Chapter 4
Rhian thrashed against the silver chains. His Lycan roar shook the dust from the ceiling rafters.
"You touch her and I will rip your heart out through your ribs, Hughes!" Rhian screamed as four of my heaviest Enforcers dragged him backward. His heavy boots left deep gouges in the stone floor. "She is mine! The moon gave her to me!"
I turned my back on him. "Turn on the monitors. Make sure the King of the South has a perfect view from the observation room."
The heavy iron doors slammed shut. The click of the deadbolt echoed like a gunshot.
We were alone.
Kiel was pressed flat against the mattress. Her chest heaved. Her wide, terrified eyes tracked my every movement. The scent of her fear was intoxicating. It smelled like rain and crushed jasmine. My inner wolf clawed at the inside of my ribcage. It wanted to claim her. It wanted to destroy the rival who dared to call her his mate.
"You do not have to do this," Kiel whispered. Tears spilled over her lashes and soaked into the dark pillows. "Please. I will do whatever you want. I will clean the kitchens. I will sleep in the dirt. Just do not do this."
I slowly unbuttoned my cuffs. I tossed the silver cufflinks onto the bedside table. They hit the wood with a sharp, heavy clatter.
"You lost the right to negotiate the moment you let another Alpha touch your skin," I said. My voice was dangerously calm.
"I did not let him do anything! I did not know!"
"Ignorance is not an excuse in my territory, Kiel. You are a Santosh. Deception is in your blood."
I climbed onto the bed. The mattress groaned under my weight. I caged her in, placing a knee on either side of her hips. I looked down at the woman who was supposed to be my ultimate revenge. She looked so fragile. Her pulse hammered visibly at the base of her throat.
Right over her mating gland.
"Look at the camera, Kiel," I commanded.
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. "No."
I grabbed her chin. My grip was firm but not bruising. I forced her face toward the blinking red light mounted on the stone wall. Behind that lens, I knew Rhian was watching. He was suffering. That knowledge should have brought me immense satisfaction.
Instead, all I could focus on was the burning heat of her skin under my fingers.
"Open your eyes," I growled.
"I hate you," she sobbed. Her golden brown eyes finally snapped open, blazing with a sudden, fierce hatred. "You are not an Alpha. You are a monster. My father was right about you."
A cold fury washed over me. I lowered my face until my lips brushed against her ear. "Your father is a dead man walking. And tonight, his bloodline becomes mine."
I moved my mouth down the delicate curve of her jaw. She shivered violently. The friction of her soft skin against my rough jawline sent a jolt of electricity straight to my core. My inner wolf was pacing frantically. It was not acting like an Alpha asserting dominance. It was acting desperate.
I ignored the warning signs. I let my anger guide me.
"This is going to hurt," I whispered against her neck. "A breeder mark is not gentle. It does not carry the Luna's grace. It is a brand."
"Do it, then," she spat, her voice shaking but defiant. "Brand me. It will not change the fact that you are nothing but a coward punishing a woman for a war she did not start."
Her defiance was the final match to the powder keg. I let out a guttural growl. I pressed her down into the mattress and opened my mouth. My fangs extended instantly. They elongated and ached with the primal need to pierce flesh.
I aligned my teeth directly over her scent gland. I wanted Rhian to see the exact moment I ruined his fated mate. I wanted him to watch me take everything.
I sank my fangs deep into her neck.
Kiel screamed. It was a high, piercing sound of pure agony. Her hands flew up and dug into my shoulders.
I clamped down harder, ready to inject the venom that would seal the breeder bond and lock her biology to mine. I expected the bitter, metallic taste of a forced submission. I expected her wolf to whimper and fade away under my dominant aura.
But the second her blood hit my tongue, the entire world stopped spinning.
A blinding flash of pure, golden light exploded behind my eyes. The taste was not bitter. It was the sweetest, most intoxicating thing I had ever experienced. It tasted like sunlight and absolute salvation. It tasted like the missing half of my soul.
A shockwave of raw, terrifying magic blasted through my veins. It hit me so hard it literally knocked the breath from my lungs.
My wolf did not assert dominance. My wolf dropped to its knees and submitted.
Mate.
The word echoed in my mind with the force of a falling mountain. Not just a mate. My fated mate. The true Luna of the Blackwood Pack.
I ripped my fangs out of her neck, gasping for air as if I had been drowning. I stumbled backward off the bed and crashed into the stone wall. My chest heaved. My hands were shaking uncontrollably.
Kiel lay on the bed, sobbing softly and clutching her bleeding neck. She did not know. She had no idea what had just happened.
I stared at her in absolute, mind numbing horror. Rhian was wrong. The southern Lycan King was dead wrong. The moon had not given her to him.
The moon had given her to me.
And I had just permanently branded my true, fated mate on camera as a common breeder.
Before I could even speak, the doors of the bedroom suddenly buckled inward.
The doors crashed to the floor, kicking up a massive cloud of stone dust.
Standing in the doorway was Rhian. He was no longer a man. He had fully shifted into a massive, eight foot tall Lycan beast. His fur was pitch black and his eyes were glowing with a murderous, feral gold. He was covered from head to toe in the blood of my Enforcers.
He looked at the fresh, bleeding mark on Kiel's neck.
Then he looked at me.
"I told you," the Lycan King's voice spoke directly into my mind, dripping with a deadly promise. "She is mine."