Blood Oath of the Alpha

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Chapter 4 – The Kneeling

Serena POV

Pale light bled through the ceiling’s cracks, silver and rust and chill. Dawn wasn’t kind. It only seemed to sear the brand at my collarbone worse. It throbbed as though it had never left the fire, every beat of my heart pumping its fury deeper, every breath I took scraping against it until air itself was sandpaper.

I didn’t sleep. The chain at my wrist had clinked all night, rattling with every twitch, every shiver, every time I shifted my weight on the stone floor. The sound had echoed in my head like laughter.

I’d closed my eyes and seen Luca’s hand driving the iron into me, his silver eyes on my face, watching smoke curl up from my skin. I’d heard him just as clearly as I’d heard the wolves around us.

From this night forward, she belongs.

By the time the guards arrived, I was already up, waiting with my jaw clenched.

They never said a word. They never did. One grabbed my left arm, the other my right, claws light against my skin, not enough to cut, but enough to show they could. They dragged me down the hall, the absence of their words as sharp as the bite of iron on my wrist.

When the doors of the hall swung open, the noise hit me like a fist.

The pack.

They filled the hall from wall to wall. Scores—no, hundreds—packed in a writhing mass of heat and need. A few of them were half-shifted, fur patching across skin like dark ink, claws hooked longer than fingers ought to be. Teeth glinted in bestial smiles, saliva gleaming in the torchlight.

The air was rank with wolf musk, ash, blood—layered so thick it was as though the very air was smoke.

The runes etched into the stone walls, sparked weakly in the light, their carvings deep with centuries of soot. They were not ornament. They were laws, they were promises. Their light had long since faded, centuries ago, but as the wolves roared and shifted and filled the hall with frenzy, I thought I would see them pulse faintly, maybe glow-like veins.

Noise.

There was noise.

Echoing howls that made the rafters shudder. Shouts that split the air like claws. My name barked in every direction. Serena. Valente. Bitch. Prey. Some screamed curses. Some whispered threats. Hundreds of voices clawed over one another until it was impossible to tell which ones spoke from mouths and which spoke from stone.

The guards shoved me into the circle at the center of the hall. My knees scraped the stone as I stumbled.

And then I saw her.

Tirra.

She stood to the right of the throne, black silk hugging her body like ink spilt on glass. Her hair was braided and piled high in a crown of silver rings. Her lips curved up, but it wasn’t a smile—not really. It was the kind of baring a wolf gives before tearing a throat out. She had been close to Luca once; I didn’t need the pack’s whispers to know that. I could see it in the way she carried herself, as though she still belonged to him. But she no longer stood at his side. And I was the reason.

Her eyes swept over me like knives. She leaned forward, lips parting, voice sharp enough to slice through noise.

“Make her crawl.”

They laughed, the chant shifting, mocking. “Crawl. Crawl. Crawl.”

Luca didn’t look at her. He didn’t have to. His voice cut through theirs like steel.

“Kneel.”

The word shattered like a whip.

The pack echoed him at once, their voices pounding like fists against stone. “Kneel. Kneel. Kneel.”

The sound cut through me. It pressed at the brand at my collarbone, each word another blade dragging across raw skin. My knees wobbled, my vision blurring under the weight, but I locked them.

I forced my chin up even as bile rose in my throat.

“I don’t kneel.”

Laughter split the air again, sharper this time, crueler. Wolves leaned forward, eyes bright with amusement and hunger. Some sneered. Others whispered in voices just low enough to sting.

She thinks she’s more than prey. She’ll beg soon enough.

Luca rose from the throne.

He descended the steps with a predator’s grace, each movement slow, sure, inevitable. His scar gleamed white in the torchlight. His eyes were pale silver, cold as winter steel. The pack hushed the second his boots met stone; the chant strangled to silence.

He came to stand over me. Shadowed me. His hand rose, and before I could even flinch, his palm pressed into the raw brand at my collarbone.

Pain exploded white-hot and blinding.

My spine jerked, knees buckled, and I collapsed to the floor. Stone cracked against bone, the sound drowned by the gasps of the crowd. The brand flared with new fire as his fingers dug in, heat blooming outward until even my vision flared.

The wolves howled in triumph. Some laughed. Others pounded the ground in savage rhythm.

Tirra’s laughter rang above them all, sharp and cruel.

“Show them,” Luca said, voice low, but it carried over the frenzy. “Show them you know your place.”

The chant began again, unrelenting. “Kneel. Kneel. Kneel.”

My palms scraped stone as I struggled to my feet, but my body dipped lower instead. Head dropped, dragged down by fire and shame.

I was kneeling.

The hall exploded. Wolves slammed fists to stone, claws raked the air, voices shook the rafters.

It was my humiliation that fed their triumph, their feast.

But humiliation burned brighter than the brand.

Every eye was on me. Every breath was like dragged sandpaper down my chest. My wolf snarled inside me, furious, clawing against the bars of her cage. Get up. Bite. Tear. She would never kneel. And yet here I was, lowered before them, her rage in me, my shame in her.

I felt Tirra’s eyes on me, the weight of her smile keen as a knife. She tilted her head, whispering something to a wolf at her side. He laughed, teeth gleaming, as his gaze raked over me like claws.

I wanted to kill them all.

I forced my head up slowly, shakily, defiance blazing through pain. Luca’s eyes pinned me to the floor, silver and merciless.

The taste of copper filled my mouth.

I spat.

Blood splattered across his cheek, vibrant red streaking across pale skin, dripping into the scar at his jaw.

The hall went silent.

The silence was worse than the howls.

Every wolf froze, breath held, as though the entire world had ceased to exist in that moment.

Claws hung half-raised, jaws slack, fists pressed to stone. Tirra’s smile faltered, lips parting in shock before she pressed them together, harder. Wolves in the front row stared, wide-eyed, as though they could not believe what they’d seen.

The silence stretched tight, taut as a rope. It hummed like the space between lightning strikes.

And I kept my chin high.

For the first time since the brand seared my flesh, the silence was mine.

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