No one could calm the Alpha King’s pups until a wolfless Omega did the unthinkable.
They called them the devils of the Obsidian Citadel.
Two children born of the strongest alpha bloodline in history, but cursed with a grief so violent it tore the pack apart.
King Malachi Blackwood had conquered kingdoms, crushed rebellions, and silenced armies with a single growl.
But he could not silence the screams of his own pups.
Nanny’s fled in the dead of night.
Guards were hospitalized.
The council whispered that the heirs were broken, that they needed to be locked away for the safety of the realm.
But then came Eler, a wolfless omega, a ghost in the scullery.
She didn’t use silver chains, and she didn’t use an alpha’s command.
She did something so forbidden, so shockingly tender that it brought the Alpha King to his knees and changed the fate of the shape-shifting world forever.
This is the story of the girl who tamed the storm.
The sound of shattering porcelain echoed through the west wing of the Obsidian Citadel, followed immediately by a guttural dual toned snal that did not belong to a human throat.
Alpha King Malachi Blackwood did not flinch.
He stood at the precipice of the grand balcony, the storm rain lashing against his bare scarred chest, staring out at the sprawling dark forests of his territory.
But his mind was not on his borders.
It was on the chaos behind him.
My king, the voice of Varic, his beta and oldest friend, was tight with anxiety.
That was the Ming vase, the one from the third dynasty.
I don’t care about the vase Vic, Malachi said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated the raindrops on the stone railing.
I care about the silence.
Is there silence yet? Another crash, this time wood splintering, then the high-pitched, terrifying shriek of a woman.
I believe that was nanny number 14, Varic muttered, checking his pocket watch.
She lasted 4 hours.
A new record for this month.
Malachi turned.
His eyes were the color of storm clouds swirling with a gold rim that usually denoted authority, but now only held a profound bone deep exhaustion.
He was 6’5 of pure lethal muscle, a warrior king who had united the seven packs under one banner.
He was feared by enemies and revered by allies.
But here in his own home, he was losing a war against two 5-year-olds.
“Get her out,” Malachi ordered, walking past Vic into the corridor.
“Pay her double the severance.
Ensure the medical team sees to her scratches.
” And the pups, Varic asked, falling into step beside him.
[clears throat] I will deal with them.
Malachi, Varic warned, his tone shifting from subordinate to friend.
You haven’t slept in 3 days.
Your wolf is on edge.
If you go in there with that energy, they will feed off it.
They are shifting too early, Malachi.
It’s dangerous.
The council is arriving in 2 days.
If they see the airs shifting uncontrollably, destroying the wing, they will suggest I lock them in the silver cell.
Malachi finished, his jaw clenched so hard a muscle feathered in his cheek.
They will say the madness of their mother has taken them.
Has it? Malachi stopped abruptly, slamming Varic against the stone wall with a forearm to the throat.
It wasn’t an attack.
It was a desperate, violent reflex.
Do not speak her name.
And do not insult my children.
They are grieving.
Varic didn’t struggle.
He just looked at his king with pity.
It has been 2 years, Kai.
Grief doesn’t smash furniture.
Grief doesn’t shift into a semi-wolf form and bite the throat of a caregiver.
That is feral instability.
Malachi released him, stepping back and running a hand through his wet raven black hair.
I can’t stop them, he [clears throat] whispered, the admission costing him part of his soul.
I command them and they scream louder.
I try to hold them and they burn up with fever.
They need they need a mother.
The thought hung in the air, unspoken but heavy as lead.
Malachi turned and marched toward the nursery doors.
They were reinforced oak banded with iron.
Yet deep gouges marred the wood at knee height.
He could smell the distress pherommones radiating from inside.
A scent like ozone and sour milk.
He pushed the doors open.
The room was a disaster zone.
The velvet curtains were shredded.
The antique rocking horse had been decapitated.
In the center of the room, amidst a pile of torn down feathers from the pillows, huddled two small figures, Kato and Vesper.
They weren’t fully human.
Their eyes were glowing, a luminescent toxic green.
Their hands were elongated, tipped with claws that were far too sharp for children.
Patches of dark fur matted their arms and spines.
They were midshift, stuck in that painful, terrifying limbo that drove adult wolves mad, let alone toddlers.
They were growling at each other, snapping teeth, eyes rolling back.
“Enough!” Malachi roared, releasing a wave of alpha command meant to subdue.
