Chapter 3.

Zeus Ironheart.

Minutes later…

Battle Chief of all the Regions. Ha.

Some achievement.

What a way to go, Zeus.

Brandishing my title as though it somehow scrubs away the slur forever welded to my name.

Bastard.

Bastard brother to the Overlord, Norman Ironheart.

My position in Norman’s new world does nothing to erase my origins. If anything, it only sharpens the truth into something uglier. Crueler. A reminder that my mother was never legitimately owned by my father. Never his lawful wife. Never his equal.

Just a woman tolerated under the good graces of the former Overlord.

And the moment he died, her position became fragile. Questionable. Disposable.

So they threw her away.

Cast her out of the place she once called home like she had never belonged there at all.

And I had to step in.

I had to take care of her.

The memory claws into me now. The day she arrived at my doorstep in DC Wing, shortly before I became Battle Chief of all the Regions.

Five years ago.

“Mother… what happened? Why are you here?” I asked, helping her inside.

My men gathered her belongings from the vehicle while I led her into the kitchen, forcing a glass of water into her trembling hands.

“Your brother…” She broke in front of me, her voice shattering. “Norman and his mother… they threw me out of the estate…”

Her fingers shook so badly against the cup I thought it might fall.

Something violent rose inside me. Hot and immediate.

“But they can’t do that.” My voice sharpened. “Father is barely a few weeks in the grave, and they did that to you?”

I snapped.

Moved. One purpose in mind. Confront Norman. Destroy him if I had to.

“No, Zeus.” Mother stopped me, panic flashing in her wet eyes. “Your father wouldn’t want you fighting.”

Pain tore through me.

My eyes burned.

“Mother… Father gave you equal rights as his woman. He made me his son. He gave me a position in his army.” My jaw clenched so hard it hurt. “Norman and his mother answer to me too...”

“But the law was never on our side, Zeus.”

Her words came weak. Defeated. Cruel in their honesty.

“I was never married to him,” she whispered. Tears pooled in her eyes. “And his wife never let you get legitimized. You only got the name. She never let the government recognize you.”

A crack split straight through my chest.

Because she was right.

My father had loved us.

God, he had tried.

But trying meant nothing in a world built on signatures, laws, bloodlines and legitimacy.

He fought every day to acknowledge us as his family. And I know, deep down, that struggle killed him in pieces long before death finally claimed him. His heart broke daily. Because he couldn’t give us what he wanted to.

I pulled my mother into my arms and held her while she cried. Watched her break.

But something else was born inside me that day.

Resolve. Mercilessness. I was going to bring Norman and his mother to their knees.

So within four weeks, I stirred trouble. Quietly.

Deliberately. I gathered pockets of opposition across the underground networks of the Northern Wings. Whispers here.

Suggestions there. A spark dropped in the right place. And soon enough, the North burned. Riots. Conflict.

Territories destabilizing.

My brother and his mother panicked.

Because everyone knew it: If the North burned, the rest of the earth followed.

And then Norman summoned me.

Finally.

My opportunity.

“I’ve tried everything to suppress these outbreaks,” Norman said frantically.

He stood before me in his briefing room, tension radiating from him. His generals sat around him. Watching, judging, measuring.

Norman and I looked painfully alike. Same height. Same build.

Same face shaped by our father’s blood.

Only small distinctions borrowed from different mothers.

“I need your help, Zeus.” Norman admitted.

Desperation looked ugly on him. I scanned the room. His generals, their ranks, their authority. All of it towering above mine.

And I was done. Done being tolerated. Done eating scraps. Done being captain of a fucking regiment.

So I seized the moment.

“I want you to make me Battle Chief of all the Regions.”

My voice rang through the room, clear and unapologetic.

Norman went pale.

His generals erupted.

Murmurs rippled around me like poison.

“But that’s impossible...” One general barked, rising from his chair. “If your brother makes you Battle Chief, that places you next in command to him.” His lip curled. “You. A bastard.”

A smile almost touched my mouth. “Bingo.”

My word landed like a blade.

Realization flickered across his face. A cruel satisfaction settled warm and dark inside me.

Yes.

Now you understand. I thought.

When my gaze returned to Norman, I saw it.

The exact moment he caved. Even before he spoke.

“Done.”

Just like that.

Documents were drawn.

Pulled up. Signed.

