THE ALPHA KING’S HEIR WAS LEFT TO DIE IN THE SNOW—AND THE MARKED OMEGA WHO SAVED HIM WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO LIVE
I never asked for this fate.
I was just an omega without a pack, scavenging in the frozen wilds of the north when the storm hit.
The snow came down like knives, blinding me, but I heard it—a weak cry cutting through the wind.
Not an animal.
A baby.
I followed that sound until my legs burned, until the cold numbed my bones.
There, in a clearing, lay the impossible.
A massive white wolf, bigger than any I’d seen, guarding a tiny bundle wrapped in silk.
The child was barely alive, lips blue, skin pale as death.
The wolf’s golden eyes met mine—not with threat, but with desperate plea.
I should have run.
Omegas like me didn’t interfere in the affairs of kings.
But when I lifted that baby into my arms, something inside me shattered and reformed.
His scent wrapped around me like chains I didn’t want to break.
A note slipped from the blankets, three words that sealed my doom: Protect him or die.
I carried him home through the blizzard, the wolf following like a silent shadow.
For days I fed him, warmed him, whispered promises to a child who wasn’t mine.
He clung to me like I was his only world.
I named him in secret—Elden—because he needed a name, a chance, a mother.
Then they came.
Soldiers.
The King’s men.
They tore through my door like wolves on the hunt.
Their leader, the Alpha King himself, stood in the threshold, his storm-gray eyes locking on the baby in my arms.
“You have my heir,” he growled, voice like winter thunder.
“Give him to me.
”
I held Elden tighter, my heart pounding against his small body.
The wolf—his wolf—watched from the corner, waiting.
I knew then this wasn’t just about a lost prince.
This was about a mark on my wrist, the curse that branded me “touched by death.
” A power I was forbidden to use, a truth my father tried to bury with me.
The King stepped closer, his presence crushing the air from the room.
“You saved him.
Now tell me why an unmarked omega would risk everything for a child not hers.
”
I looked into his eyes and felt the pull—the bond neither of us wanted.
“Because no child deserves to die alone in the snow.
”
His jaw tightened.
Something dangerous flickered in those gray depths.
“Then you come with us.
Both of you.
”
As they dragged me from my cabin, Elden crying against my chest, I knew my life was over.
Or perhaps—just perhaps—it was only beginning.
The King didn’t know my secret yet.
He didn’t know what my touch could do.
But when he found out, when the truth of my power shattered his world, everything would burn.
And I would be right in the center of the flames.
The journey to the palace was a blur of snow and silence.
The Alpha King—Kel Nordberen—rode at the front, his massive frame cutting through the wind like a blade.
I was placed in a separate carriage with Elden clutched to my chest and the white wolf, Skoll, guarding the door like a living shadow.
Every bump in the road made my heart clench.
I whispered to Elden the whole way, promising him safety, even as I wondered if I could keep that promise.
The palace loomed like a fortress carved from black stone and ancient ice.
When we arrived, the King didn’t speak to me.
He took Elden from my arms with surprising gentleness and disappeared into the royal wing, leaving me to the mercy of servants who looked at me like I was a disease they couldn’t name.
They locked me in a small room with barred windows and a single cot.
“For your own protection,” one beta sneered before slamming the door.
I spent three days in that cell, pacing, starving, listening for Elden’s cry through the walls.
On the fourth morning, the King came himself.
He filled the doorway like a storm cloud, his gray eyes colder than the blizzard outside.
“You will care for my son,” he said without greeting.
“He won’t eat for anyone else.
He won’t sleep.
Whatever magic you used on him in that cabin, use it again.
”
I stood, my legs weak from hunger.
“He’s not magic.
He’s a baby who needs his mother.
”
“He has no mother,” the King snapped.
“She died giving birth to him.
And now you will be what he needs until I find who tried to kill him.
”
He didn’t ask.
He ordered.
And because Elden was crying somewhere in this palace, I followed.
The nursery was a gilded cage.
Elden was there, tiny and frail in a massive cradle.
When I picked him up, he quieted immediately, his small hand fisting my dress.
The King watched from the doorway, his expression unreadable.
“You smell like safety to him,” he said quietly.
“I don’t know why.
”
“Because I held him through the storm,” I replied.
“Because I chose him when no one else did.
”
The days blurred into weeks.
I became Elden’s shadow—feeding him, rocking him, singing the old lullabies my mother taught me before she abandoned me.
The King visited daily, but he kept his distance.
He was a wall of ice, beautiful and terrifying, his presence sucking the warmth from every room.
Yet at night, when Elden slept, I caught him watching me with something raw in his eyes.
Hunger.
Confusion.
Need.
One night, Elden woke screaming from a nightmare.
I rushed to him, but the King was already there, holding his son with awkward tenderness.
“He doesn’t know me,” the King whispered, voice cracking.
“He cries when I hold him.
”
“He will learn,” I said softly, placing my hand over the King’s on the baby’s back.
Our fingers brushed.
Heat shot through me—his cold skin against my warmth.
He didn’t pull away.
From that night, something shifted.
The King began staying longer.
He spoke of the betrayal—the attempt on Elden’s life during a journey south.
Someone in his own court had poisoned the guards and left the baby to die in the snow.
The white wolf, Skoll, had been the only survivor, carrying the child until he found me.
“I owe you a debt I can never repay,” the King said one evening as we sat by the fire, Elden sleeping between us.
“You don’t owe me anything,” I replied.
“I saved him because he needed saving.
”
He looked at me then, really looked.
“Why do you hide your wrists?”
The question froze me.
I pulled my sleeves down tighter.
“It’s nothing.
”
“It’s everything,” he said.
“Show me.
”
I hesitated, then slowly revealed the mark—a black scar shaped like a broken moon.
“Touched by death,” I whispered.
“My father branded me when my power first awakened.
Every life I try to save ends in death.
He said I was cursed.
”
The King stared at the mark.
Then he did something that shattered me.
He lifted my wrist and pressed a kiss to the scar.
His lips were cold, but the touch burned.
“You saved my son,” he said against my skin.
“You are not death.
You are life.
”
That night, he didn’t leave.
He stayed, and for the first time, the ice in him cracked.
Our touches were hesitant, then urgent.
He claimed me not as a king, but as a man desperate for warmth.
I gave myself to him completely, the bond between us flaring to life like a flame in the dark.
But secrets have teeth.
Weeks later, I discovered the truth.
My power wasn’t death—it was healing, twisted by my father’s seal to hide the threat I posed to his power.
When I confronted him in the dungeons, he laughed.
“You were always too strong,” he spat.
“I marked you to break you.
But you survived anyway.”
With Skoll at my side, I broke the seal.
Power flooded me—pure, golden, unstoppable.
I raced back to the palace to save the King, who had begun freezing from within, his curse activated by the love he could no longer deny.
I found him in our chambers, ice spreading across his chest.
“Casia,” he gasped, reaching for me.
“I love you.
I was wrong to hide it.”
I placed my hands on his heart and poured everything into him—my power, my love, my refusal to lose him.
The ice cracked.
His eyes opened, warm and alive.
The curse shattered.
Our son grew strong between us.
The court that once scorned me now bowed.
My father was exiled.
The realm changed, one law at a time, protecting the broken and the unmarked.
Years later, on the anniversary of that snowy night, we stood in the clearing where it all began.
Elden, now a sturdy boy of five, ran through the wildflowers with Skoll chasing him.
The King pulled me close.
“You saved us all,” he whispered.
“No,” I said, kissing him.
“We saved each other.
”
And in the place where death had waited, life bloomed eternal—a family forged in snow, sealed in fire, and bound by love that refused to break.
The End
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