It was a heavy, suffocating blanket of power.
Usually, grown wolves would drop their necks in submission.
Kato, the boy, hissed.
Vesper, the girl, threw a lamp at Malachi’s head.
The lamp shattered against the wall behind him.
Malachi didn’t move, but his heart fractured a little more.
They didn’t recognize him.
They were lost in the beast, consumed by a rage they were too young to understand.
“Lock the door,” Malachi said to the empty hallway, his voice dead.
“Let them tire themselves out.
No one enters.
No one.
He walked away, leaving his children [clears throat] growling in the dark, wondering if the council was right.
Maybe he was raising monsters three floors down in the humid soap scented boughels of the citadel.
Ecic was invisible.
She preferred it that way.
In a world governed by teeth and claws, being a wolfless was a death sentence if you drew attention to yourself.
She was 22, but she looked 18, slender, pale, with eyes the color of faded riverstones, and hair the color of dried wheat.
She had no wolf.
She couldn’t shift.
She couldn’t mind Link.
She healed at a human pace.
In the hierarchy of the Blackwood Pack, she was lower than the dirt on the king’s boots.
Her parents had been lowranking deltas who died in a border skirmish.
And because she had failed to manifest a wolf at puberty, she had been relegated to the scullery, the lowest rung of servitude.
Isa stop daydreaming and scrubbed those pots.
The alpha king’s dinner services due back in the racks in 10 minutes.
The shout came from Martr, the head cook, a formidable female beta with arms the size of hams and a temperament to match.
“Yes, Martr,” I said softly, dipping her raw red hands back into the scalding water.
She scrubbed the grease from a silver platter, her mind drifting.
While she had no wolf, she had something.
She called it the hum.
Since she was a child, she could hear emotions, not thoughts.
She wasn’t a telepath, but feelings.
Anger sounded like static.
Lust sounded like a cello.
Fear was a high-pitched wine.
It made being in the crowded kitchen exhausting, a cacophony of petty grievances and stress.
But lately, for the past 2 years, she had heard a noise coming from the upper floors that pierced through the stone walls.
It was a jagged, weeping sound, like a violin being played with a saw.
It was the twins.
Most of the staff called them the demon pups.
They gossiped about the nannies leaving with scars.
They whispered that the king should just euthanize them and start over with a strong Luna.
Every time Esler heard those whispers, the hum inside her spiked with hot indignation.
They were children.
“Did you hear?” whispered a scullery maid named Jinx, sidling up to a with a basket of dirty napkins.
Nanny 14 is gone, carried out on a stretcher.
They say the girl, Vesper, nearly took her eye out.
Isa didn’t look up.
Maybe if they stopped sending strangers into their room who smell like fear, the pups wouldn’t attack.
Jinx snorted.
You think you know better than the alpha.
Those things aren’t children.
Eisler.
They’re cursed.
The mother was a witch, you know.
That’s why she died in childbirth.
Her body couldn’t handle the evil she birthed.
Isa dropped the pot she was holding.
It clattered loudly into the sink, splashing soapy water onto her apron.
She turned to Jinx, her quiet eyes suddenly blazing.
Queenara was not a witch.
She was a gentle soul.
And those children are hurting.
They aren’t evil.
They are lonely.
Jinx stepped back, blinking.
Careful, Wolfless.
Talk like that gets you sent to the mines.
You sympathize with the monsters.
Maybe you should go up there and feed them.
Maybe I should, muttered, though she knew it was impossible.
Wolfless servants were forbidden from the royal wing.
She was considered unclean, weak.
Get back to work.
Marta bellowed.
Isa, the laundry shooters jammed again.
Go unclog it.
Use the service hatch on the third floor.
Isa froze.
The third floor was the corridor directly beneath the royal nursery.
Now, girl, Isa wiped her hands on her apron and hurried out, her heart hammering against her ribs.
As she climbed the narrow servant staircase, the air grew colder, heavier.
The hum grew louder.
Screech, scratch, howl.
It wasn’t just anger up there.
It was terror.
She reached the third floor landing.
The service hatch for the laundry shoot was located in a small al cove.
As she knelt to pry the panel open, she heard it.
A thud, then the sound of small, frantic claws scrabbling against wood, and then a smell.
Not the ozone scent of power, but the scent of burning sugar and rain.
The hum shifted.
It wasn’t the jagged noise anymore.
It was a single clear note of pure desperation.
Help us.
Isa stopped.
