The Alpha King Poses As A Rogue; A Starving Omega Risks Death To Hide His Bleeding Body

The Alpha King Poses As A Rogue; A Starving Omega Risks Death To Hide His Bleeding Body

Blood on the frozen earth, a dying stranger, a starving outcast with a terrible secret.

What happens when the most powerful alpha king in the realm goes undercover as a hunted rogue and the only soul brave enough to save him is a destitute omega marked for death?

Listen closely.

The winter of 1432 was recorded in the parish registries of Oakhaven as the frost of the white wolf, a season so devastatingly cold that the birch trees shattered in the dead of night.

For Fenris Hawthorne, a disgraced omega cast out from the provincial packs, the cold was merely an executioner taking its sweet time.

Fenris was 21, though his gaunt frame and hollowed cheekbones made him look like a sickly phantom.

Wrapped in a threadbare wool cloak that had belonged to his late mother, he dug through the frozen topsoil of the Whispering Woods with bleeding frostbitten fingers.

He was hunting for winter roots, bitter fibrous tubers that held just enough sustenance to stave off starvation for another agonizing day.

The wind howled a mournful sound that masked the approaching scent of copper and charred pine.

But Fenris’ senses, though dulled by malnutrition, were still those of a wolf.

His head snapped up.

It was the unmistakable tang of alpha blood, thick, heavy, and laced with the toxic acrid stench of wolfsbane.

Caution urged him to flee.

An injured alpha in rogue territory was a death sentence for a solitary omega.

Yet an irrational pull, a deep visceral hum in his chest, drew him forward through the knee-deep snowdrifts.

He found the man at the base of a hollowed oak.

The stranger was massive, a mountain of muscle clad in torn, blood-soaked leather armor.

Three black-fletched arrows protruded from his broad back, the silver-tipped heads buried deep between his ribs.

His dark hair was matted with crimson, and his breathing was a ragged, wet rattle.

Finnick dropped his basket of roots.

He knelt beside the behemoth, his trembling hands hovering over the wounds.

Gods above.

Finnick breathed, his breath pluming in the freezing air.

Suddenly, a massive, blood-slicked hand shot out, wrapping around Finnick’s frail throat.

The man’s eyes snapped open.

They were a piercing, luminescent gold, swirling with a dominance so absolute, it forced Finnick’s knees to buckle.

Traitor.

The man rasped, his voice like grinding granite.

I’m not Finnick choked out desperately, trying to pry the giant’s fingers loose.

I’m a scavenger.

You’re bleeding out.

Please.

Let go.

The golden eyes searched Finnick’s face, registering the scent of sweet rain and crushed juniper, the inherent, undeniable scent of an omega.

The realization seemed to short-circuit the man’s battle frenzy.

His grip faltered, his massive head lolling to the side as unconsciousness claimed him once more.

A distant, sharp blast of a hunting horn shattered the silence.

Finnick’s blood ran cold.

He recognized that horn.

It belonged to the hounds of Duke Alister Montgomery, the cruelest lord in the eastern province.

Whoever this rogue was, he had managed to piss off the highest echelons of the regional nobility.

Survival demanded Finnick leave him.

>> [clears throat] >> But looking at the dying man, Finnick felt a strange, terrifying resolve.

He could not let him die.

What followed was a brutal testament to desperation.

Finnick hauled the unconscious Alpha up by his armpits, his own muscles screaming in agony under the sheer weight.

The man was easily twice his size, his dense bone structure and heavy muscle mass making the task nearly impossible.

Finnick dragged him inch by grueling inch through the snow, praying the heavy snowfall would obscure the trench of blood and disturbed earth they left behind.

To throw off the hounds, Finnick pulled a desperate maneuver.

He withdrew a small carving knife and slashed his own palm, squeezing his blood over a patch of briars leading in the opposite direction, masking the Alpha’s scent with the sweet, enticing aroma of a wounded Omega.

He dragged the stranger to his sanctuary, a forgotten, crumbling crypt beneath the ruins of St.

