BOUND BY BLOOD AND REVANGE

The scent of blood drowns the air. It’s everywhere—seeping into the dirt, painting the broken bodies strewn across the ground, soaking into Rose’s torn dress. The metallic tang clings to her skin, mixing with the bitter taste of fear that sits heavy on her tongue.

Her heart hammers in her chest, but it’s the pounding in her ears that drowns out everything else—the shouts, the screams, the sickening crunch of bones breaking under the force of violence.

She’s eight years old. Too young for this, too innocent for this madness. But no one seems to care.

Her father kneels before the beast who destroyed their world. Alderon Kane. The Alpha of Mooncrest. The monster who came without warning and left nothing but carnage in his wake. His men have already taken everything—her home, her pack, her people. And now… her father. Her protector.

Rose watches as the blade presses against her father’s throat. The cold steel gleams in the moonlight, but it’s the terror in her father’s eyes that freezes her in place. He’s trying to hold on, trying to shield her from the horror, but his strength is fading. His body shakes, a broken man, and his eyes flicker to her—pleading.

She tries to move, to run, but hands hold her down. Strong, unyielding hands. They pin her to the ground, forcing her to watch, forcing her to understand the reality of the nightmare unfolding before her.

“Please,” Rose chokes out. The word is weak, fragile, nothing more than a whisper in the wind. Her tiny voice is nothing. Her pain is nothing. This was no scene for a child to witness, but Alderon Kane doesn’t seem to care.

He smiles, that twisted, sadistic smile that chills her to the core. And then, without hesitation, he slits her father’s throat.

The blood splatters across the dirt, warm and thick. Her father’s body crumples in a heap, eyes still open, staring at nothing. His life drains away in front of her, the very thing that had kept her safe now taken from her in an instant.

Rose screams, her voice raw and broken, but the sound is lost in the chaos of the night. It’s drowned by the wail of her sister, the one person she still has left. The sound is raw, terrified, ruined, a noise that will haunt her for the rest of her life.

And Kane? He just watches. His amusement is evident, a cruel, twisted pleasure in the pain he’s inflicted.

Rose doesn’t understand it. How could he be this heartless? This savage?

But before she can process the horror any further, his hand is on her throat. Iron fingers dig into her skin, and within seconds, she’s lifted off the ground with a force that takes her breath away. She kicks, she thrashes, she bites, she fights like an animal—but it’s futile. He’s stronger. So much stronger.

His eyes gleam with something worse than cruelty, something darker, more dangerous. He drags her forward, his grip never loosening, and in that moment, Rose realizes just how powerless she is.

"That one is mine." His voice is filled with twisted amusement, but his eyes are cold, void of any remorse. His gaze tells her that she no longer has a choice in her fate. She is his to claim.

Everything inside her screams to fight. To escape. But she’s powerless. Trapped. And as if reading her thoughts, Alderon throws her into his car’s boot, slamming the door with brutal force. The world tilts around her as she is tossed into the darkness, the scent of her father’s blood still fresh in the air, mingling with the faint smell of her sister’s terror.

The last thing she sees, before the door slams shut, is her sister—broken, crumpled on the ground, unable to move. The last thing she hears is Kane’s laughter, cruel and ringing in the night as his men continue their work. The assault on her sister. The sound of her innocence being ripped away.

Rose doesn’t cry.

She doesn’t break.

But as the car speeds off into the blackness of the night, as the weight of everything she’s lost settles like a leaden blanket on her chest, she carves a promise into her soul. A promise that will never fade, no matter how many years pass.

One day, she will make him bleed.