Chapter 4

Reya

Three full days passed, and I quickly realized that living in the guard wing of the Blackwood fortress was basically like being a ghost. Alpha Killian completely kept his word about ignoring me. He did not check on me once. A quiet, elderly omega servant brought a tray of minimal rations to my room twice a day, usually consisting of stale bread, a bowl of thin broth, and some dried meat. I did not complain about the food. I ate every single bite because I needed to keep my physical strength up.

I spent my daylight hours sitting by the small, drafty window of my room, studying every single detail of the fortress courtyard below. I watched the Blackwood warriors train in the muddy snow for hours. They were brutal, efficient, and completely serious about their combat. There was no laughing or showing off like the warriors back in the Southern Valley. This pack lived on the edge of survival, and it showed in every movement.

By the third night, the temperature dropped significantly, and a massive blizzard completely blanketed the mountain in thick white snow. I went to bed early, wrapping my thin blanket tightly around my shoulders to stop my teeth from chattering.

I woke up in the dead center of the night with a violent jolt. Every single instinct inside my body screamed at me to move. The ancient magic sleeping deep in my core was no longer just humming. It was violently throbbing, sending waves of ice-cold energy directly down my spine.

Danger was inside the house.

Suddenly, a horrific, agonizing shriek tore through the silence of the guard wing. It was followed by the heavy, wet sound of tearing flesh and the chaotic pounding of boots on stone.

"The lower eastern wall is breached! The rogues are inside the stronghold!" a warrior screamed from the main corridor, his voice cut short by a brutal grunt.

The heavy iron alarm bells of the fortress began to ring frantically across the territory, but the danger was already right outside my door. The main defense lines had collapsed, and Killian was completely out of reach, patrolling the outer borders of the pine forest.

I scrambled out of my bed, my heart slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird. I looked around the dark room for a weapon, but there was absolutely nothing except the flimsy wooden chair. Before I could even grab it, the heavy oak door of my bedroom exploded inward with a deafening crash, splinters of wood flying everywhere.

A massive, savage rogue wolf stood in the shattered doorway. He was mid-shift, his jaw distorted into a terrifying muzzle filled with long, yellow fangs, and his bloodshot eyes looked completely crazed. He was covered in fresh blood, and a sickening, rotten smell filled my small room.

He locked his feral eyes right onto me, a cruel, predatory grin stretching across his face. "Well, well. Look what we have here. A little southern lamb left all alone in the dark."

"Get out of my room," I said, my voice coming out raspy as I backed away until my shoulder blades hit the freezing stone wall.

The rogue laughed, a wet, guttural sound that made my skin crawl. "No way, princess. Your throat looks incredibly soft. Let's see how much you bleed."

He tensed his massive thigh muscles and lunged straight across the room, his long claws extended and his jaws wide open, aiming directly for my neck.

I was completely cornered, totally defenseless, and facing certain death. In that split second, as his shadow fell over me, a wave of raw, blinding survival panic ripped through my body. The mental locks I had kept on my hidden core for three long years completely snapped.

"I said, get away from me!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.

A massive, violent explosion of raw energy erupted straight out of my chest. It was not light. It was absolute, suffocating darkness.

Thick, ink-black shadow tendrils exploded from my skin like a swarm of angry vipers, ripping through the air with a terrifying hiss. Before the rogue’s claws could even touch the edge of my mattress, the solid black tendrils wrapped securely around his thick neck, his massive arms, and his jaws, pinning his entire body mid-air.

The rogue’s eyes widened in absolute, paralyzing horror. He tried to growl, but the sound caught in his throat as the shadow tendrils began to pulse violently, aggressively draining the dominant alpha aura straight out of his flesh. I could literally feel his strength flowing through the shadows and pouring into my core, making my own power burn like a roaring fire.

In a matter of three agonizing seconds, the massive rogue’s body withered. His eyes rolled back into his head, his muscles went completely limp, and his dominant energy was totally extinguished.

The shadows released him, and his heavy, lifeless corpse hit the stone floor with a dull thud. He was completely dead before he even touched the ground.

I stood over him, my chest heaving up and down as I gasped for air. My long mahogany hair billowed wildly around my face, and my sharp amber eyes glowed like bright lanterns in the pitch blackness of the room. Thick, ink-black tendrils of ancient magic were literally bleeding from my fingertips like smoke, swirling around my feet.

