MasukEMIRIEL’S POV.
Monsters. Gods. Devils. Those are the names we’ve been given and called over time. Since we were six, we’ve been branded as ‘the mad brothers’, alphas of the shadowcrest pack, the unattainable, the undetectable. It should be something to be proud of, to revel in, to boast and shout about. But instead, it’s a shame. A plague. A curse. A disaster. Because every good thing comes with a price, and hunger is our price to pay for whatever good we have left in us. My eyes flicked to where Rowan was seated, a woman maid was pleasuring him, his hand on her ass as she bounced up and down on his cock, her moans mixed with pain. I looked over at Malakai, Melissa, his personal favorite, bent back as he pushed in and out of her, spanking her as she pleaded for him to go faster. It has always been a shock how Melissa could handle him, and that’s why he liked her. I looked at Nikolai, our above-and-beyond. His hunger was insatiable, unmatched. We were all cursed, but his hunger knew no bottom. Three women were on him, two on their knees, taking turns kissing each other, fondling each other, and sucking his dick. The last one was on his face, feeding him all sorts of small fruits while burying herself right in his mouth. This was our shame, our harem, our dirty little secret. Never to be told. Never to be seen. It was our hunger, unreached, unmatched, insatiable. I watched all of this with a bored expression, my eyes drooping, almost closing. I was the only one who had grown past all of this. Our hunger knew no limit, from food to sport, to sex, we had to do it 100 times more than the average werewolf. It was our curse and our life. A knock came on the door, halting every movement in the room. Malakai slid out of Melissa, spanking her one more time as she walked naked to the door before opening it. Our beta, Basil, worked in, nodding at me before pushing a woman inside the room. “Another spy?” I asked, groaning as I did. When will they get the memo and stop sending them? “Yes, my alpha. She was fou… He stopped as I stood up, stalking towards the whimpering woman on the floor, her hands clasped together. “Pl…plea…please I beg you…I don’t want to die…please..” I grabbed her jaw, my wolf coming so close to the surface of my skin. He wanted something. Anything. Even if it was this woman in front of me. “Who sent you?” “Pl…plea..” tears rolled down her cheeks, her lips quivering as she stared into my eyes. “Who sent you?” I asked again, my voice low and calm. I clenched my jaw, stopping the growl that was about to slip out. “Ridgesaw pa..ridges…alpha Cole..” I released her from my grip, standing up as I stared at her, contemplating whether to kill her or not. How many of her have I killed? Thirty? Fifty? Hundred? I’d lost count at this point. And I know exactly the moment her blood touched down, I won’t be able to stop myself. To stop my hunger. I’d said Nikolai was the worst of us all, but I lied. I am the worst. Sex, food, sport, hunting, all those still satiated my brother. But I needed something new. Something worth fighting for. Something that didn’t kneel and beg. Something to challenge me. “What should I do with her, Alpha?” “Please, I beg you…spare me and I’ll leave. I beg you…he… In a flash, I was in front of her, my teeth sinking into her neck as her blood spilled on the floor. Her cries came to an end, life draining out of her body. I pulled back, wiping my jaw with my sleeve as I stared at her lazily. She was small. They were all small. And yet they still kept sending them in hopes that they’d figure out something about us. And they’ll use that to destroy us, take our power. But instead, we kept killing them or enjoying them. Some became too attached to leave, like Melissa, all in hopes that we might fall in love with her or keep her forever. Others tried to run, but most of them only ended up dead, unable to leave this place. The minute you entered our world, it became yours too. We never forced them, so they never blamed us. “Clean this up, and send a message to Cole. Tell him we’ll be attacking in a week. Ask him to prepare.” I said as I returned to where I was sitting, watching my brothers continue their actions. “Yes, alpha. The priestess is outside. She said she has news.” At that, everyone stopped what they were doing, my brother's eyes snapping to Basil. Nikolai was the first to talk, “Everyone out!” The beta carried the dead woman off the ground, the other ladies slipping their clothes on as they exited the room. At their exit, the priestess, a middle-aged woman, walked into the room, scrunching her nose up at the smell of everything. “Do you have news this time?” Rowan spoke first. “Yes, your highnesses. I have come bearing news.” “Good