The guards suddenly straighten up, and I hear the smack of footsteps on the wet floor, coming closer. My eyes flick to the wolf in the cage next to me, who hasn’t said a word since I was marked. He sits in his mortal form, shaking like a leaf.
“Out!” an icy voice demands. The royal guards immediately walk out of the dungeon, their heads kept low.
I turn my head, watching as a man walks in. Something about him radiates power. It’s in every step he takes, and yet he isn’t a big man, not particularly. He’s rather thin-looking but tall, towering above me. He must be at least seven foot. The stranger, who is not someone I’d call good-looking by any means, comes and stands right outside my cage and stares at me. His hair is burnt orange, and his eyes are darker red than I’ve seen before. He’s pale like the moon, and yet there is somethingwrongabout him.
Fear threatens to choke me, and my inner freak-out is only made worse when a crackled voice echoes. “Alpha Vargoth! My lord!” My prison friend splutters and throws himself on the floor like he is praying, baring his neck to the side.
Oh, fuck my life. “You’re the alpha of the Crone Pack?” I regret speaking when Alpha Vargoth’s eyes narrow on me.
“And you’re the human that’s been chosen by our beloved triple goddesses. I barely believed it when I first heard the newsfrom my guards.” He’s staring at me and at the mark on my chest, like he can’t understand. That makes two of us.
I try to stand straight, but my legs wobble in fear. I’m dead. I’msodead. “It must be a mistake. I-I don’t know?—”
“Nephew,” Alpha Vargoth commands, cutting me off. Should I just ask him to kill me now? There is a list of things I don’t like in my life. One, being cold. Two, being hungry, and three—and most importantly—communicating with men who think the world revolves around them.
The stomp of heavy boots is all the warning I get before the biggest male I’ve ever seen walks into the dungeon. First, all I see is his mask. A sharp black wolf mask with wolf’s ears spiked up through his wavy black hair. The mask covers half, no, nearly all of his face except for his plush lips and sharp, smooth jawline. He’s around the same height if not taller than the alpha, but he’s stacked like a tower. His muscles look like they have had baby muscles of their own and then all compacted together on every inch of his body.
I know I can’t stop staring as I run my eyes over his large biceps, a total weakness of mine, and finally up past his thick neck, which is hidden by his high-collared shirt. He is wearing black from his head to his heavy boots, and a long cloak hangs off his thick and wide shoulders. When I finally meet his eyes, a jolt of something slams into my chest so hard I nearly stumble back. Red and black are at war in his eyes, and it’s the only war I might find actually beautiful. There shouldn’t be a single thing beautiful about this massive male, but his eyes? They are.
And, currently, he is glaring at me like he hates me. His voice is rich like coffee and deep like the depths of hell. “The lassie smells and looks disgusting. Are you certain we cannot just dispose of her? This girl is hopeless.”
Well, that’s justnotnice. I may smell bad right now, and I might look terrible, but killing me is a tad extreme when we justmet. I want to blurt all of this out, but my voice seems to have faded away, and I’m too scared to even move an inch. Nephew? He must be the heir then or one of them. I don’t know enough about the Crone royals.
Alpha Vargoth laughs, and I flinch. “Blackfire has also been chosen by the goddess, right alongside you.”Fan-fucking-tastic.“What did you say your name was, human?”
“I didn’t,” I murmur. If I tell him my name, it means there is a chance he could find out about the people I care about, and I don’t want to risk it.
“Ah, that’s it. I remember.” Alpha Vargoth clicks his fingers. “Meredith. Meredith Crone. No last name due to being found in the Crone Pack’s lands as an orphan and thrown into the human districts when no one claimed you; therefore, you were given the customary name for bastards born in my pack. Twenty years old. Not much of interest in your background except for your recent outburst where you stabbed an illegal weapon into the foot of one of my wolves who was visiting the pub you worked at.” I stay completely silent. He’s obviously done his homework in the short amount of time since I was marked. I can tell he likes that he is making me panic. “From the people we spoke with, it seems you only care about two things in your life. A friend that you live with, only real person of interest in your life. Tan-something-or-other and the orphanage where you volunteer.” He holds out his hand to Blackfire. “Hand the thing over.”
