Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Pain lances through my feet with each step, tiny rocks and broken twigs cutting into my bare soles.
Every stride is agony, but I dare not slow.
Ryker has shifted back into his massive wolf form, and moves beside me with liquid grace, his fur still wet with the blood of those who tried to claim me.
Each time I stumble, his shoulder brushes my hip, steadying me.
The heat of him burns against my naked skin like a brand, leaving bloody smears where we touch.
The claiming mark on my throat throbs in time with my racing heart, hot and raw. Ryker’s power thrums through my veins, foreign and overwhelming. It moves through me like a serpent, making my human form feel too small and fragile to contain it.
I suck in a deep breath, fighting to control the fear churning in my gut, but even the air comes differently, carrying his scent deeper into my lungs.
Moonlight spills through the ancient trees, painting silver patterns across Ryker’s scarred black coat.
He stands taller than any wolf I’ve ever seen, his back level with my shoulders, his paws leaving impressions in the earth twice the size of a normal wolf’s.
When he turns his head to check our trail, muscles ripple beneath fur so black it seems to swallow the moonlight itself.
The silver scar that slashes across his face catches the light, transforming from shadow to silver with each movement.
We return to the grove to find the air charged and heavy.
The claiming circle hums with power, I can feel it vibrating through the soles of my feet, up through my bones, making my teeth ache.
Torches line the ancient stones, their flames dancing in the wind, casting writhing shadows across the gathered wolves.
The scent of blood, both fresh and ancient, rises from the earth, mingling with smoke and sweat and anticipation.
Other claimed pairs have already gathered, forming a crescent before the stone altar.
The females wear their claiming marks proudly, pressed against their mates’ sides, most having shifted back to human form for the ceremony.
Only the Shadowmist wolves remain in their beast forms, dark shapes lurking at the edges of the firelight like living pieces of the night.
Each step toward the altar makes me more aware of my nakedness, my humanity. I can’t stand proud like the other claimed females with their sleek wolf forms and easy shifts. I can only walk forward in this vulnerable shape, guided by the blood-stained monster who has chosen me.
The eyes of every wolf in the circle burn into my skin—judging, assessing, and finding me wanting.
“Step into the circle,” Grand Alpha Thaddeus calls, his voice resonating with power that makes the ground vibrate beneath my bloody feet. “Let your union be blessed by moon and pack law.”
One by one, the pairs approach. Each step is part of a dance as old as our kind.
The males bow their heads, submitting to the Grand Alpha’s authority.
The females bare their claiming marks for inspection, tilting their heads to expose the vulnerable flesh of their throats.
Thaddeus presses his fingers to the marks, infusing them with magic that binds the pairs for eternity.
I watch as Xavier Drake and his chosen mate receive their blessing, the magic visible as silver light wraps around them both like ribbons.
Then it’s our turn.
Thaddeus’s eyes narrow as we approach, his disgust a palpable thing that makes the air around us grow colder. “Shift, Alpha Ashmere. Show proper respect to the ceremony.”
The massive black wolf beside me goes still. Through our new bond, I feel his contempt. For a moment, I think he’ll refuse. Then his form begins to change.
When Ryker straightens to his full height beside me, his massive form subtly shifts to place himself between me and Thaddeus.
It’s not an obvious movement—nothing so blatant as to appear defensive—but the positioning is deliberate.
He stands with his scarred shoulder slightly angled forward, creating a barrier of flesh and muscle that would absorb any attack before it could reach me.
Through our new bond, I feel no fear in him, only calculating vigilance and a cold readiness to unleash violence at the slightest provocation.
“Fascinating,” Thaddeus’s cold voice cuts through the tense silence. “I see you still wear your beast’s savagery even in this form.”
Ryker’s laugh is low and dark, a sound that sends shivers across my spine. “Better a beast than a puppet,” he says, his teeth flashing. “At least I haven’t forgotten what we are beneath our civilized masks.”
Thaddeus ignores the jab. His cold gaze sweeps over me, then returns to Ryker. “You claimed the seer? You, who once swore to rebuild the strength of your pack, but you choose a mate who can’t shift?” His voice carries across the grove, clear and cruel.
I shrink into myself, aware that even though I’m claimed, we have yet to be bound. Ryker can still reject me as his mate, leaving me without a hope for a future.
Thaddeus shakes his head. “An alpha needs a strong partner. One who can lead beside him. Fight beside him. Your lack of judgment, Alpha Ashmere, is... disappointing.”
There’s a stirring in the wolves around us, a tension that threads through the gathered.
They smell blood.
Thaddeus’s gaze lands on me. “You would ask your pack to bleed for you, to trust you with their lives, and you choose this? A broken wolf with a gift she can’t properly wield?
” He shakes his head, feigning pity. “Perhaps the Shadowmist Pack should ask itself whether its alpha is fit to lead it at all.”
Ryker’s laugh is sharp and dangerous. “If so concerned about her weakness, why allow the seer to run in the ceremony at all?” His question cuts through the Grand Alpha’s posturing like a blade.
“If she’s such an affront, why would she draw alphas from five territories to hunt her?
Why would you—as the one responsible for the good of all—not simply declare her unfit for claiming before the run began? ”
Thaddeus’s face tightens almost imperceptibly, but I see it—the flicker of calculation behind his righteous anger.
“Or perhaps,” Ryker continues, his voice a silken threat, “you did want her claimed—just not by me. Perhaps you had another in mind, one who would be more... compliant with your demands for her gift and her offspring.”
The temperature around us plummets. Ryker’s hand finds the back of my neck, his fingers pressing possessively against his claiming mark. The touch sends jolts of electricity through my body, his power flooding my system in a rush of white-hot sensation.
