Alpha Kael Draven

Alpha Kael Draven POV

Vengeance was never a choice.

It was forged in me the day my pack was slaughtered.

I still remember the flames, the screams as I lay shackled, watching my world fall. My mother’s final cry echoes even now, etched into every breath I take. My father's roar of defiance as they cut him down. The soil beneath my feet, once sacred, turned black with ash and soaked in the blood of my people.

Alpha Thorne Damaris.

The revered tyrant of the Obsidian Claw Pack. Father to the Princess Selene. Respected by many. Feared by more.

And the butcher who ended my childhood.

He didn’t just kill my family. He didn’t just steal our land. He enslaved us. Took me, the only heir to the Nightfang Dominion, and dragged me through the mud. I was just sixteen when they chained me to the iron poles of his courtyard and whipped the name of my ancestors from my back with every strike of the lash. They beat us. Starved us. Broke us.

They made our women scream in tents lined with silk and horror, made our warriors crawl on broken knees for scraps. They called it mercy.

Ten years.

Ten long, cursed years I served beneath that monster. I bore the mockery of his court, their laughter as they watched the "wild beast of the North" fall again and again under their whips. I saw strong wolves—alphas, betas—turned to nothing. I watched pups wither, warriors turn feral, women stripped of dignity.

And her.

Selene.

The so-called jewel of the Obsidian court. Draped in moonlight, silks, and pride. Her father’s favorite. She never looked at me. I was a monster in her father’s cage. An animal they kept alive to remind others of their power.

But even then… I remembered.

Even as my ribs cracked under boots. Even as chains carved rings into my wrists and neck.

I remembered who I was.

And I vowed, in the pit of my soul, that I would rise again.

That I would destroy every last one of them.

When I escaped with seven others, we were shadows. We hid in the wilds. We trained when we could barely breathe. We stole food, weapons. And we waited five more years.

That’s how long it took.

We use five years to prepare for a night that would drench the moon in blood. The night I slit Thorne Damaris’s throat with the same silver blade they once branded into my back. The night I took his throne and left his legacy in ruins.

But I didn’t kill them all.

I left one alive.

Her.

Selene.

She never fought that night. Not truly. She was dragged to her knees like the rest, trembling, calling out for a father already growing cold beneath my blade. I saw the terror in her eyes when she realized who I was—not just a rebel. Not just a conqueror.

But the ghost her kingdom thought long dead.

The slave they raised in chains.

Now, she lives in my cell. My fortress. My world. And her name means nothing.

She’s not a princess anymore.

She’s my slave.

And every breath she takes is by my mercy.

Tonight, when I walked into her cell and saw her there—cloaked in filth, clinging to the pride she wore like a crown—I almost laughed.

Because beneath all that trembling defiance… I saw the fear.

The fear I once wore.

And I intend to bury her in it.

Every bruise I’ve carried, I’ll return.

Every soul her father destroyed, I’ll echo in her cries.

She’ll know what it means to kneel before the very thing she once ignored. She’ll serve, she’ll obey, and she’ll bleed if I command it. Not because I want her body—gods no. But because I want her spirit.

And I will break it.

Like her father broke mine.

She’ll be polished, cleaned, and paraded before me—not as a prize, but as a symbol.

A symbol of what happens when royalty forgets the blood they spilled.

And I will remind her, over and over, that the past is not dead.

It wears a crown now.

And its name is Kael Draven.