4: The North’s Darkest Alpha😎

Silas Vane

The dark was my only faithful friend. After my sister was killed, I wandered this forest like a ghost for years. I had sworn to kill anyone who crossed my border without my permission. Not even a bird could fly here without my leave. Until that night. Until Drake Valerius. The man who murdered my sister in my own woods.

I went for revenge. To tear out the Valerius bloodline by the roots. To spill their blood over my sister’s fresh grave. When her brother killed my innocent sister, I made a vow. I would take their most precious thing. I thought Luna was their most precious. But they saw her as a curse. When her father, that coward King Valerius, offered his own five year old daughter to me to save his hide, my stomach turned. “She is cursed,” he said, trembling. “The witch said she will bring ruin to the pack. Take her. Do what you will. Just leave us.”

He had thrown his own daughter out. She lived in a hut in the woods. That night, when I entered that ramshackle cabin deep in the forest, I did not find a curse. I found a miracle.

Little Luna was curled on the dusty floor. She wasn’t even crying. Just looking. The second our eyes met, the savage beast inside my ribcage dropped to its knees. The missing piece of my soul was shining in that small girl’s body, the girl who carried my enemy’s blood. I was sealed in that moment. I walked into that cabin to kill her. I walked out swearing to protect her from the world. On my eighteenth birthday, I had found my true mate. I only had to wait for her. And I did wait.

Thirteen years. Easy to say. Thirteen full years, I watched her like a shadow.

On stormy nights, I sat on the roof of her cabin. I wouldn’t let the thunder frighten her. Sometimes she went hungry. I left food at her door. She was just a child. She didn’t know how to manage alone. She never suspected a thing. She even thought I was her family. She would thank me for the food. Such a naive girl, thinking her family brought it. I would take my revenge on her family, not only for my sister, but for leaving her like this.

Again, in the café, from the rooftop across the street, I watched her for hours. That weary but upright posture. I memorized her laughter with Fiona. The way her shoulders shook when she was sad. Everyone thought she was cursed. But I knew the truth. She was not ruin. She was a revolution. And now that revolution stood right in front of me, her hands trembling as she held that dagger.

“Don’t speak to me about belonging,” she said earlier. She didn’t know that long before she even understood what belonging meant, I had sold my soul to a devil for her. Her family had told other wolf packs that Luna was cursed. They convinced everyone. They wanted to witness their daughter’s death before the curse could come true. But I tricked everyone. Just to protect her, I told everyone I would kill her on her eighteenth birthday. But I didn’t kill her. It was only a game. A lie I built so she could grow up in peace. Now everyone was hunting her.

To protect Luna, I needed her by my side. But she had rejected me. Her Alpha.

Now she stood right in front of me. This stubborn, proud woman was far more dangerous than that helpless five year old girl. And I liked that. That red in her eyes. What they called a curse was pure power. And I couldn’t wait to wake it.

“They’re here,” Dante said. The doors shook. Hunters. Half breeds. Traitors. All of them believing that fake fairy tale of a curse. All of them coming to destroy a treasure.

I stepped closer to Luna. Only a few inches between us, but the pull I felt could have burned me from miles away. When I put my hand over her heart, feeling that wild rhythm, the wolf inside me howled.

“That dagger,” I whispered, my voice coming out with a hunger that sounded foreign even to me. “It’s not there to kill you, Luna. It’s there to set you free. Your family gave you to me like a sacrifice. They abandoned you to this forest. To death.”

One tear fell from Luna’s eye. She wiped it away fast. Pain was turning into fury in her. My favorite kind of transformation.

“The plan was simple,” I continued, taking another step toward her, trapping her between me and the table. “Raise you. Make you strong. Then march back to that glorious Valerius castle. Not as a sacrifice this time. As an executioner. That power they call a curse? We were going to wrap it around their own throats.”

Outside, the sound of silver bullets grew closer. The castle walls shook.

“Now choose, Luna,” I said, bringing my hand near her face. My thumb brushed her cheekbone as my voice turned heavy as an oath. “Either you die as a legend in those hunters’ hands. Or you stand beside me as a queen and write yourself into history with blood. The kingdom your family owes you. We will build it from their ashes. Will you stand with me?”

Her eyes turned red. This time, she didn’t run. Didn’t retreat. Instead, she gripped the dagger tight and dragged its sharp edge across her own palm. As her own blood dripped onto the blade, her unbreakable will filled the room.

“I will not be anyone’s queen, Silas Vane,” she said, her voice as strong as any Alpha’s. “I will only be the god of my own revenge. But if I need your army to take those hunters’ heads. Then open the doors. Let the world see how it burns.”

A wild smile spread across my lips. Claws pushed from my fingertips as my eyes turned fully red.

“Dante. Open the doors,” I roared. “Today, the hunters become the hunted. And Luna. Today is your birthday. I am giving you the fall of a kingdom as my gift.”

Now the real war began. The silent guardian who had waited in the shadows for years was gone. In his place stood the Alpha of the North, ready to set the world on fire for his mate.