1- His Sacrificial Mate

Kaelen 

The courtyard of the Alpha Vance smelled of blood and fear. Kneeling on the cold grass, many others like me were waiting for death. 

The Execution Ceremony, as they called it, was around the corner. All the wolf-less werewolves, weak and crippled, would be killed by the Alpha himself. He was known for taking pleasure in killing everyone that he found worthless for his pack. 

Or better, he killed everyone Lycan King Tristan found worthless. To them, wolves like us were a disgrace to their species and name. 

"Head down, runt!" One of the guards hissed in raw disgust, slamming his foot against my back, and I fell on the ground. 

"What a fucking weakling!" Another guard scoffed, and I felt my eyes darkening at the disrespect. 

Wolfless. Scentless. Weakling. Disgrace. 

They called me all the names. After all, for them, I was just a runt. Someone who neither had a wolf nor any powers to live in this world. For them, I was just a waste of space and breath. 

Mocking laughter filled the air. 

"Silence!" 

One word. It took one word for the crowd to cease laughing, and the wolves kneeling on the ground to start shivering. The voice held so much power that I felt something inside me stirring. It wasn't lust. No. It was the greed to consume that power. It was the craving to annihilate that power. 

"King Tristan has announced the Winter Execution Ceremony. The weaklings die today. Those who feed on nothing but free grains would be executed to show everyone what happens when you disgrace your pack." Alpha Vance's voice echoed in the cold courtyard, emotionless and cold, filled with nothing but the arrogance of being King Tristan's most lethal weapon. 

Also, King Tristan's pet. 

A sickening sound of his sword dragging across the stone started creeping in as he started walking towards us. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I heard strangled cries as he started killing the likes of me, one by one, mercilessly. 

While others trembled in fear, I was shaking for a very different reason. 

Something inside was shifting dangerously and darkly as Vance approached me. With each step he was taking towards me, my fingers kept digging into my palms, controlling the growing urge to look up from the ground and stop everything immediately. 

But I could die before the sun could set if I did that. 

'Not so easily.' The wolf that had lost in the deepest abyss of my mind hummed darkly. My fingernails dug painfully into my palms to restrain him inside. 'If he touches us, I am burning the fucking courtyard down.' 

The mere thought was nothing but suicide. 

The moment I unleashed my hidden powers, I would indeed kill Vance and his guards in no seconds, but King Tristan would immediately smell it, and I would meet Vance in hell before I could even reach him. 

For my powers were still dormant. They needed a host to unleash. 

"Look up, runt." The heavy voice ordered me, and my insides twisted in rage at the command. 

But I had been keeping my anger at bay for years now. The pretense of being weak and pathetic had become my routine to the point that I could feel my conscience mocking me for becoming weak in the pretext of staying low. 

"I said, look up!" Impatience and anger laced his voice when I didn't obey him. 

The air around him shifted. I could smell his Alpha energy radiating around him, making the wolf inside me lick his chops. The energy was so intense, unrefined, and raw that I felt the unsated hunger I had been feeling for years kept resurfacing with an uncontrollable urge. 

My disobedience was making him impatient. I could sense it. Growling in anger, I felt him grab my jaw in his vice grip and jerk my face up to force his command on me. 

The moment he touched me, violent and uncontrollable waves burned through my veins. My core, feeling the intense Alpha energy, immediately reacted. An invisible wisp of my hidden scent escaped my skin. 

And Vance consumed it. 

I felt his fingers tighten around my jaw as he inhaled my scent, something only a predator with a higher rank was capable of. I could see the shift in his eyes as the iron sword slipped from his hand and fell onto the stones with a scary clattering sound. 

The entire courtyard went silent. 

An Alpha never dropped his sword except at the time of submission. 

And Alpha Vance was known for his domineering aura. He intimidated even the royal councils at times. 

The scent I accidentally leaked out of my skin was making his wolf wild. I could sense it in his hold. The way his nostrils flared and his irises disappeared into molten gold, I could see his wolf losing control. 

A look of disbelief flashed in his eyes, making mine widen in panic. 

He knows. 

He knows who I am. 

To save myself, I prepared to unleash the uncontrolled silver fire that had been dormant for years now. Just when I was about to release it, aiming for his exposed throat, a heavy, authoritative voice echoed from behind. 

"Vance, what the hell are you waiting for? Kill him and get done with him." A higher council member spoke impatiently, and the man holding me didn't pay any heed to him. 

He wasn't looking at anyone but me. His breathing came out as heavy, ragged breaths; his hands trembled around me as if he had touched a forbidden flame.

With a sharp tug, he pulled me off my knees before turning to look at the council member. 

"The boy is not up for the kill. As the highest executioner and Alpha, I claim this runt as my sacrificial mate." 

My eyes widened as I looked at the sadistic creature beside me. He didn't claim me as his servant. He didn't claim me as his mate. He claimed me as his sacrificial mate. He claimed me as his personal sex toy; someone who would pleasure him in the privacy of his chambers and be assaulted in front of the council until I would be sacrificed in the holy flame of the Throning Ceremony held every year. 

"But he has no scent, Vance. That thing possesses no wolf. He won't be able to take your heat." The council member argued, throwing me a disgusted look, and the wolf inside me snarled. 

"He must take my heat, Garret." The dark voice rumbled in the courtyard. 

Without wasting another second, he clipped iron chains around me and started dragging me out of the courtyard. 

When Vance roughly pushed me into his personal carriage, locking me with himself, I realized I hadn't left the butcher's shop. Instead, I had entered the monster's lair. 

"You aren't a wolfless thrall, are you?" His dark, raspy voice made me curl my fingers into a fist. His primal and raw Alpha energy suffocated me. 

"What are you talking about, My Lord? I am—" He cut me off, his sharp fangs grazing against my exposed neck, stirring a beast inside me. 

"You aren't a wolfless thrall. Who are you? And why does my wolf wants to take you right here, right now?"