Page 8

Andros

“No,” she said. Again.

The word cut through the room like a blade. Sharp. Final. I stared at her. She stood there, bound and bruised, with defiance carved into every line of her body like it was armour. She didn’t tremble. She didn’t flinch. She looked me in the eye and refused me.

“I don’t want your pack,” she said. “Or any pack. Not now. Not ever.”

My jaw locked.

She didn’t understand what she was rejecting. She didn’t know what it meant to stand in my territory, speak my language, breathe the air I allowed her to breathe—and throw it back in my face.

“Garrick,” I said, my voice low and razor-edged.

He looked at me, wary. “Andros—”

“Out.”

A long pause. Then a quiet nod. “As you wish, Alpha.” The door clicked shut behind him. The fire crackled. She was still watching me—jaw tight, shoulders squared, a wild thing too proud to cower.

“You hide behind lies,” I said, stepping closer. “You wear a mask and bury your scent like you’re ashamed of what you are. You pretend to be one of them.” I sneered. “A mother. A peasant. A ghost. A … human? ”

Her eyes narrowed. “Because I don’t want to be what you are.”

That did it. I was on her in a breath. Not to hurt—yet. Just to know. I grabbed her, slammed her back against the war table. Her hands shot out, bracing against the edge, but she didn’t cry out. Just glared, breath ragged, like she’d fight me even with her last shred of strength.

And gods help me—my wolf liked that.

I leaned in, lips near her throat. I could feel the heat of her pulse. Hear the way her breath faltered, even if she didn’t want me to.

But then—something shifted. Not her. Her scent. Rot. Not decay—but something unnatural. Twisted. Muted. My wolf growled, uneasy. The power beneath her skin wasn’t just hidden. It was chained.

What the fuck… I leaned closer, inhaling deep. And I felt it. Magic. Old. Foul. Wrong.

“Something’s off,” I growled, more to myself than her. Her body tensed beneath my hands. I reached for the collar of her dress.

“No!” she snapped, but I didn’t stop.

I ripped it. The sound of tearing fabric echoed through the war room, followed by the sudden stillness that only truth can bring.

And then—I saw them. Dark runes. Carved into her back with cruel, precise hands. Ancient symbols woven into scarred flesh like ink branded in blood. The language wasn’t human. It wasn’t even entirely wolf. It was older.

My breath caught.I stepped back, stunned by what I saw and the rage that followed it. Not at her.At whoever did this to her.

“Dark magic,” I murmured.

The words tasted like ash on my tongue. I reached out, slowly, almost against my will, and traced the edge of one of the runes with my fingertip. Her skin flinched under my touch, but she didn’t pull away. She just stood there. Breathing. Burning.

“I knew something was wrong with you,” I whispered.“But this…”

This was war. This was blood. And now I needed answers more than I needed air.

My fingers brushed the runes again, tracing the jagged symbols cut deep into her back.

They pulsed with something ancient—foul and silent, like the heartbeat of a corpse that never stopped dying.

The power in them wasn’t just dark. It was deliberate. Intentional.

A wolf trying to carve herself into something else. Something unrecognizable. Someone had done this to her. Someone powerful. Someone dangerous.

“Who did this to you?” I asked, voice low and taut with restrained fury. “What enemy carves chains into a wolf’s flesh and leaves them half-alive?”

I expected a name. A rival. A plot to poison us from within. I expected betrayal—treason—something I could bury my claws into and tear apart.

But when she turned to look at me, eyes aflame, I saw no fear. Only hatred. And then she said it.

“I did.”

My breath stopped.

“What?” The word left me like a curse.

She ripped free from my hold—not with strength, but with fury—and spun to face me, bound hands trembling, chest rising fast with ragged breaths.

“I did this to myself,” she spat, voice cracking like dry earth. “Because I’d rather bleed every damn month carving these things into my back than be one of you. ”

I stared at her, my wolf rising, snarling, raging.

“You did this willingly?” I growled. “You carved your soul apart just to hide from what you are?”

Her voice was a whip. “I hate what I am. I hate what you are. I don’t want your power. Your pack. Your rules. Your blood-drenched legacy of war and dominance—”

She moved to hit me. I caught her.

Even bound, she fought like fire. Wild. Reckless. Desperate. But desperation burns fast, and I had the patience of a predator that always gets what it wants. She twisted, teeth bared, trying to bring her knee up. I blocked it. She clawed for my face. I let her graze me. I wanted to feel it.

“You think you're free,” I snarled, gripping her wrists and twisting her body until she was pinned to the edge of the war table again. “But you’re just broken. And you did it with your own hands.”

I should have thrown her. Shoved her back into her cell and locked the door. Instead, I pulled her close. My mouth at her throat. Her pulse thundered beneath her skin, trembling against my lips.

I breathed her in.

And beneath the stench of runes and blood and rage, I found it. Her . Pure. Subtle. Devastating.

Not wolf. Not rogue.

The word formed in my mouth before I could stop it, a curse dragged from instinct and truth.

“Omega.”

Her whole body went rigid.

