The Alpha Prince

He arrived with no fanfare.

And yet the air changed the moment he stepped into it.

We were assembled in the northern courtyard for combat pairing announcements. Dawn hadn’t yet warmed the stone, and the sky above Warborn was the color of ash—bleeding toward storm, thick with the scent of ozone and iron. The courtyard was a grim place: ringed in obsidian pillars, spiked banners of the academy snapping in the wind like warning flags.

The instructors stood silent beside the weapon racks, armored and expressionless, their eyes scanning us like they were already counting bodies.

I stood near the back, arms crossed tight beneath my regulation cloak, trying to ignore the ache in my ribs from a sparring match two nights ago. A girl from House Mournvale had cracked them clean in the second round with a brutal staff blow.

I still won.

Barely. But a win at Warborn meant survival.

The sound came first—not footsteps, not even breath, but the subtle shift of silence. A hush that fell like snow just before an avalanche.

Conversations died. Spines straightened. Heads turned.

And then he stepped through the far archway.

Lucian.

I hadn’t known who he was at first. Only that he had looked at me on the first day like he saw something dangerous. Or something doomed.

Now I knew better.

Lucian, the Alpha Prince.

The favored son of the High Fang.

He moved like the world didn’t have the right to touch him—each step deliberate, quiet, final. He was taller than I remembered. All lean muscle and storm-black leather. His uniform wasn’t standard issue; his cloak was embroidered with silver thread that shimmered like moonlight on fresh blood. His collar bore the sigil of the High Fang: a wolf’s skull surrounded by thorns.

But it was his eyes that held me. Frost and fire. Cold blue with a ring of gold around the iris, the exact color of a winter sun burning through smoke.

They swept the courtyard, cool and calculating, as if the rest of us were merely background noise.

And maybe we were.

“Who is that?” I whispered to the boy beside me—a wiry wolf shifter with a scar down his cheek.

He didn’t look away. “That’s the Alpha Prince.”

Oh. Fantastic.

Lucian didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His presence was a command, and everyone obeyed it, even the instructors. He paused near Commander Kael, exchanged a few words too low to hear, and folded his arms.

A witch to my left sighed like she was seeing her favorite poem brought to life. “He trained with the royal pack,” she whispered. “Killed a mountain drake at fifteen. Leads his own hunts. They say he’s the next heir—if he survives the trials.”

“Must be nice,” I muttered, “having your crown handed to you along with your claws.”

It was meant to be quiet.

It wasn’t.

The courtyard had gone still again—painfully still—and I felt it the moment I’d made the mistake. Felt the weight of it settle across my shoulders like a blade.

I looked up.

Lucian’s gaze had locked on mine.

Frost and fire. Focused. Unblinking.

He didn’t look angry.

He looked… intrigued.

Gods, that was worse.

A low chuckle rumbled from the instructors’ side. Commander Kael arched a brow. “Would you care to repeat that, Thornbrook?”

I lifted my chin. My blood roared in my ears, but I kept my expression blank. Calm. Defiant. “I said it must be nice.”

Lucian took a step forward.

Just one.

But it felt like the earth shifted beneath it. Like the wind leaned into him. I hated how the space around him seemed to still. How the scent of him reached me even from a few paces away—pine smoke, lightning-split air, and the kind of cold you only find at the edge of a cliff in winter, when the next step is either flight or fall.

He didn’t stop until he was close enough that the cadets around us subtly moved back.

His voice was low. Smooth. Sharpened like a blade left out in the frost too long.

“Is there a problem with my presence, witch?”

“No,” I said, steady. “Just your entitlement.”

A sharp inhale from somewhere behind me.

His eyes dropped briefly to my mouth, then lifted again, slow and deliberate. “Entitlement requires something to be owed,” he said. “I take what I earn.”

“And you think that’s what you’ve done?” I asked, cocking my head.

His jaw twitched. Just barely. As if the mask of perfect indifference had cracked a single, hair-thin fracture.

He didn’t answer.

He turned instead to Commander Kael. “Pair me with her.”

My stomach dropped. “What?”

The commander’s smile was all teeth. “As you wish, Your Highness.”

I glared. “I’d prefer not to be paired with someone who thinks bleeding makes a good lesson plan.”

Lucian looked at me again. “You’ll learn quickly, witch. Or you’ll bleed trying.”

I didn’t flinch. “Don’t worry, wolf. I’ve bled before.”

There was a pause. And then—barely there—his mouth curved. Not a smile. Something darker. Something that promised ruin.

We stood there, two storms circling the same sky.

It was hatred.

It was heat.

And it was only the beginning.

Later That Day – Private Training Ring #9

I didn’t expect to be summoned early.

But the moment I entered the mess hall, a message rune flared at my wrist—silver script branded briefly against my skin before fading.

"Ring Nine. Dusk. Don’t be late."

It wasn’t signed.

Didn’t need to be.

The private rings were for advanced combat and bonded testing. Only those with command-lineage or high-ranked family crests were allowed to request them. I wasn’t either.

But he was.

When I arrived, the ring was already warded. Salt-lined edges. Null runes in the stone. No magic allowed.

Lucian stood in the center, blades strapped to his back, sleeves rolled to the elbows. There was blood on one of his knuckles.

I stepped onto the ring, spine straight.

“You think you’re going to scare me?” I asked.

“I’m not here to scare you.” He tilted his head. “I’m here to see what you’ll do when you’re not pretending to be fearless.”

I drew my blade.

He drew his.

Steel sang.

We clashed once.

Then again.

And again.

He was fast. Faster than anyone I’d fought. But I was precise. Furious. I moved like I had something to prove.

Because I did.

He didn’t hold back. Neither did I.

By the end, we were both bleeding. Both breathing hard.

And when our blades locked, hilts pressed between us, his voice was barely a whisper.

“You fight like you’ve already survived the worst.”

I met his gaze, raw and unguarded for one second too long. “That’s because I have.”

He stepped back. Lowered his sword.

And for the first time, didn’t look at me like I was beneath him.

He looked at me like I was a storm he hadn’t yet learned to survive.