She shouldn’t.
She really, really shouldn’t.
If the king found her near the heirs, he could execute her for endangering them.
She was wolfless.
She had no defense.
But the sound pulled at her chest, a physical hook dragging her upward.
She abandoned the laundry shoot.
She walked to the end of the hall to the spiral staircase that led to the forbidden fourth floor.
The guards were usually stationed there, but she could hear the commotion, shouting, running footsteps coming from the east wing, a distraction.
Isa climbed.
The door to the nursery was unguarded.
The hallway was empty, likely because the king had ordered everyone away to let the monsters tire themselves out.
Isa stood before the heavy oak doors.
She could hear the snarss inside, the sound of things being destroyed.
Her survival instinct screamed at her to run.
A wolfless against two shifting alpha pups was suicide.
She reached for the handle.
It was locked.
She pressed her ear to the wood.
“Hello,” she whispered.
The snarling stopped instantly.
Silence, then a heavy sniff at the bottom crack of the door.
Isa knelt.
She didn’t smell like a warrior.
She didn’t smell like a terrified nanny wreaking of nervous sweat.
She smelled like lemon soap, old parchment and calm.
“I’m not going to open the door,” Eiseler said through the crack, her voice melodic and steady.
“But I heard you were redecorating.
It sounds passionate.
” “A low growl,” answered her, “but it lacked the heat from before.
I used to break things too.
Eiseler lied smoothly.
When I was small, I broke a whole crate of eggs once because I was mad at the chickens.
A pause.
Then a small grally voice.
Kato muttered.
Chickens? Mean chickens? Eisler confirmed.
They pecked me.
So I smashed their eggs.
I got in a lot of trouble.
I had to scrub the floor for a week.
We don’t scrub.
The voice hissed.
We are kings.
You’re loud kings.
Eiseler counted gently.
My head hurts just listening to you.
Does your head hurt? The door creaked.
The lock didn’t turn.
Eiseler realized with a jolt that the lock had been broken from the inside long ago.
They had just been holding it shut against the nannies.
The door drifted open 3 in.
Two pairs of glowing green eyes stared out at her from the darkness.
They were terrifying.
Their faces were distorted, elongated into muzzles, teeth bared.
Most people would have fainted.
Isa didn’t flinch.
She looked at the green eyes and smiled.
Not a submissive grin bearing the throat, but a genuine soft smile.
“Hello,” she said.
“I’m work in the kitchen.
I have a cookie in my pocket, but it’s a bit squashed.
Vesper, the girl, stepped closer.
Her claws were digging into the expensive carpet.
We eat meat, she growled.
Fresh meat.
Boring, whispered conspiratorally.
Everyone eats meat.
But have you ever had a honey oat glaze cookie that was stolen from the beta’s private stash? The glowing eyes blinked.
The alpha energy in the room wavered.
The hum of their aggression was faltering, replaced by the bright, sharp ping of curiosity.
Isa slowly, agonizingly slowly, reached into her apron pocket.
She pulled out a wrapped oat cookie.
She broke it in half.
She held the pieces out on her flat palm right at the crack of the door.
“You have to take it gently,” she murmured.
“I don’t heal like you.
If you scratch me, I stay scratched.
It was a gamble, a massive, stupid gamble.
Telling an alpha, even a child alpha, that you were weak was usually an invitation to dominate.
But Isa sensed something the king didn’t.
These children were drowning in expectations.
Everyone treated them like ticking time bombs.
No one treated them like children.
A clawed hand shot out.
Eiseler held her breath.
The hand snatched the cookie half.
Then the other hand snatched the second.
The door swung open fully.
Eiseler looked up.
The nursery was a wreck.
But standing there were two small children, half shifted, trembling, not with rage, but with exhaustion.
[clears throat] Their clothes were shredded.
They looked small, vulnerable.
It’s dry.
Kato criticized, chewing the cookie, though he looked like a wolf boy hybrid.
“I told you it was squashed,” I said, staying on her knees.
This put her at their eye level.
“Can I come in? The floor out here is cold.
” Vesper eyed her suspiciously.
“Daddy said no one enters.
” “Daddy is tired,” Eisler said.
“And I’m not no one.
I’m just Isa.
” She crawled into the room.
She didn’t stand up to loom over them.
She sat cross-legged amidst the feathers and broken glass.
The twins watched her like hawks.
“Your energy feels weird,” Vesper said, the fur on her arms receding slightly as she focused on the cookie.