Like I’d spoken a spell that shattered the last of her control. Her breath hitched. Her knees faltered for a second. I felt the denial ripple through her. Saw it in her eyes. Felt it in the way she swallowed a sob she didn’t want to give me.

“No,” she breathed. “Don’t.”

But it was too late. I knew. She knew I knew.

And now the whole game had changed.

“Omega,” I repeated, quieter this time, like a secret I meant to ruin her with.

For a moment, I didn’t speak. I just held her.

Pressed against me, bare-skinned and breathless, the runes carved into her back like a language only pain could write.

My hand rested just below her shoulder blades, fingers grazing over jagged curves of ink and scar.

They thrummed faintly beneath my touch. And yet, she didn’t tremble from my nearness.

Didn’t flush. Didn’t react at all. My wolf, however, was losing its mind.

She was so close. Her scent tangled in my breath, subtle but undeniable—pure Omega, buried beneath rot and ash and that cursed magic. The beast in me clawed, snarling, begging to sink teeth into her neck, to claim what every part of me now recognized as mine.

But still—nothing from her. The runes were too strong. Too deep. And her silence felt… unnatural. Unforgivable. Her body was fire against mine, but she stood there like a ghost, untouched by heat.

I remembered her voice—low, fierce, furious.

Every. Month.

The truth settled in slowly. And then it hit.

My grip tightened. No . No, it wasn’t possible.

She didn’t look older than thirty, maybe late twenties.

But still... That would be… no, that would be over a decade.

Thirteen… fourteen years of this. Of taking a blade to her back, every cycle, every moon.

Binding herself in silence. Suffocating her wolf.

Destroying what she was just to stay hidden.

Just to run. My jaw clenched, the taste in my mouth turning to rust and bile.

“You’ve been doing this… since you were fifteen?” I asked, voice barely human.

She didn’t answer at first. Then she gave the smallest nod. My breath turned to ice. Fifteen. A child. A girl on the run from her own blood. From the truth in her bones. And no one stopped her. No one saved her.

“Why?” I whispered. But it didn’t come out gentle. It came out wrong. Rough. Broken. Violent with disbelief. “Why the fuck would you do this to yourself?”

Still, she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“I had to,” she said finally, her voice shaking—not with weakness, but with the kind of strength that’s earned in hell. “Because if I didn’t, I’d end up just like the rest of them.”

“The rest of who ?” I snapped, grabbing her jaw and forcing her to look at me.

Her lips curled. Not with fear—but hate.

“Your kind,” she hissed. “Your alphas. Your packs. I watched them cage my sisters. Watched them train them like animals, mould them into perfect little mates to be bred and broken. That’s the life that waited for me. So I ran half way through the world and I carved it out of myself instead.”

Her voice cracked. And gods help me— For a second, I couldn’t breathe. She had gutted her own nature. Her own birthright. To be free of us .

The room felt too small. My own skin itched with fury I didn’t know where to put—at her, at myself, at a world where an Omega had to butcher herself to stay free.

I took a step back. My body screamed to keep her close, to stay wrapped in her scent, in the ragged heat of her pain, but I needed control. Needed distance. Just enough to remind myself I was still the one holding the leash—even if she didn’t know it yet.

“Garrick!” I barked. My voice echoed like a blade unsheathed.

The door opened fast. He stepped in, eyes darting from me to her, reading the tension thick enough to drown in.

“Bring men,” I ordered. “Now.”

Garrick nodded once and disappeared. She turned toward me slowly, suspicion already flickering in her eyes. Her lip still bled from where she bit it during the fight. Her dress hung in tatters. Her back—those carved runes—were still visible in the flicker of firelight.

I stared at them. At her .

“Move her and the boy out of the dungeon,” I said when Garrick returned with two more wolves. “Put them in a guest chamber, north wing. Top floor. Lock the door. Post guards day and night.”

Garrick blinked. “Both of them?”

“The boy can walk the halls if he wants. He’s human. Harmless. But she … She stays in that room. For the next thirty nights.”

She stared at me like I’d just sentenced her to death.

“What?” she breathed. “Why?”

I smiled. It was not kind. It was not merciful.

It was predatory.

“Because I want to see what happens,” I said. “When those runes begin to lose their power. When your little ritual is denied, when your precious carvings don’t return in time to bind your wolf again.”

I stepped toward her, slow and deliberate. Her breath caught, just once, as I leaned in, my voice a whisper against her skin.

“I want to watch the magic unravel. See if your wolf crawls back to the surface—or if the weight of what you’ve done finally destroys you.”

She stumbled back a half-step, genuine fear flashing in her eyes now. Not for the guards. Not for me. For what she might become.

“It could kill me,” she whispered. “You don’t understand—dark magic always takes something. If the bindings break all at once, if it comes back too fast—” She swallowed hard. “It could really kill me.”

I studied her. The fragility in her voice. The way her chest heaved. The smallest tremor in her hands. And still, she stood tall. Still, she didn’t beg. So I leaned closer.

“If it does,” I said coldly, “then that will be your punishment.”

“For what?”

I let my eyes slide over her body, then back to the runes, those cruel scars etched in defiance.

“For what you did to yourself .”