All Chapters of Chained To The Alpha: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The dungeon floor is a sheet of ice. I hit the ground with a dull thud. The impact sends a jolt through my spine. I lie there. I do not move. I breathe in the dust. It smells like wet minerals and old copper. The guard above me chuckles. He is a shadow against the dim light of the hallway. He reaches down. He grabs the chain between my wrists. He yanks me up.“Get up”. Rogue. He says.I scramble to my feet. My knees are raw. They sting with every step. The iron around my wrists is heavy. It pulls at my shoulders. It makes me feel small. We walk deeper into the dark. The walls are narrow. They are made of black stone that seems to swallow the torchlight. I hear the sound of dripping water. It is slow. Steady. Like a ticking clock.Where are you taking me. I ask. My voice is a dry rasp.To the black cells. The guard replies. The Alpha wants you where the sun never reaches.He pushes me again. I stumble into a heavy iron door. It is solid. It has a small slot at the eye level. The guard

The silver burn on my shoulder is gone .It is replaced by a faint red mark. It isn't a claim. But it is a start. I look at the door Kael ripped from the wall. The metal is twisted like paper. It is a reminder of what he is. He is a force of nature. He is a king who takes what he wants."Move. Rogue."Vane is standing in the doorway. He looks at the wreckage with a bored expression. He does not seem surprised that his Alpha destroyed a reinforced iron door. He looks at me. He gestures for me to follow him. I step over the debris. My chains clink against the stone. The sound echoes in the empty hallway.We walk past the other cells. They are dark. They smell like misery. We reach a spiral staircase made of black granite. It leads up. Away from the damp and the mold. I feel the air change. It gets warmer. It smells like woodsmoke and expensive leather."The Alpha’s quarters are at the very top." Vane says. He does not look back at me. "Do not touch anything. Do not speak to the guards. D

The change hurts worse than anything Sila's silver ever did. It isn't a slow shift like the stories say. It rips through me all at once, my spine snapping into a new shape, my skin splitting to let the fur through. I hit the ground on four paws instead of two feet. The dress is gone. Shredded rags in the mud. I don't care. I can smell everything now. Blood. Fear. Him. The Shadow Claw wolf in front of me doesn't expect it. It flinches back a step, unsure what kind of animal just grew out of a rogue girl in a red dress. That hesitation is all I need. I lunge low and take out its front legs. It goes down screaming. I didn't finish it. I'm not here for it. I'm here for the wolf on Kael. I cross the courtyard in three strides. My body doesn't feel like mine yet, too big, too fast, but I don't have time to learn it slowly. I slam into the Shadow Claw wolf latched onto Kael's shoulder and we roll together through the mud. Its teeth are still in him when we hit the ground, and I feel his pa

For a second Kael doesn't move. I've seen him furious. I've seen him cold enough to make grown warriors flinch. I haven't seen this. His face goes empty, like something behind his eyes just switched off, and then it comes back on wrong, too bright, too still. "Take him where," he says. His voice doesn't even sound like his own. The rider slides off the horse and hits the ground on his knees, catching himself on his good arm. "Shadow Claw," he pants. "They were waiting at the mill. It wasn't a meeting, Alpha, it was a trap, they knew we were coming, somebody told them—" "Where is Vane," Kael says again, quieter, which is somehow worse. "Alive," the rider says quickly. "He was alive when they dragged him off. They wanted him alive. They said—" He stops, swallowing hard, like the words taste bad in his mouth. "Said what," Kael snarls. "They told the Red Fang king his mate cost him his Beta. They said the next message won't be words." I feel the ground tilt a little under me. This i

The shapes come out of the trees slowly, almost lazy, like they've got nothing to fear from a King with his hand still wrapped around their messenger's collar. I count six. Then ten. Then I stop counting because it doesn't matter anymore, because Kael's warriors are already shifting around us in a ring, and because somewhere in my chest the bond is roaring at me to get behind him, to run, to do anything except stand here in the open where every single one of those eyes can find me. I don't move. I told him I wouldn't hide from this. "Careful, Alpha." The stranger's voice has gone thin, all that oily confidence bleeding out of it now that his own pack is close enough to smell his fear along with everyone else's. "Hurt me and you'll never see either of them again. I told you that." "You told me a lot of things," Kael says. He doesn't let go. "I stopped caring about the part where you smiled about my Beta being used." The Ashveil wolves don't attack. That's what unsettles me more than