My brother handed me power with his own trembling hands.

And I became next in command.

The sound of water splashing jerks me violently back to the present.

My eyes sharpen, land on the girl chained before me. Her body is drenched in ice-cold water. Her teeth chatter violently as her body trembles.

The thin navy-blue shirt clings to her like a second skin. Too thin.

Too revealing. Every curve visible. The swell of her breasts. Her hardened nipples.

Her body outlined shamelessly beneath wet fabric.

My gaze drags lower.

Bare legs. Tanned skin.

Strong thighs. Beautiful.

A perfect contradiction to those fierce dark eyes. And that long black hair plastered wet against her skin.

A dangerous thought crawls through me.

I wonder if she’s shaved between her legs.

Wonder what she smells like there.

What her scent would do to me.

Her breathing comes rough. Heavy. Her head hangs weakly to one side. My men stare at her. Watching her body.

Appreciating what I am also seeing. Something ugly twists inside me.

Anger. Possessive and irrational.

“Again,” I say coldly.

My voice hardens.

“What is your name?”

I sit before her. “And what was your mission at the health station?”

I signal one of my men.

The footage from the station invasion flickers to life. Another soldier yanks her chin upward until her eyes are forced onto the screen.

“What were you all there for?” We’ve been doing this for minutes.

Normally, I interrogate male prisoners myself.

Brutally. Personally.

But not women. Never women. And certainly not this one.

Yet part of me wants to break her. Snap that admirable defiance clean in half. While another part, God help me, just wants to sit here all day and admire her strength.

I remember the night we cornered her. She had helped the others escape. Stayed behind.

Fought the androids alone. Used wolf powers, magic.

I had been stunned.

A wolf, standing against us. And then I discovered she was female.

“We… we don’t owe you answers, Commander Ironheart.”

The way she says my name drips with scorn.

And suddenly I wonder, is that hatred for the Ironheart name?

Or for what I am?

Illegitimate.

“Wrong answer.” I rise.

Walk toward the table where a wooden chest rests. I lift it. Walk back to her. She watches me through those dark, defiant eyes. Even now, she's still resisting.

Still fighting against my men’s grip.

“Do you know what this is?” I stand directly before her.

She eyes the chest warily. Then I open it.

And watch her break.

Her face drains.

Horror crashes across her features. She jerks away. Turns her head.

Gags, vomits.

I stare. Listen to the awful sounds tearing out of her. And something in me twists painfully. Because suddenly, I don’t want her sick. I don’t want her hurting.

But I am a commander. And this is my job.

“You know whose heart that is?” My voice comes quieter now. Colder. Despite the strange unease crawling up my spine. “That is the heart of your dear Alpha.” A beat.

“Octavius.”

Her head snaps toward me. Her face collapses in horror, disbelief, despair. All of it.

“No…" She whispers. Then cries. “No… No!”

Her scream cracks through the room.

Her head falls forward. Pain. Defeat. Grief.

I don’t know which dominates. Maybe all of them. I give her time.

Seconds. Minutes.

Wait for the inevitable.

Because she will break.

She understands what I’m showing her.

Not just death. A message. A threat.

A promise. That I can do this again. And again. And again.

Carve out the heart of every member she loves.

She's a werewolf, she can hear my thoughts.

I hide nothing.

“My name…” she whispers. Voice broken now. Small. “My name is Athena Denvers.”

Athena.

The name hits me strangely. Beautiful. Befitting. My chest tightens. A painful, inexplicable squeeze.

Why?

“I was Beta to Alpha Octavius.” Her voice cracks. “And we went to steal a healing vial from the health station that night.”

There it is. She broke.

She gave me what I wanted.

So why do I feel nothing close to triumph?

Silence follows. Only the sound of her shattered breathing and quiet sobs. Then the door slams open.

“Sir!” A soldier rushes inside, breathless. Urgent. Alarmed.

“The resistance.” He blurts. “Werewolves and vampires...they’ve breached your fortress.”

My head snaps toward him. Then to her.

Athena slowly lifts her tear streaked face toward me. Something changes in her eyes.

Not hope, but something dangerously close.

“They say.” The soldier continues, voice tight with panic, “they’re here to kill you for murdering Alpha Octavius and the others.”

My blood runs cold.

And Athena, despite the tears on her face, smiles. A small, broken, terrifying smile.