Jude’s Cathedral.

The iron gates were rusted shut to the outside world, but Finnick knew a collapsed tunnel that led straight into the subterranean dark.

By the time they tumbled onto the freezing flagstones of the crypt, Finnick was coughing violently, his lungs burning.

He dragged the man to a makeshift bed of dry straw and tattered blankets.

Working by the dim light of a single tallow candle, Finnick examined the wounds.

The arrows were barbed.

Pulling them straight out would tear the arteries.

Finnick’s hands, surprisingly steady now, reached for his blade.

He had to cut the flesh to slide the barbs out cleanly.

As he tore the man’s leather tunic away, a heavy iron pendant fell from the stranger’s neck.

Finnick’s breath hitched.

It was a solid silver crest, a roaring wolf crowned with thorns.

The royal sigil.

Finnick’s heart hammered against his ribs.

This was no rogue.

But the King, Kaylen Rostova, was rumored to be safe in his impenetrable fortress at Iron Crest, hundreds of leagues away.

Why was he here dressed as a mercenary, hunted like an animal?

There was no time for politics.

The wolfsbane was spreading the veins around the wounds, turning a sickening bruised purple.

Finnick bit down on his own lip to keep from crying out in sympathetic pain as he sliced into the king’s flesh, extracting the first silver arrowhead.

The man groaned a low feral growl echoing in the cavernous dark, but he didn’t wake.

Finnick packed the wounds with a meager supply of sphagnum moss and yarrow he had saved for the winter, binding the broad chest with strips of his own relatively clean linen tunic.

Shivering in the freezing damp of the crypt, half-naked and exhausted, Finnick collapsed against the stone wall, watching the chest of the most powerful man in the kingdom rise and fall.

He had just committed high treason by interfering with a duke’s hunt, and he had tied his miserable fate to a king who might kill him the moment he woke.

When Kaylen Rostova awoke, the world was a blur of agonizing pain and the smell of damp stone.

His alpha instincts surged to the surface demanding a threat assessment.

He was alive.

His wounds were bound.

He was indoors.

He forced his heavy eyelids open, his golden gaze cutting through the gloom.

In the corner, huddled beneath a pitifully thin blanket, was the source of the sweet calming scent that had tethered his mind to the waking world.

An omega.

Kaelen shifted, and a sharp hiss of pain escaped his teeth.

Instantly, the figure in the corner bolted upright.

Fenik scrambled forward, keeping his head respectfully bowed, exposing the delicate line of his neck, an instinctual submission to an alpha of Kaelen’s caliber.

Don’t move.

Fenik whispered, his voice hoarse.

The silver is out, but the muscle is torn.

You’ll reopen the vessels.

Kaelen stared at the frail boy.

His mind raced.

He had been ambushed on his way to a clandestine meeting with his northern generals.

Duke Montgomery had betrayed him, slaughtering his royal escort.

Kaelen had stripped himself of his royal armor, donning the clothes of a fallen mercenary to lose his pursuers.

Who are you?

Kaelen demanded, his tone laced with the irresistible command of the alpha king.

Ah, Fenik flinched, the sheer power of the voice rattling his bones.

Fenik.

My name is Fenik.

I live here.

And you brought me here.

A wanted man.

I couldn’t leave you to the snow or the duke’s hounds.

Fenik hesitated, his eyes darting to the heavy iron pendant Kaelen had hastily shoved back beneath his shirt before the ambush.

Fenik had seen it, but he dared not mention it.

Ignorance was a shield.

I don’t care who you are running from.

I only care that your fever breaks.

Kaelen narrowed his eyes.

My name is Rowan.

I am a Sellsward.

Fenik nodded slowly, accepting the lie without a blink.

Well, Rowan, you are lucky to be breathing, but you are not out of danger.

Finnick moved to a small iron pot suspended over a meager smoking fire.

He ladled out a thin watery broth made from the winter roots he had gathered, bringing it to Cailin’s lips.

