4

He steps away from the dead body of his chief and walks towards me, the blood smeared all over his hand.

He reaches for my jaw again and smirk, he expects to see fear in my eyes, but it’s not the first time I have seen a man gutted.

I don’t fear him at all, or that’s what I tell myself.

“What’s your name Little doll?” He asked.

Little doll, he had already picked a nickname for me, He had picked a name for me before even knowing mine. My throat was tight, but I lifted my eyes to his, refusing to drop them. I raise my eyes to his, his grip tightened on my jaw.

“Camilla,” I said.

His smirk deepened. “A nice name… for a pretty doll.”

Then his hand left me, and only then did I realize I was shaking all over, my knees weak, my lungs heavy like stone. I had tried to show him I wasn’t scared, but he saw through me. He saw everything.

Who wouldn’t fear him? Alpha Lennox Steele. The Pack Slayer, one of the many names the people had given him, The Tyrant. The man who turned villages into ash and left bones for wolves to gnaw. The one mothers whispered about in the dark to keep their children silent.

But me, what I know for sure, I hate him. Every piece of me hates him, hates his existence. If he were anyone else, not who he was, not Alpha Lennox, I would have taken the sword from his back and driven it through his throat right where he stood.

“Rise.” he ordered and I slowly rose to my feet, My body obeyed before I could stop it, my white dress stained at the hem with the blood of his chief beside me.

his eyes scanned my body like he could see the fabric underneath it, making me want to scream. It was more than looking, He devoured me with his eyes. He stripped the air from me, making me feel naked before him.

Just for a minute, I was all he could keep his eyes, I have never been devoured by a man in that manner that it made me drop my gaze to the floor, unable to endure it.

But he did not stop staring.

Then he turned, moving to my father. He pressed his bloody knife to my father’s throat, a smile playing on his lips.

“Do you accept your daughter as my bride?”

My heart stopped.

Father gulped hard, he stared at me, his eyes apologizing for what he is about to say.

Alpha Lennox had accepted me as his bride, the first trial had passed and my pack was spared.

Not entirely sure if I am his mate or just one of his bride, I hope to be the latter, if he were my mate then I would know it. I would have felt it the minute he walked in.

There would be fire in my veins, a spark in my chest. But I felt nothing but hate. So I prayed to be the latter, only a bride. Brides sometimes lived.

All I had to do was please him and maybe one day he would let me go, only if I haven’t had the guts to slit his pretty head off his neck.

Absolutely sure I would be killed for that but the deed would have been done, The great Alpha Lennox killed by a woman.

My name would be a monument, written in the books of history as the tyrant slayer.

“I do not have all day” he warned, yanking my father by the hair and pressed the knife so close to his neck, that there was a cut.

A thin line of blood trailed down his neck. My father flinched, eyes squeezing shut.

It was threat, warning him to be careful of the words that escape his mouth or he might lose his head.

“Don’t hurt me” I yelled.

“Silence!” Zayn snapped, his hand raising to strike.

He looked at me, amusement showing in his eyes.

“Easy now, Zayn,” he said softly, but it was the softness that made me tremble. “She is just a child.” A child. That’s what he saw when he looked at me, yet he still claimed me.

“Yes” my father answered to ease the tension around us.

“It’s settled then” He stepped away from him and sheathed his knife into his belt.

I stumbled forward, into my father’s arms, hugging him as he held me tight. My mother clung to us both, her sobs were loud filling the whole room, like a mother who had lost her only child. We held each other like it was the last time—because it was.

“Take her Zayn” Lennox ordered.

I held tighter to my parents refusing to let go of them, tears falling from my eyes, sure enough that I would never see them.

Rough hands pulled me from them harshly and lifted me like I weighed nothing, Zayn swung me over his broad shoulder like a feather. I tried my best to fight him, landing fist upon fist against his back.

I screamed so loud till my throat almost tore, but it didn’t matter. I was carried away like a trophy, like prey already caught.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye. Not properly. My parents’ cries followed me as the hall faded.

“We have a wedding to attend,” Lennox announced.

And that was the last thing I heard from the home I would never see again.