip across the room.“Don’t you dare throw that at me. You came here like you were better than all of us. Judging this pack. Judging me. Calling this life twisted and violent and wrong. But it’s time someone judged you, stray .”

That word. That damn word. Stray . He said it like it meant filth. Like it meant truth.

“You want to talk about cruelty?” he said, his blue eyes burning straight into mine.

“Let’s fucking talk about it. Yes, I get it.

You were raised in some gods-forsaken hellhole.

Wherever the fuck you came from, they carved your fate into your bones and told you to smile through it.

And on some pathetic, twisted level, I can understand why you ran. Why you wanted to burn it all down.”

He leaned closer, and I flinched—not from fear, but from the weight of what he was about to say.

“But don’t you dare pretend you didn’t spiral so deep down that hole you didn’t just burn your own future—you started setting fire to that boy’s, too.”

“Leave Dain out of this—”

I didn’t want to cry. I swore I wouldn’t. But there was something about the way he spoke—like every word was a verdict—that made the edges of me start to bleed. I clenched my jaw, blinked up at the ceiling, desperate to hold the tears back. I’d survived too much to break in front of him.

But Andros didn’t relent.

“You told me to stay away from the boy,” he said, stepping closer, voice low and thunderous with restrained fury. “Like I was the danger. Like I was the monster lurking in the dark.”

He stood over me now, eyes locked onto mine like they could drag the truth straight out of my spine.

“But you tell me, Lexa… who’s the real fucking monster here?”

My chest heaved. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

“Was it me who let him go to bed hungry while you scraped silver together to pay a witch to carve your shame into your back?” His voice dropped further, a quiet thing full of wrath.

“Was it me who watched him walk through a blizzard in broken shoes because every coin went to keep your precious wolf gutted and mute?”

“Stop it—” I choked, voice trembling.

“How many times did he suffer,” he pushed on, unforgiving, relentless, “because you chose your fear over his safety? How many times did that dark fucking magic cost him warmth? Food? A future?”

I tried to shove him when he reached for the cold compress again, tried to fight, but my limbs were weak, shaking, uncooperative.

And he caught my wrist with ease. Iron and finality.

“I am done,” he growled, voice barely human, “done playing with you, stray. You are in my territory now. And while you’re under my roof, you obey.”

“You think I’ll bow to you?” I spat, fury bubbling up like bile, rising to cover the truth he’d shoved in my face. “You are not my Alpha. This is not my pack. This shithole is not my home. And I am not— will never be —yours to command.”

His blue eyes darkened like the sky before a storm—silent, deadly, inevitable. And then, softly, like the warning before an execution:

“You are now.”

He moved before I could breathe. In one violent, final motion, Andros surged forward, grabbed me by the throat and shoulder, and bit.

His teeth sank into the hollow of my neck—right over the place I’d sworn no one would ever touch. The pain was instant, vicious, searing through every nerve like fire wrapped in ice. My back arched off the bed with a cry that wasn’t human, wasn’t mine.

It belonged to her.

My wolf.

She erupted like a scream in my chest, weak but present, clawing her way up through the void the runes had carved. Her pain was mine. Her rage. Her need.

And then came the bond. Dark. Deep. Absolute.

It snapped into place like a chain forged from gods and instinct and blood—something primal and ancient and unchangeable. No magic could undo it. No witch could burn it away.

My wolf knew him now. And she wanted him.

Even as I screamed in denial, even as my soul shattered under the weight of that mark, she reached for him. Not with fear—but longing. With hunger. With submission, forced or not, wired into her bones.

Andros’s breath was hot against my skin as he lifted his mouth from my neck, lips stained red from the mark, eyes burning down into mine.

“You don’t get to run anymore,” he whispered, deadly and quiet. “You don’t get to hide behind spells and scars.”

He cupped my face, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.

“Your wolf is awake now,” he murmured. “And I’ve claimed her. You belong to me , Lexa. And gods help anyone who tries to take you from me now.”

The moment the bite faded into a dull, burning throb, the shock gave way to something else—something violently alive.

Rage. Not anger. Not frustration. No. This was pure, unfiltered, soul-deep rage.

It exploded out of me like a beast unchained, like every scream I’d ever swallowed finally tore through my throat.

My body jolted up, and I lunged at him with everything I had left, teeth bared, nails aiming for his face like I could carve that smug look off his skin and rip his mark from my neck with it.

“You bastard! You fucking animal!” I shrieked, the cords in my neck straining as I fought to claw at him, to bite, to kill. “You think this means anything?! You think this makes you my Alpha?! I’ll gut you! I’ll—I will fucking end you!”

He caught my wrists with infuriating ease, his eyes dark with something unreadable. Not amusement. Not anger. Resolve.

“I warned you,” he said, voice low, like thunder rolling in over blackened skies. “Don’t make me tie you down.”

“You think you can control me?!” I spat, struggling against his grip, hatred pouring out of me like blood from an open wound. “You’re nothing! Just another deluded tyrant who gets off on owning what was never his to begin with!”

But he wasn’t playing anymore.

In one swift motion, he threw me back against the bed, and before I could rise again, the restraints were already in his hands—soft, thick leather cords he’d no doubt used for darker purposes.

I kicked, cursed, but he was relentless.

Efficient. He tied my wrists to the iron posts above my head, pulled tight enough to hold but not bruise.

“You son of a bitch!” I screamed, jerking against the bonds with every ounce of fury I had left. “You can’t leave me like this! You can’t—Andros, you fucking coward! Come back and fight me!”

He didn’t even flinch. He stood at the edge of the bed, looking down at me—sweat-slicked, bare-legged, wrists raw from struggling, neck pulsing with the mark he’d left—and there was something behind his gaze now. Not lust. Not even power.

Possession.

“Try to rip my face off again,” he said coldly. “See what happens when I stop being gentle.”

“Go to hell,” I spat, yanking so hard the iron frame groaned.

“You already brought it here, little stray,” he muttered as he turned for the door.

“I will never forgive you!” I screamed after him, voice hoarse and cracking. “You fucking bastard! You and your gods-damned pack! I hope it all burns!”

He paused at the door.

“I’ll be back when you’re ready to speak like something other than a rabid stray,” he said without turning his head. “Or when your wolf decides to talk in your place. Whichever comes first.”

The door shut behind him.

I was alone. Bound. Still burning with the ghost of his teeth in my neck.