The alpha king who dined on roasted venison and spiced wine took a sip of the bitter dirt-flavored water and forced it down without complaint.

He noticed Finnick’s hands.

They were bruised, blistered, and shaking from a hunger far more profound than Cailin’s own.

You haven’t eaten, Cailin noted gruffly.

I’m fine, Finnick lied, pulling his tattered cloak tighter around his shivering frame.

Before Cailin could press the issue, the heavy thud of iron-shod boots echoed from the surface above.

Dogs barked furiously there, claws scrabbling against the stone ruins of the cathedral.

Finnick’s eyes went wide with terror.

He scrambled to his feet, grabbing a bucket of foul-smelling slop.

They’re searching the ruins.

Stay absolutely silent.

The moss masks your scent, but if they hear you, we are both dead.

Before Cailin could stop him, Finnick sprinted up the crumbling stone stairs to the upper levels of the ruined cathedral.

Above ground, the bitter wind whipped through the shattered stained-glass windows.

Captain Henrik Fowler, a massive scarred brute in the employ of Duke Montgomery, kicked aside a pile of rubble.

Two vicious bloodhounds strained at their leashes, snapping their jaws.

Search the cellars, Fowler barked to his men.

Finnick stepped out from behind a fallen pillar, deliberately spilling the bucket of rotting refuse over his own boots to mask the lingering scent of alpha blood on his clothes.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Finnick asked, keeping his voice trembling and weak.

Fowler spun around, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

He sneered, his nose wrinkling in disgust.

“An omega rat skulking in the ruins.

Have you seen a man pass through here?

Large, bleeding, moving like a wounded beast?”

“No, milord.”

Finnick stammered, bowing low.

“Only me.”

“The hounds are likely smelling the butchered hare I found in the woods.

I dragged it here to eat.”

Fowler stepped closer, grabbing Finnick by the hair and yanking his head back.

Finnick gasped in pain.

Fowler sniffed the air, catching the overwhelming stench of the garbage and the faint, sweet, underlying scent of an omega in distress.

“Filthy little whore.”

Fowler spat, shoving Finnick violently to the freezing ground.

“If you are hiding him, I will flay the skin from your bones and feed you to my dogs.

Move out.

The trail went cold at the river.”

Finnick lay on the freezing stone until the sounds of the boots and barking faded into the distance.

Only then did he allow a sob of sheer terror to escape his lips.

He crept back down into the crypt, his knees weak.

When he returned, Cailan was sitting up, his golden eyes blazing with a dangerous protective fury.

Even in his weakened state, his hearing was sharp enough to have caught every word.

He had seen generals cower before Henrik Fowler, yet this starving, battered omega had just lied to the captain’s face to protect a stranger.

“Are you hurt?”

Cailan asked, his voice softer, devoid of its previous harshness.

No.

Finnick whispered, kneeling back by the fire.

He reached out to check Cailen’s bandages, but as he pulled the linen back, his breath caught.

The skin around the arrow wounds hadn’t just bruised.

It had turned a necrotic pitch black.

Black veins were spiderwebbing up Cailen’s neck.

It wasn’t just wolf’s bane.

Finnick said, his voice trembling with a new profound horror.

It’s widow’s bite, a neurotoxin.

Cailen gritted his teeth as a fresh wave of blinding pain washed over him.

He knew the poison well.

It was an assassin’s tool designed to bypass a werewolf’s rapid healing and slowly paralyze the heart.

I have a day.

Maybe less.

Cailen grunted, sweat beading on his forehead despite the freezing air.

There’s nothing you can do, Finnick.

Leave me.

Flee before Montgomery’s men return.

No.

Finnick said fiercely, his eyes flashing with sudden desperate defiance.

There is an apothecary in the village square.

Master Theophilus.

He hoards king’s foil and refined charcoal.

It’s the only thing that can draw out the poison.

The village is crawling with guards.

Cailen argued, his vision beginning to blur.