“Aye.” Blackfire grunts as he drags out something from under his cloak, a wiggling something in a dark cloth bag, and Blackfire picks it out by its tail. A drake. A common house pet for wolves. Its red scales glitter in the firelight, and it’s got a long tail that makes up half the size of its body, with a spike at the end. It has no wings, and it’s pretty much a lizard with a narrow face and little sharp teeth and big blue eyes. He grabs it by the neck andthrows it through the bars, and it lands at my feet in the mud with a splat.
My heart clenches as I kneel down, reaching for it. There is never a reason to hurt any creature. Glaring at the heir, I tell him, “You’re a fucking monster!”
Blackfire smirks. “You look better on your knees, bowing to your masters, human.”
There is such venom in his voice that I have to resist the urge to run the fuck away. I stroke the drake’s back, wondering why they would want this creature in here with me. Maybe it’s a test of strength, and they want to know if I can beat such a small creature. Jokes on them, I’d let it kill me. Sounds much better than dying by wolves or their nasty elements, or burning at the stake.
“Mere.” Tannith’s voice echoes from the mouth of the creature. I shake my head, staring at it. Those eyes…I know those eyes. That voice. “Mere, it’s me. The alpha changed me into this when I wouldn’t talk about you.”
He turned my best friend into a household pet? Into a drake? I look up at Alpha Vargoth, not bothering to hide the anger in my eyes. I’m already dead; he can’t make it any worse for me. “What did you do?” I whisper in horror and shock. How could he change her from a human into a creature? I didn’t know such magic even existed.
I pick up the drake. Wait, no,my best friend, my sister, Tannith. She wraps around my arm, slithering almost until she goes around and leans on my shoulder, half-hidden by my long hair. It’s a weird weight to have on my shoulders, but I can’t offer her any other comfort.
“You are very rebellious for a human. If I didn’t need you in good shape, I’d beat that resistance out of you right here and now. That drake is your friend. I know it must be a shock, but what I tell you is the truth.” I take a step back and my legswobble. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to use to control you. I could torture you, but I don’t have a lot of time before the other packs will demand that you’re brought before them. I need you in good condition, better than this, for what I have planned. You are going to stay right at my nephew’s side. Blackfire is going to eliminate all except for the two chosen for the other packs that I can control. We have chosen them for a specific reason. You will make sure they survive alongside Blackfire, and he’ll make sure that you stay alive. Then, when you do manage to live, you’ll fuck who I choose and be a spy within the other packs for me. If you do all this well, I’ll turn your friend back, and I won’t set fire to the orphanages and kill every human child you’ve ever known.”
Sickness crawls up my throat as his words back me into a corner. I almost want to call his bluff, but his eyes tell me he isn’t kidding, and he wouldn’t feel a bit of guilt at killing those innocent children or my friend.
“If you fail on purpose or run away, your fate will be far less pleasant. This is a kindness I am showing you, and I expect you to beverygrateful.”
He watches me with one eyebrow raised. He wants me to thank him. Blackfire pushes his cloak back, revealing a waistband full of sharp daggers. The threat is clear. The words taste sour and spiteful even as I make my voice nice. “Thank you.”
Alpha Vargoth sighs once. “The drake has a mark on her, and you’ll be magically marked too. You might not be one of my pack, but this mark will make sure you are loyal to me until your death. Betraying me goes against the mark. It’s not something you will be able to do; even as a human, you will bend to my will. I’m unsure why the goddesses chose a weak thing like you, but we’ll make do with what choices we have been given by them.” He turns to Blackfire, and the fury in my blood builds until I can’t control it.
“No,” I snap, and the word echoes through the room. “I do not want to be marked by any wolf. Iwon’t.”
The alpha looks back at me in surprise. “Who said you had a choice,human?You forget that we’re your masters, and you will bend to the will of the wolves, or you’ll be forced.”
He unlocks the door with a key and walks up to me. I expect it as he lifts his fist, and he punches me square in the nose. I slam into the wall, wincing as I feel my nose crack, blood pouring down my face, and the world spins in pain. My ears are ringing as he looks down at me in the mud, as Tannith cries my name and Blackfire stands like a silent, dark shadow in the cell with us.
