Chapter 4: First Blood

LYRA

His promise was a poison running through my blood. “Each rebellious throb you provide. I will relish. Each and every one of them. Until you break.” The words coiled around my pain, a fatal whisper that drove me to pace inside the golden cage. Break? He thought I would break? He'd taken my father, my home, my future. He would not take my soul. He would not relish anything but my dagger in his chest. I swore it on my father's grave.

I was standing at the bar window, the moonlit courtyard tease. Freedom burned my soul. He would be looking forward to tears. He would be looking forward to cowering. He would not expect me to fight back so soon.

"Every pulse of my heart…" I breathed into silence, my voice raw. "You want them? Come and take them, you beast son of a bitch. But I promise you, the last one will be yours."

Early the next morning, there was a creak on the door. It was the same servant-maid who entered, head lowered, full of that same unspoken fear I was learning to know. This was it. As she set the tray on the table, I got up and I was upon her at once, pinning her against hard cold floor, a hand pressed over her mouth.

"Don't scream," I gasped hastily, my voice low.

"Please, don't scream. I won't hurt you."

She whimpered, her body trembling in my hands.

"I'm sorry," I pleaded, my eyes pleading. "I am so sorry about this, but I couldn't stay here. You understand? He killed my father."

A flicker of something… comprehension, sympathy… passed across her face. She nodded tiny, barely perceptible. I slapped the back of her head against the wall with a pained grimace. Hard enough. A soft thud. She lurched forward in a staggering step, then another, staggering. I held her steady, guiding her onto the floor. "I'm sorry," I panted once again, snatching her wool cloak from the peg.

My eyes fell on the tray. Next to the bread was a little, dull butter knife. It was pathetic. It was perfect. I picked it up and slipped out of the door.

My chest was a vibrating drum. I shoved the rough hood low, my borrowed stink helping me blend with the morning bustle. Servants brushed past, heads low, eyes shut. I remembered the way. Stone, tapestries, the archway into the courtyard. Freedom. It was within reach I could taste the cold air.

Just a little further, I prayed, a mantra in my head. Don't let them see me. Please, just get me to the gate.

I took a deep breath and moved towards the dark shadow cover of the archway.

"Going somewhere, little wolf?"

The voice, smooth as ice and sharp as a blade, came from the darkness itself. He materialized out of the shadows, not stepping but flowing into the light. He wore simple black, his wiry, feral power undeniable. He stood before me, blocking my part completely. His eyes were not furious. They sparkled with amusement, glittering with a triumph that made my blood run cold. That magnetic field was present, an overwhelming force that stunned me for one, killing second.

Then everything… the grief, the humiliation, the rage… detonated.

"DIE!" I roared, the scream torn from my chest.

I lunged, all my remaining fury fixed on the pathetic tip of the butter knife, sharp and pointed at the frosty heart I knew to be as stony as stone.

He moved faster than considered. His hand flashed out, going around my wrist like steel. He just stopped me. His fingers seared on my wrist. He opened my fingers, turning and turning them slowly, agonizingly painful. The knife fell to the flagstones. He spun me round easily, penning me against the hard wall, his body a cage. The air left my lungs in a sharp gasp.

"This?" he growled, the warmth of his breath burning my cheek. He nudged the fallen knife with his boot tip, but never looked away from me. "This was your grand weapon? A bread-knife used to spread jam? I'm practically offended."

"Let go of me!" I gasped, struggling against his impossible strength. "You monster!"

"Monster? I am your Alpha. Your King. And you," he brought his head closer, his pine and cold air scent enveloping me, "are mine. This little game of yours is over."

I thrashed, a useless act of defiance. I tried to lift my knee, to hurt him, to find a gap.

"I will never be yours! I will kill you!"

He shifted with the ease of a predator, his thigh crashing down against my legs, halting my step and pinning me in a way that was profoundly, shockingly intimate. A hot, unwanted jolt went through me. The new position was a fresh wave of humiliation, my body trapped and flush against his, forcing me to feel every hard, powerful line of him.

"Still fighting. Good," he whispered to me, his voice a soft rumble inches from my lips. "I would not have a mate who breaks so easily. But your struggles is useless." His eyes shifted down to my mouth and then back up to my eyes, a burning, possessive fire in their golden depths. "They only serve to show just how completely I own you. Each angry breath you take is one that I permit."

My voice was a broken whisper, trembling with an inarticulate mixture of anger and a cold, unwanted rush. "I hate you."

"Excellent." His lips twisted into a slow, knowing grin that left me shivering all the way to my core. "Hold on to that anger, Lyra. Let it burn you. It'll harden you." He leaned in closer still, his mouth mere inches from my own. "Just learn to direct it toward your real enemies. not your king."

Before I could process the words, his mouth crashed down on mine.

It was not a kiss. It was a brand. Rough and possessive, a raw assertion of claim. He tasted of power and something else I didn't know how to name. He took, he didn't ask permission; one hand in my hair, twisting my head to get the kiss more. My head protested, but within me I danced to the rhythm of his lip, savoring it all.

When at last he stepped back, I was gasping, my lips puffed out, my head spinning. I shuddered, torn between spitting in his face and the dizzying shock of his touch.

His was a low, dark whisper against my puffed lips. "Every attempt at escape. Every second of rebellion. Every time you remember that you are not where you should be… it will end like this." His gold eyes locked with mine, searing the promise into my heart. "With you in my arms. With me showing you just who you are supposed to belong to. Do not forget that, little wolf."

He stepped back, releasing me with a swift tug. I was standing against the wall, my legs weak, my entire world shattered, my entire universe destroyed and reconstructed in that instant of that fleeting, hot, wanted kiss.