They will kill you on sight for stealing.

Finnick stood up, pulling his mother’s ragged cloak tightly around his shoulders.

He looked down at Cailen, the destitute omega, staring down the alpha king in disguise.

Then I had better not get caught, Finnick said softly.

Without another word, he turned and vanished up the stairs, walking straight into the jaws of the enemy, leaving the most powerful man in the world completely at his mercy, the village of Oak Haven was a frozen graveyard of shuttered windows and barred doors.

Curfews were brutally enforced under Duke Alister Montgomery’s martial law, and tonight the streets swarmed with heavily armed patrols carrying pitch pine torches.

The flickering orange light cast long monstrous shadows across the cobblestones, illuminating the fresh snow with a violent restless glare.

Finnick moved like a ghost through the narrow alleyways.

His bare hands were completely numb, his breath a silent vapor in the sub-zero air.

He clung to the shadows avoiding the main thoroughfares where armored mercenaries laughed and passed around flasks of cheap ale.

Every snap of a twig or distant bark of a hound sent a fresh jolt of adrenaline through his fragile system.

He finally reached the apothecary’s shop at the edge of the market square.

The building was a narrow leaning structure of dark wood and frosted glass.

A dim light glowed from an upper window signaling that Master Theophilus was awake, likely cataloging his precious inventory of illicit herbs and imported tonics.

Knowing the front door would be locked and bolted, Finnick scaled the frozen rain barrel at the back of the shop, his frostbitten fingers slipping desperately against the iced wood.

With a quiet grunt, he hoisted himself onto the sloped roof of the lean-to, prying open the latched storm window that he knew from his days begging for scraps was eternally broken.

He slipped inside landing silently on the dusty floorboards of the storeroom.

The air was thick with the scent of dried lavender, crushed cloves, and the sharp medicinal tang of refined sulfur.

Finnick moved quickly, but methodically, his eyes scanning the rows of glass vials and ceramic jars in the darkness.

“Looking for a cure for the frost, little rat?”

Finnick froze.

The voice was oily and calm.

A lantern flared to life, illuminating the hunched, corpulent frame of Master Theophilus.

The apothecary sat behind his heavy oak desk, a loaded crossbow resting casually on the polished wood, the deadly iron quarrel pointed directly at Finnick’s chest.

“Master Theophilus.”

Finnick gasped, raising his trembling hands.

“Please.

I mean no harm.”

“You break into my shop in the dead of night, smelling of fear and sewer water, and claim no harm.”

Theophilus sneered, his watery eyes narrowing.

“The Duke’s men are paying a handsome bounty for a rogue alpha.

They say he was poisoned.

Widow’s bite, if the rumors of the black-fledged arrows are true.

And here you are, an omega outcast, creeping around my store.”

The apothecary’s gaze darted to the specific cabinet Finnick had been approaching.

“Looking for king’s foil, I presume?”

Finnick’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird.

“He is just a man.

He will die without it.”

“Men die every day in Oak Haven.”

Theophilus replied coldly.

“But a king’s bounty that lasts a lifetime.

Why shouldn’t I just put a bolt through your knee and hand you over to Captain Fowler?”

Desperation shattered Finnick’s terror.

He reached into the inner lining of his tattered tunic.

Theophilus tensed his finger, tightening on the trigger mechanism, but Finnick slowly withdrew a small wrapped bundle.

He peeled back the worn fabric to reveal a heavy solid gold signet ring.

It bore the crest of House Valerius, a noble family eradicated by Duke Montgomery 10 years ago.

“My father’s.”

Finnick whispered, his voice cracking.

“It is pure gold, worth more than whatever bounty Fowler promised you.

Take it.

Give me the king’s foil and the charcoal, and you will never see me again.”

Theophilus’ eyes went wide with sheer, unadulterated greed.

He recognized the Valerius crest.

The ring was an absolute fortune, a priceless relic of a slaughtered bloodline.

“Toss it.”

The apothecary demanded.

Finnick threw the ring onto the desk.