or bad?” Malakai asked. The priestess gulped down, her smile faltering on her face before she replied, “Bad. Very bad.” I could already feel Rowan rolling his eyes, Malakai leaning back into a bored position, and Nikolai crossing his legs—their actions whenever they didn’t want to hear anything. “Go on Miasan.” I said. “I have finally found her, your highnesses. Your mate. She has been found.” We all fell silent at her words. For years, we had thought ourselves mateless, another curse to add to our hunger. Miasan continued, “But there’s a problem, my lords.” Nikolai scoffed, “What problem can there be, Miasan? This is good news. She’s our mate.” She shook her head, her white eyes full of pity. It was a wonder how she always seemed to know where to look without eyeballs, “She’ll be your doom or your making. She’ll have the power to liberate you from your hunger. Or she can push you further into it. It’ll be challenging, riveting, you’ll reach a state you’ve never reached before.” I felt all my brothers sit up, their ears now attentive and intrigued. I met Nikolai’s eyes, a small smile dancing on his lips. They’ve also been bored, grown tired of the senseless killing and sex. “If she’s your making, your highness. It’ll be something to celebrate. But if she’s your doom..” She shuddered, the rest of her words dying in her throat. “What would happen if she’s our doom?” Malakai asked. She shook her head, a distraught look on her face, “I don’t know either, my majesties. I was only shown. It’ll be everyone’s undoing if not taken care of.” Something rippled in my chest. Sweet. Charming. A challenge. Just like I’ve always wanted. “And when is she to arrive?” Rowan asked. “Soon. Soon.” The priestess said as she bowed and exited the room. I closed my eyes, savoring her words all over again. I could feel the blood of the woman I just killed trickling down my throat, tangling with my excitement. For years, it has been a senseless hunger, killing, maiming, claiming with nothing to look forward to. Now there was something to look forward to. My wolf growled inside of me, whining and snarling. Red flashed in my eyes as I shut it, calming myself down. When I opened them, I met my brothers, and I could tell we were all thinking the same: “I want every woman prepared. We’re going to have lots of fun.”ANOKAIThree months had passed since the ritual, and most mornings I woke up before any of them did.That morning was the same.I lay there for a while just listening to four different kinds of breathing around me, feeling the bond hum quietly underneath everything the way it always did now, steady and warm, nothing pulling or aching or twisting the way it used to.Nikolai stirred first, the way he always did, his arm tightening around me without him fully waking, and I let myself stay there a few more minutes before easing out from under it. The packhouse was different now too.Not in any way you could point to exactly, the walls were the same walls, the halls were the same halls, but the air in it had changed. People didn’t flinch when the brothers walked past anymore. Maids didn’t go quiet and shrink against walls.There was laughter in the kitchens some mornings, actual laughter, and the first time I’d heard it I’d stood in the hallway for a long moment just listening because I ha
ANOKAIThe grounds had never held this many people.I stood at the top of the steps in front of the packhouse and looked out at all of it, the merged territories laid out below in the firelight, faces from Shadowcrest mixed in with faces from packs that had been enemies a few weeks ago, all of them gathered in the same open space because the new alpha king had called for it and nobody refused that call anymore.Torches lined the edges of the crowd. The night was warm for once, no full moon hanging over us this time, just ordinary stars and ordinary dark, and somehow that made it feel like something was finally allowed to be simple.The brothers stood with me. Emiriel on one side, then Nikolai, then Malachi, then Rowan, all of them dressed the way they had been for the selection, formal and dark and impossibly imposing, and I stood in the middle of them in a dress the same midnight blue as that night, and I could feel every eye on the grounds find us and stay there.The priestess waite
