Chapter 5

The Alpha King

Rowan's POV

The darkness between the trees shifted. Then he stepped into the clearing. Everything around me changed. The air now felt heavier, the forest seemed to hold its breath. Even the river below the cliff sounded quieter.

I had never seen this man before. Yet every instinct about him screamed danger.

He was very tall, broad-shouldered and dressed in black. His face looked cold, enough to freeze the remaining blood in my veins. 

His silver eyes swept from the clearing. Merciless and I could see power rolled off him in waves. 

Not ordinary Alpha power, but something far greater. Something terrifying.

For the first time since the hunt began, I understood why the wolves around me looked afraid. 

One of them took a shaky step backward.

"No..." He said. 

The Alpha King's eyes shifted to him. The hunter fell silent. The whole clearing plunged into absolute stillness. 

Then Kael Blackthorn spoke for the first time. His voice was too calm. Deadly calm.

"What exactly do you think you're doing here?" He asked. No one answered. 

The hunters exchanged nervous looks. The leader sighed hard. 

"We mean no disrespect, Your Majesty." Kael's face didn't change. 

"Then you've already failed."

Fear flashed from every face. The leader straightened, trying  so hard to regain control. 

"We're handling pack business." He said.

That's a mistake, a terrible one. 

I knew it the moment the words left his mouth, so did everyone else. Kael took one step forward.

The pressure in the clearing doubled. The hunters visibly flinched. 

"Pack business you said?" He asked. His voice turned colder. 

"This is my territory." He said. 

No one moved, no one even breathed. The leader's confidence finally cracked.

"We were ordered to retrieve him." One of them said, Kael's eyes slid to me, for one brief second, then back to the hunters.

"Retrieve now."

The word sounded almost amused. Something dangerous flickered in his eyes. 

The leader nodded.

"Alive?"

I hated hearing that word again. Not rescued, not even protected, but wanted.

The realization made my stomach churn. I watched Kael in silence for several seconds, before he asked a single question.

"Who gave you the order?" He asked.

 The hunters looked down. No one answered. The silence itself was an answer.

"But the wrong answer." The leader shouted.

"Move!"

The hunters reacted instantly, not to me but away. They ran. Every single one ran. As if death itself had appeared in the doorsteps.

For a split second, I thought they might escape, before Kael moved. I almost didn't see it. 

One moment he stood beside the trees, the next he was in front of the fleeing wolves.

Impossible.

A blur, a shadow, a nightmare and a scream echoed through the whole clearing. One hunter hit the ground, then another. 

The fight wasn't a fight anymore. It was a massacre. 

The wolves never stood a chance. Within moments, the clearing fell silent again. The surviving hunters were on the ground. Broken, defeated and terrified.

The leader looked up at Kael. With fear filling his eyes. I saw real fear that stripped away pride.

"Please—" he begged. Kael stared down at him, expressionless. 

"Tell whoever sent you this." The leader trembled loud. Kael's eyes turned glacial.

 "The next time they cross my borders, I won't be as merciful as this."

Merciful?

I glanced at the warriors scattered around the clearing. I wasn't sure what Kael considered mercy, and the leader clearly wasn't either. 

He scrambled to his feet. The remaining hunters followed. Within seconds, I watched them disappear into the forest. Running for their lives.

A thick silence returned. The Alpha King stood motionless, watching the darkness waiting. 

Only when he seemed satisfied did he turn back to me. My pulse quickened badly. The hunters had terrified the hell out of me. This man terrified me more.

I took an instinctive step backward. His eyes narrowed, not offended but observing. 

Like he was trying to solve a puzzle. Neither of us spoke, the silence stretched deep. 

Then Kael's eyes dropped to my wrist. The same wrist where I'd seen the strange silver light.

His face sharpened, just for a second. Then it disappeared. Interesting. He said.

He had noticed something. 

But the realization made me uneasy.

"What are you looking at?" He asked.

 His eyes dangerously returned to me. For a moment, neither of us spoke. In a few seconds, he answered.

"You."

Not comforting, not reassuring but just honest. I swallowed. 

"Who are you?" I asked again.

A strange look from his face. Almost disbelief. As if nobody had ever asked him that question before. "The reason you're still alive." He said. 

The answer sent a chill through me. Not because of the words, but because of how calmly he said them.

As if it were simply a fact. The Alpha King turned away, scanning the clearing and checking the surroundings. 

I should have left. I should have run. Yet something kept me rooted in place. Maybe because I had nowhere else to go. 

Or maybe because every hunter in the region apparently wanted me, or maybe because I sensed Kael knew something I didn't. The thought made me uneasy.

"What did they want from me?" I asked. Kael didn't answer. 

When he finally spoke, his voice was too quiet. "Dangerous men don't spend years hunting someone for no reason." 

A knot formed in my stomach.

Years?

The hunter had said the same thing, that they had searched for years for me.

But how?

Why me?

I was nobody, just a rejected Omega. Nothing special, and nothing important. 

At least that's what I had always believed.

Kael looked at me, as if he could hear the thoughts racing through my head.

"Those wolves won't be the last." He said.

"What does that even mean?" I asked.

"It means, your problems have only begun."

Those words settled heavily between us. For some reason, I believed him, every single word coming out of his mouth. 

A flash of silver caught Kael's attention.

I could see something lying near the edge of the clearing. 

One of the hunters must have dropped it during the fight. Kael walked over and picked it up.

A metal emblem, black. Marked with a strange symbol. The moment he saw it, his expression changed. Not fear, not exactly.

But something dangerously close. My stomach dropped. This was the first emotion I'd seen from him all night, and I didn't like it.

"What is it?" I asked. 

Kael stared at the symbol, thinking in silence. The forest seemed darker and more dangerous. 

He finally looked up. His eyes locked onto mine.

"If this is here...then they're already moving." 

A chill crawled down to my spine.

"Who?" I asked him.

For the first time that night, the Alpha King didn't answer me immediately. His eyes returned to the emblem, when he finally spoke, the words made my blood run cold.

"The people who have been hunting your bloodline for centuries."

The world seemed to stop.

My bloodline?

I stared at him, unable to breathe, unable to think and even unable to understand.

Because I had never heard those words before. And somehow, I knew they were about to change my life forever.