Suddenly, heavy, frantic footsteps sprinted down the corridor, accompanied by the metallic sloshing of blood.

Alpha Killian Blackwood stormed into my room, his massive twin-bladed battle axe raised high, his ice-blue eyes glowing with a terrifying, animalistic fury. His bare chest was covered in deep claw wounds, and his face was splattered with rogue blood. He looked like a god of war ready to butcher the invaders.

But the second he stepped over the shattered doorway, he completely froze in total shock.

He looked down at the dead rogue wolf lying at my feet, noticing how the body was completely drained of life force. Then, his ice-blue eyes slowly rose to look at me.

"What," Killian whispered, his gravelly voice dropping to a dangerous, low frequency that made the floorboards vibrate, "was that?"

I leaned my back against the cold stone wall and crossed my arms over my chest, forcing my hands to stop shaking. I let my usual sarcastic smirk slide back onto my face, using it like a shield even though my heart was pounding. "Just some quick pest control, Alpha Killian. Your northern guard wing leaves a lot to be desired in the security department."

Killian did not find it funny. He marched right over the lifeless rogue, his massive frame completely cutting off the moonlight from the window. He stopped just an inch away from me, his heat radiating off his bare, blood-streaked chest. A sudden, suffocating wave of his warrior aura flared out, pressing tightly against my skin. "Do not play stupid games with me, Reya. That was not normal wolf magic. That was ancient shadow manipulation. That power has been completely extinct for three hundred years. Who are you really?"

I did not flinch, and I did not look down. My shadow magic pulsed beneath my skin, completely eating up his dominant pressure. "I am the girl you called a plain, useless omega three days ago."

Killian gripped my shoulder, his large hand tight but not entirely painful. His eyes burned into mine. "Answer me. Are you a spy? Did your father send you here with a hidden coven to drain my pack from the inside out?"

"If my father knew I had this power, he would have locked me in a basement and used me as a weapon to conquer the Southern Valley years ago," I snapped, knocking his hand away from my shoulder. "My family knows absolutely nothing. They think I am a defect because I can suppress alpha leadership traits. They treated me like an invisible helper and traded me away for cash because Bernice threw a temper tantrum. You want to know the truth? You are looking at it."

Killian stared down at me in absolute silence for a long, heavy moment. His eyes scanned every single line of my face, looking for a lie, but all he found was my raw, bitter honesty. Slowly, the rigid tension in his massive shoulders dropped. A dark, intense smile spread across his rugged face, making him look incredibly dangerous.

"They actually threw away a legendary weapon just to keep a pretty white wolf," Killian murmured, a low chuckle vibrating in his chest. "Your father is an absolute, brainless fool. He handed the North an apex predator."

"I am a person, Killian. Not a gun you can just point at your enemies," I warned him, my amber eyes flashing.

"In the North, you are both, or you are dead," Killian shot back instantly, his face turning completely serious again. He looked toward the door as the sounds of fighting outside began to die down. "The rogues knew exactly how to breach our lower eastern wall tonight. Someone on the inside leaked our patrol schedules. We have a traitor in the pack house, and a major border war is coming. I cannot leave an unknown variable like you down here in the guard wing where anyone can walk in."

"So what are you going to do with me? Put me in a deeper dungeon?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No. You are moving," Killian commanded, grabbing my small suitcase off the floor with one hand. He unlocked the door and pulled it open, gesturing for me to move out into the hall. "You are coming to the high tower suite in the main house. It is directly adjacent to my personal chambers, behind three sets of guarded iron doors. If you are going to be a secret, you are going to be my secret."

My heart skipped a beat against my ribs, a strange, warm tension sparking between us as I walked past his large body. "I thought you had zero desire to play husband to a fraud?"

Killian followed me up the grand stone winding stairs, his heavy boots echoing loudly in the quiet stairwell. He stopped at the top landing, right outside a pair of massive, beautifully carved wooden doors. He turned his head, his ice-blue eyes flashing with a sudden, addictive intensity that made my skin tingle with a weird rush of heat.

"You are not a fraud, Reya," Killian whispered, leaning down slightly so his minty breath brushed against my ear. "You are a miracle. And tomorrow at dawn, you are meeting me in the deepest part of the pine forest. We are going to start private, brutal combat training, and I am going to see exactly what those beautiful shadows of yours can really do when they are unleashed.”