Goose bumps erupt across my skin, sweeping down my spine in an erotic wave. My nipples tighten in the chill night air, painfully sensitive. And lower—gods, lower—my core clenches, a deep, pulsing ache building between my thighs. It’s primal and wrong and new.
My breath catches. I have never felt anything like this—never known that power could feel like this. That pain and pleasure could collide in a single heartbeat, shattering me open.
He doesn’t speak, but his scent changes—sharpening with the tang of violence waiting to be unleashed.
“The laws are clear,” the Grand Alpha says, voice ringing through the grove.
“Both parties must be strong. Both must be fit to lead. An alpha cannot bind himself to weakness and expect the pack to follow.”
The words strike like lashes across my skin.
Ryker’s growl rumbles low against my back, but Thaddeus presses on, cold and relentless.
“She cannot shift. She cannot defend your line. What message does that send to your pack, Ryker Ashmere? That your blood will weaken? That your judgment already has?” He turns slightly, addressing the gathered wolves now, not just Ryker.
“Would you follow an alpha who chooses fragility over strength? Sentiment over survival?”
A murmur ripples through the crowd. I flinch, shame burning under my skin. But Ryker’s hand tightens—not punishing, but anchoring. Grounding me in him.
“She is a seer,” Ryker growls, and the vibration of his voice against my back makes me shiver.
“She is weak!” Thaddeus claps back, his power flaring with his anger. “I will not endorse this mating. You will reject her, Alpha. Throw her back to the pack where she will become an Ekballo.”
Gasps erupt around the circle. My blood turns to ice, freezing me from the inside out. Ekballo—the fate worse than death.
As Ekballo, I will be forced to breed, passed around to all unmated wolves until a pup takes root in my belly.
And when it does, and I bring it into this world, it will be ripped from my arms to be raised by another.
I would then be bred again and again until a pup shows signs of my gift.
Once assured that my visions are able to be passed on, they will cast me out, burning the pack marks from my flesh.
Without an alpha’s power to ground me, my mind and wolf will fracture piece by piece until madness claims me completely.
The whispers slither through the darkness, each one a knife in my chest.
“They’ll breed her to the alphas, even the mated ones.”
“The gift must be preserved...”
“She’ll lose her mind within months.”
“Better death than that fate.”
My legs start to give out beneath me, but Ryker’s hand never leaves my neck. His power continues to pulse through the claiming mark, hot against my frozen skin. When he speaks, his voice is low and lethal, a predator’s warning growl.
“You would name my mate Ekballo?” Each word drips with deadly promise.
“You would shame the wolves under your command by forcing them upon her? You would steal her child—my rightful heir—and leave her to madness?” His fingers tighten on my nape.
“Perhaps it’s time to remind everyone why the Shadowmist Pack hunts alone. ”
The shadows around us deepen, and I realize with a start that Ryker’s pack is moving closer, their massive forms materializing from the night like living nightmares.
None have shifted to human form. All bear the same battle scars as their alpha.
Their eyes gleam in the torchlight—red, gold, amber—predators waiting for the signal to attack.
Even Thaddeus seems to sense the shift in power dynamics. His silver eyes dart between the approaching wolves, his hands gathering more of that ancient magic until it coalesces around him like ghostly flames.
“The gift must be preserved. The pup will be raised by a proper pack, with a proper mother. You cannot defy—”
“Pack law?” Ryker’s laugh holds no humor, only the promise of violence.
“Your laws mean nothing to me, old wolf. We are what you fear becoming—what you and your pathetic laws try to hide.” His other hand comes up to cup my face, the gesture startlingly gentle compared to the promise of death in his voice.
His palm is warm against my cheek, calloused from a life of violence.
“I claimed her. She’s mine. Her gift is mine.
Any pups she bears will be mine. And if you try to take what’s mine. ..”
The threat hangs in the air, heavy with promise. Power crackles between the two alphas, and I feel it like static against my bare skin. Around us, other wolves begin backing away, creating space for the inevitable explosion.
“Then you choose exile.” Thaddeus raises his hands, ancient magic gathering around him in visible swirls of silver light that twist and reach like hungry serpents. “No pack will trade with you. No territory will shelter you. Your name will be—”
“Save your threats for wolves who still fear you, old man.”
I gasp as Ryker moves, sweeping me into his arms and tossing me into the air.
I barely know what’s happening before I land astride his wolf’s back, my fingers instinctively buried in his thick fur.
He’s shifted faster than anyone I’ve ever seen, faster even than Thaddeus.
The transformation so swift I couldn’t track it with my eyes.
What power does he possess? I wonder, clutching at my mate’s fur as the ground blurs beneath us. Who is this wolf that has claimed me?
Ryker doesn’t wait for me to settle before launching us into the darkness; his powerful muscles bunch and release beneath my thighs. The friction of his fur against my bare sex sends shocks of unwanted heat through my core, even as fear tightens my throat.
The Shadowmist wolves melt into formation around us as howls of outrage split the night. I press myself low against Ryker’s back, the heat of him burning against my naked skin as we race through the ancient forest. Every stride jars my bones, but his fur cushions the worst of it.
See? my she-wolf asks. A mate cannot harm.
I take small comfort in her words when Thaddeus’s furious howls trail after us. His magic sits heavy in the air, making it taste like metal—charged and dangerous.
But Ryker’s answering howl isn’t defensive—it’s triumphant. A challenge and a promise that echoes through the darkness and reverberates in my very marrow. I listen, easily translating his answer.
Come for her—and I’ll tear your world apart.