ANOKAII woke up and the first thing I noticed was that the ceiling was made of wood. I knew that ceiling. Shadowcrest, the healer’s hut. My body felt heavy, like I’d been sleeping for years but I felt the anxiety slowly releasing the hold it had on my body.I turned my head, they were there. All four of them, sitting in chairs, standing by the wall. They looked like hell, tired, and worried.Emiriel saw my eyes open first, he was at my side in a second. His hand wrapped around mine. It was warm. Solid.“Anokai,” he said. His voice cracked.“Hey,” I managed. My throat was dry. Rowan came over. He didn’t say anything, he put a hand on my forehead, like he was checking for fever. His touch was rough but gentle.“Six days,” Malachi said from near the window. He pushed his glasses up. “You scared the life out of us.”Nicholas just watched me. His silver eyes didn’t blink. They told me what happened, how they found me in the glade after everything went dark, how they brought me back. The
ANOKAII’m here. The voice was quiet and certain and completely real, sitting in the hollow space inside me that had been empty for days, and I held very still inside myself the way you held still when something wild came close and you didn’t want to scare it away.Why, I thought,why now, why haven’t you been here, where have you been while all of this was happening to me?There was a pause, and then her voice came again, slower, like she was choosing how to explain something complicated. Restricted.She said it simply, and the meaning came with it, not just the word but the understanding underneath it, the way the curse that lived in the brothers was the same thing that lived in me, the same power transferred through the bond, and it put limits on her the same way it put limits on them.She could only come when the danger was absolute. When there was nothing else left. Every other time, if she came freely, if I could call her at will the way other wolves called theirs, the power woul
ANOKAIThe pain wasn’t the kind that left marks. That was the thing about what Orana did, it didn’t touch my skin or my bones, it went somewhere deeper and more private than that, reached into the space behind my eyes where my wolf lived and pulled at her like trying to drag something out of water that didn’t want to come, and every session left me feeling like I’d been wrung out from the inside.She’d been at it for a full day. The routine had shaped itself without anyone announcing it. Orana would come in and sit across from me and put her hands up and say something low and rhythmic under her breath and then the pulling would start, that intrusive searching feeling behind my eyes, pressing into the space where my wolf had been, and I’d sit through it and feel nothing give and eventually she’d stop and leave me alone for a while before coming back to try again.My wolf wasn’t just quiet anymore.She was gone. The voice I’d been hearing in fragments and at desperate moments for months
EMIRIELShe was nowhere to be found . Basil said the words and I heard them and my brain did the thing it had been doing for five days which was try to find a way to make the information mean something different from what it meant, try to find a version of it that didn’t land the way it landed.There was no other version.Every single one of her things was packed out. Nothing left. No note, no trace, no indication of when she’d decided to go or where she’d gone to, just an empty house that looked like someone had erased the evidence of themselves from it deliberately and carefully.Orana hadn’t come back after the night of the attack. The realization spread through me cold and slow as I sat there going through the timeline, placing everything in order, looking for where I’d missed it.She’d been in that corridor when we were leaving. She’d stood there looking worried and capable and exactly like someone who was trying to help, and we’d been exhausted and scared and desperate enough to
ANOKAI’S POV.Every part of me was still flushed by the time I left the room. Basil walked in front of me, leading me to wherever the alpha had ordered him to. I looked down at my clothes as I walked, wondering what he meant by what I was wearing. It was a normal shirt and pants I changed into this
MALACHI’S POV.Beasts.Monsters.Devils. Those are words that we’ve been called and many more, by our maids, by some of our guards, almost by the entire world, yet no one has ever been brave enough to say it to our face besides this feisty, damning girl. In all our years of living, we’ve had wome
ANOKAI’S POVThe four of them were on different chairs, cross-legged and eyes boring into mine like vultures. The room was dimly lit as I met Nikolai’s eyes and looked down at his lips. Embarrassment flooded my cheeks as I recalled my dream. Why was I exactly dreaming of them and the things they d
ANOKAI’S POV.Ethan. It was Ethan.It was always Ethan in my dreams. Dead, decaying, angry, bitter, there was no form he had not taken in my dreams. For the past three years I spent in prison, it was his face that haunted me in my dreams, calling my name and spitting hot lava of venom on me. The