Theophilus snatched it up, biting the metal to test its purity before pocketing it with a wicked grin.

Keeping the crossbow trained on Finnick with one hand, he used the other to toss a small canvas pouch across the room.

It landed at Finnick’s boots.

“Three doses of king’s foil pulverized with active birch charcoal.”

Theophilus grunted.

“Now get out before I change my mind.”

Finnick snatched the pouch, relief washing over him.

He turned toward the window, preparing to vanish into the night, but Theophilus was a creature of absolute malice.

As Finnick swung his leg over the sill, the apothecary slammed his fist onto a heavy iron bell on his desk, the village alarm.

“Guards!”

Theophilus bellowed at the top of his lungs.

“The rogue’s accomplice is here in the apothecary.

You swore!”

Finnick cried out in horror.

“I swore nothing to a dead omega.”

Theophilus sneered, raising the crossbow.

Thwack!

The iron bolt flew through the air.

Finnick threw himself backward out the window, but he wasn’t fast enough.

The jagged edge of the quarrel grazed his shoulder, tearing through his cloak and slicing deeply into his flesh.

Finnick screamed, plummeting off the roof and crashing into the snow-filled alleyway below.

Pain erupted in his shoulder, hot and blinding.

Shouts erupted from the market square.

Torches flared as Montgomery’s guards converged on the apothecary.

Clutching the precious pouch to his chest, Finnick staggered to his feet.

Blood poured down his arm, leaving a vibrant crimson trail in the pristine snow.

He didn’t care.

He ignored the burning agony, the sheer exhaustion threatening to pull him under, and the shouting men closing in behind him.

He ran.

He ran with the reckless, terrifying speed of a prey animal, with nothing left to lose, weaving through the darkened forest, praying to whatever gods were listening that the king’s foil would be enough to save the stranger in the crypt.

The crypt was suffocatingly cold when Finnick finally collapsed through the collapsed tunnel entrance.

His vision was swimming with black spots, and his left side was completely drenched in his own blood.

The wound from the crossbow bolt was bleeding sluggishly now, the biting frost having mercifully slowed the hemorrhage, but hypothermia was rapidly setting in.

He dragged himself across the flagstones to where Cailin lay.

The alpha king’s skin was ashen, his chest barely rising.

The black veins of the widow’s bite had crawled up his jawline, a terrifying indicator that the neurotoxin was moments away from seizing his heart.

Rowan.

Finnick gasped, his voice barely a weak exhale.

Rowan, please.

I have it.

With shaking, uncoordinated hands, Finnick grabbed his iron pot.

He dumped the king’s foil and charcoal powder into a splash of melting snow, mashing it together into a thick, gritty paste.

He pried Caelan’s pale lips apart and forced the mixture down the alpha’s throat, massaging his neck to trigger the swallowing reflex.

For a terrifying, agonizing minute, nothing happened.

The silence in the crypt was absolute, save for Finnick’s own ragged, failing breaths.

Then Caelan choked.

A violent shudder racked the massive alpha’s frame.

He coughed a terrible, wet sound, and the black veins on his neck instantly stopped their upward progression.

Slowly, miraculously, the necrotic color began to recede, fading into a dull, angry red as the king’s foil bound to the poison and the werewolf’s legendary healing factor finally kicked in.

Thank the gods, Finnick whispered.

The adrenaline that had kept him upright suddenly vanished.

The world tilted violently.

Finnick slumped forward, collapsing onto the stone floor beside the makeshift bed, his eyes fluttering shut.

When Caelan Rostova fully regained consciousness, the agonizing fire in his veins was gone, replaced by a dull, throbbing ache.

He drew a deep, unobstructed breath.

His alpha senses, fully restored, instantly flooded him with information.

He smelled the bitter herbs.

He smelled the damp stone.

And he smelled fresh, terrifyingly metallic blood.

Caelan sat up, the tattered blankets falling away from his broad chest.

His golden eyes locked onto the frail figure crumpled on the floor.

