Chapter 23
I woke to the rhythm of a heart monitor, each beep a wolf’s growl pacing in the dark. The air reeked of bleach, blood, and rust, layered over fur and the stale musk of too many bodies penned in one den. This wasn’t a hospital. No lilies, no soft hands. Just sweating stone walls, rusted bars, and claw marks of the wolves who hadn’t survived. Silver light bled through a cracked vent above me, hazed and merciless.
Ram sat in the chair beside me, broad shoulders shadowed, a ragged towel hanging from his neck. His knuckles were torn, slicked with dried blood that wasn’t mine. He didn’t speak. He just watched me breathe, his wolf crouched just beneath his skin, wondering whether I would wake a human, or wake changed.
Edrick leaned in the doorway, arms folded tight, jaw clenched. His shirt was half-unbuttoned, chest streaked with dirt and blood, as though he hadn’t shifted back properly. He hadn’t slept either; wolves don’t when the Alpha lies half-dead.
“You both look like you’ve been dragged through fire,” I rasped, my voice thick and raw, the beas in me scratching against my ribs.
Ram’s eyes flickered gold for an instant. Relief and rage warred in him like two wolves circling the same kill.
‘You vanish. Get dragged into their den. Tortured until even the stones remember your screams. Then crawl out beneath the moon half-dead.” His voice cracked. “And you couldn’t send a damr signal? A howl? Even a body would’ve been easier to bury.”
laughed, and it burned all the way up. “Guess I’m still your problem.”
Edrick stepped forward, the weight of his presence shifting the air, the way only a wolf-blooded could. He sat across from me, eyes dark as coal, but steady.
‘Your escape tore the pack apart. Some loyalists came running back, tails low. Others tried to switch sides. A few simply vanished.”
bared my teeth, not a smile. “Anyone who turned their back on the Vale bloodline vanishes into he earth. No warnings. No mercy. No graves. I want the ground to drink them.”
Edrick’s lips curled faintly. “As you command, Alpha.”
The title burned through me like fire, stitched me back together. My ribs screamed, my muscles ached, but pain no longer felt like weakness; it felt like proof.
‘Damien?” I asked.
Ram’s gaze dropped, just for a moment, before rising to meet mine. “Alive. Coma. Machines
Something in me shattered and reforged in the same breath. Damien was the last tether I had to a softer world, the part of me that still remembered laughter without blood. If his wolf still lingered, even faintly, then mine had reason to keep fighting.
I inhaled sharply, the air cutting like broken glass. “Alpha Shawn. Mark. Lydia. Marga. Find them. I don’t care if you rip them apart or drag them back in chains. Pack or blood, family or not, I want their throats.”
6:53 pm
Edrick stood without hesitation. Ram only nodded once. “The hunt begins tonight.”
But I wasn’t finished. I knew Mark. Knew his cowardice, knew his weakness. And I knew exactly which strings to tug.
“Ken. Kurt.” The names were venom on my tongue.
Edrick’s brow arched. “You want them dead?”
“No.” My voice was steel wrapped in shadow. “Alive. Unharmed. They are the only thing that a sniveling cur might crawl through fire for. His sons are his leash.”
Ram’s wolf surfaced in his stare, golden eyes blazing. “We’ll bring the pups.”
They were dropped at my feet twenty hours later, two little wolves dressed in designer clothes that couldn’t hide the Vale sneer bred into their blood. Seven years old, and already their beasts prowled behind their eyes, untested, untamed.
They didn’t cower. They stared at me like cubs pretending to be kings.
Ken curled his lip, showing a hint of fang. “You used to scrub our floors.”
Kurt echoed, his tone sharp. “You were just a maid. Mother said you were nothing.”
Then they spit, twin flecks of defiance staining my gown.
Ram’s claws slid halfway out before I raised my hand. Calm. Controlled. Predatory.
crouched, eye to eye with them, letting the weight of my wolf press down like a shadow over their skin. My voice sank into a growl sharp enough to split bone.
‘One more word,” I said, slow and deliberate, “and I will rip your mother’s throat with my own eeth. Not a threat. A promise I’ll savor.”
Their bravado cracked. Real fear glittered in their eyes for the first time. I leaned closer, my gaze burning like fire in a frozen cave.
You think bloodlines make you kings? You think snarling makes you wolves?” My lip curled. Your father begged like prey. Your mother spat lies until her tongue bled. You have their venom, but none of their spine. You are pups. And pups obey.”
Silence. Smart little wolves.
stood, turned to my brothers. “Separate them. Keep them fed. Guarded. No harm. They are tindling. When Mark sees what I’ve taken, he’ll come running. And when he does…” My teeth >ared. “We end the bloodline that should’ve died long ago.”
The video lasted forty-three seconds. No music. No cuts. Just raw silence and dread.
The twins sat blindfolded on concrete, their small bodies trembling. They were untouched, but
he fear in the room swelled like smoke.
stood behind them in black, my wolf shadow stretching across the wall, my voice cold enough. o freeze the marrow.
‘Come collect your legacy, Mark. Or I will raise them in Vale black, and they will never remember your name.”
Feed cut.
It didn’t take long for him to answer, not in flesh, not in courage. He sent Lydia. Of course he did. He always hid behind women, behind shadows, behind excuses. That was his way. That was his
Shanter 22
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6:53 pm
དང ་པ ཅ་”ས བ་ii་ ཅར་དདས པ་
rot.
We intercepted her before she reached the extraction point. Her three men fell-one to bullets, two vanished into the night with their tails tucked. But Lydia? We wrapped her in silver chains and dragged her home.
Not to the penthouse. Not to marble halls.
I took her to the tunnels. The same rotting underbelly I had crawled through half-dead, my wolf reborn in pain and moonlight.
It was fitting she rot where I had risen.
She stood before me now, stripped of jewels, of painted lips and perfume. Barefoot, trembling, her wolf snarling but muzzled beneath the weight of silver. She glared like I was the monster under her bed.
lifted a hanger.
The maid’s uniform. Black cotton, stiff apron, high collar. Exactly as she’d made me wear years ago when I scrubbed her floors while she called me dirt.
Her lip curled. “You think this proves something?”
smiled, slow and sharp as a fang. “I don’t think, Lydia. I know.”
The guards forced her arms back as I slid the uniform onto her body, buttoning it myself, toc ight, deliberately cruel.
‘You loved watching me on my knees,” I whispered against her ear, low and deadly. “Let’s se now you wear humiliation.”
6:53 pm
Lucia Morh is a passionate storyteller who brings emotions to life through her words. When she’s not writing, she finds peace nurturing her garden.