Chapter Three: The Night I Killed a Monster

POV: Silver Colt

“They say your true self emerges when your heart is shattered. But to me, that night, mine was drenched in blood.”

“What? What does a poor thing think she can offer me, an Alpha wolf,” Volvo laughed, “This trick of yours can’t get me girl. You failed.”

I ran until the trees blurred and the cold sank into my skin like needles.

The bond had snapped. Clean. Violent. Like a chain being ripped from bone.

Volvo’s voice still rang in my ears, sharp and final, “What does a poor thing think she can offer me, an Alpha wolf.”

Every step deeper into the woods felt like sinking into something darker. Somewhere even the moon dared not follow.

My tears blurred the path. My lungs burned. My thoughts twisted into chaos.

Zorry, silent inside me, trembled. “We shouldn’t be alone out here,” she finally whispered.

“It isn’t my fault, Zorry,” my voice weak, as I tried not to make it budge, “You saw and experienced all our mate did to us.”

But another thing outside the link between I and Zorry didn’t care. Let the rogues come. Let the forest swallow me whole. At least it wouldn’t look at me with disgust.

As I rested at the log close to me, after a long day run, a twig cracked behind me.

I froze. It was fear laced with agony.

Another step. Heavy. Deliberate.

This kind was not that of a rogue. Not a bear either.

I saw the far figure of a frame, looking much like a man.

I turned just as the scent hit me, it was lavender and smoke.

“Running away already, little Omega?”

Jackson Blackwood stepped into view, his grin too wide, too white under the moonlight. He was Volvo’s cousin.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked, finding myself cringing from the unreadable eyes he rested on me.

Rumor had it he’d killed more wolves in combat than most Alphas saw in a lifetime. But it was the rumors whispered behind closed doors that chilled me now.

“You should be more careful, wandering out here. There are monsters in these woods.”

I took cringed more as he stepped closer to me. “Leave me alone.”

He chuckled. “Oh, I intend to. Eventually.”

I tried to run, but to Jackson, it was futile.

In seconds, his arm slammed me against a tree, his body pinning mine, his breath hot on my skin. “Volvo’s a fool,” he hissed, “Rejecting a bond like yours. But me? I don’t mind getting a little dirty.”

I struggled. Screamed. My wolf howled in fury.

“You always smelled different,” Jackson growled. “Like a hybrid. A mistake. But I wonder what you taste like.”

His hand slid lower.

“No!” I screamed.

It happened like a flash of light, I felt something snap under my skin.

Not inside me, but beneath me.

A crack of bone. A surge of heat.

Zorry roared violently.

I blacked out.

One moment, I was pinned.

The next—I was on top of him.

My claws buried in his chest.

Blood sprayed across my face, warm and metallic. His screams echoed for a heartbeat before they were choked off.

His eyes wide. His throat torn like the feral stab of a cursed blade.

My breath was ragged. My vision blurred red as Zorry howled. Howling in a manner she had never howled. “What is happening?” I asked Zorry, a flick of confusion creeping in.

And then… silence.

I staggered back, shaking, covered in blood that wasn’t mine.

Jackson Blackwood lay broken and still, his body twisted, his chest caved in.

The cousin of Alpha Volvo Blackwood is dead. And not just an ordinary death, but the death in the hands of an omega. In the hands of dirt.

I killed him.

I looked the sky, the forest spun around me.

What happened? I don’t remember running. I only remember the cold, and the blood on my hands.

And the whisper of the trees as they bore witness.

By the time I reached the edge of the pack lands, dawn was bleeding across the sky.

My legs gave out just outside the training yard as a door creaked.

Footsteps.

Then… her.

Amelia.

“Not again,” I muttered.

“Are you afraid of her? You know you have the power to take her down in the blink of an eye.” Zorry said.

She stood in the doorway like a vision painted in smug satisfaction. Her golden hair gleamed like a crown, and her robe fluttered like royalty.

She looked at me. At the blood.

At my shaking hands.

And then she smiled. “Oh, well. Well. Well. How has the mighty fallen in the hands of a dirty pig.” She chuckled, her voice stern as though she had been waiting for this moment.

I tried to speak. To explain.

But she stepped closer and crouched beside me.

Brushed a streak of blood from my cheek with one finger, like a lover. “Don’t worry, sister,” she whispered.

“I’ll make sure the whole pack know exactly what you did.” She teased, parting at my back.