Finnick.

The omega was deathly pale, his lips blue, a pool of dark blood expanding beneath his left shoulder.

A primal, terrifying roar of pure instinct ripped through Kaylen’s chest.

This tiny, starving creature had braved a locked-down village, faced armed mercenaries, and taken a bolt to the shoulder to save a man he believed to be a common rogue.

Kaylen knelt beside Finnick, pressing his large, warm hand against the bleeding wound to stem the flow.

The omega’s pulse was a weak, erratic flutter.

Suddenly, the heavy grating of iron echoed from the tunnel entrance.

Follow the blood trail.

A harsh voice commanded.

It was Captain Henrik Fowler.

The little rat crawled down here.

Block the exits, we have them.

Heavy boots pounded against the stone stairs.

Torches illuminated the subterranean gloom.

Fowler stepped into the crypt flanked by six heavily armored guards, their swords drawn and gleaming in the firelight.

Fowler’s eyes landed on the bloody omega and then on the massive man kneeling beside him.

The captain sneered stepping forward.

Well, well.

The runaway sales sword and his pathetic little pet.

The duke will be pleased.

Gut the alpha and bring the omega to the kennels.

The hounds are hungry.

Kaylen slowly stood up.

He did not reach for a weapon.

He didn’t need one.

As he rose to his full, towering height, the air in the crypt suddenly changed.

The temperature seemed to plummet further.

A suffocating, crushing pressure filled the room.

An aura so dense and terrifyingly dominant that two of the guards immediately dropped their swords, their knees buckling under the sheer weight of it.

Fowler’s arrogant sneer vanished, replaced by sudden instinctual terror.

This was no rogue.

This was an apex predator.

Kaelen stepped into the torchlight.

His eyes were no longer just gold.

They were blazing luminescent suns of unbridled alpha fury.

He reached into his torn tunic and pulled out the heavy silver pendant, letting the crowned wolf of the royal sigil rest against his chest for all to see.

“You hunt in my kingdom, Henrik Fowler.”

Kaelen’s voice boomed, echoing off the stone walls like the wrath of a god.

“You bleed my subjects.

You conspire with a traitor duke.”

Fowler blanched, his sword trembling in his grip.

“King Kaelen.”

He breathed, realizing the apocalyptic mistake he had made.

“Treason.”

Kaelen snarled.

The massacre lasted less than 30 seconds.

Kaelen moved with a speed that defied his massive size.

He closed the distance before Fowler could even raise his blade, his hand snapping out to crush the captain’s throat in a single devastating grip.

The remaining guards turned to flee, but the alpha king was merciless.

He tore through them with lethal, calculated precision, a hurricane of muscle and bone ensuring not a single man who had threatened his savior drew another breath.

When the crypt fell silent once more, Kaelen stood amidst the carnage, his chest heaving, his golden eyes scanning the shadows to ensure the threat was utterly eradicated.

He immediately rushed back to Finnick, scooping the freezing unconscious omega into his arms.

The boy weighed nothing.

Kaelen wrapped his own heavy cloak around Fenix’s shivering frame, pulling him tight against his chest to share his burning body heat.

“You saved a king today, little wolf.”

Cailen murmured fiercely into Fenix’s hair, the sweet scent of rain and juniper calming the king’s battle rage.

“Alister Montgomery will burn for what he has done to this province, and you will never know cold or hunger again.

I swear it.”

Holding the fragile omega close to his heart, the alpha king turned his back on the ruined crypt and carried his savior up into the breaking dawn, ready to bring hell to those who had betrayed him.

Will Fenix survive his injuries and find his rightful place beside the alpha king, or will the vicious politics of the royal court and Duke Montgomery’s remaining forces tear them apart?

If you were captivated by this tale of survival, loyalty and destined mates, make sure to like this video, share it with your fellow werewolf romance fans, and subscribe to our channel.

Hit the notification bell to catch every chapter.

Leave a comment below with your favorite twist.