“It’s empty.
” “I have no wolf,” Isela stated simply.
The twins gasped.
In their world, this was akin to being born without a limb.
Does it hurt? Kato asked, moving closer.
Sometimes when it’s cold or when people are mean, shrugged.
She looked at the decimated rocking horse.
You know, my mother taught me a song.
It’s not for wolves.
It’s for the moon when it’s hiding.
Sing it, Kato commanded, trying to sound like his father, but sounding merely petulent.
Only if you sit down.
I can’t sing to people who are standing.
It ruins the acoustics.
The twins exchanged a look.
The alpha command in their blood fought against the order, but the curiosity won.
They flopped down onto the pile of feathers, their glowing eyes fixed on her.
Isa took a breath.
She closed her eyes and she began to hum.
It was a low throaty sound, a vibration more than a melody.
It was a lullabi from the old tongue, something her grandmother had hummed.
It wasn’t magic.
I didn’t have magic, but it was a frequency that matched the hum she felt from the earth.
Sleep, little shadows.
The sun has gone down.
The hunter is resting.
The king lays his crown.
As she sang, she projected calmness.
She imagined a heavy, warm blanket made of lead pressing down on the static in the room.
She visualized their frantic, jagged energy smoothing out into a flat line.
The effect was instantaneous.
Vesper’s claws retracted.
The fur on Kato’s face melted away into smooth, pale skin.
The glowing green faded from their eyes, leaving them a soft, sleepy hazel.
They weren’t monsters.
They were just tired little kids.
Isa kept singing, her voice weaving a net of safety.
Without thinking, the unthinkable act, she reached out.
She didn’t ask permission.
She didn’t bear her neck.
She reached out and brushed the hair back from Kato’s sweaty forehead.
Then she pulled Vesper into her lap.
Touching the alpha heirs was punishable by flogging.
Touching them without their wolf’s permission was worse.
But Vesper didn’t bite.
She leaned into Isa’s scullery apron, smelling of dishwater and oats, and let out a long, shuddering sigh.
Kato crawled over and rested his head on Ecer’s knee.
Within minutes, the devils of the Obsidian Citadel were asleep.
Isa stopped singing.
The silence in the room was absolute.
It was peaceful.
She stroked their hair, her heart aching for them.
Then the floorboards creaked behind her.
The air in the room suddenly became so heavy it was hard to breathe.
The scent of rain, ozone, and terrifying unbridled power flooded the nursery.
Isa froze.
She turned her head slowly.
Standing in the doorway, soaked to the bone, his chest heaving, his eyes burning with a mixture of shock and lethal calculation, was the alpha king.
He looked at his sleeping children, who hadn’t slept through the night in 2 years.
He looked at the scullery maid sitting in the wreckage, her hand resting casually on the future king’s head.
Malachi Blackwood took a step forward.
His voice a dangerous rumble that shook the glass in the windows.
What? He breathed.
Did you do to them? Eiseler did not breathe.
The storm outside the nursery windows had nothing on the tempest standing in the doorway.
King Malachi Blackwood took up the entire frame, his wet shirt clinging to muscles that seemed carved from granite, his scent dominating the room so completely that Ecer felt dizzy.
“I asked you a question,” Malachi said, his voice dropping an octave, vibrating through the floorboards into Ayah’s knees.
“What did you do to my heirs?” He stepped into the room.
The crushed glass under his boots groaned loudly, but the twins didn’t stir.
That more than anything seemed to unnerve him.
He looked from Vesper’s slack sleeping face to Ecer’s pale one.
“I sang to them, your majesty,” Eisler whispered, lowering her gaze to his boots.
To look an angry alpha in the eye was a challenge she would not survive.
You sang,” he repeated flatly.
He closed the distance between them in two long strides.
He towered over her, the heat radiating from his body, chasing away the chill of the rain.
Dozens of the finest healers in the seven packs have tried to sedate them.
“Elder shaman have burned sage, and you sang.
” He crouched down.
Suddenly, his face was inches from hers.
His eyes were storm gray, searching her face with a terrifying intensity.
He inhaled deeply, smelling her.
Isa trembled.
I I gave them a cookie, too.
An oat cookie.
Malachi stared at her.
For a second, the lethal mask slipped, replaced by genuine bewilderment.
You fed the alpha a stale cookie and hummed a tune.
And now they are comeomaos.
They aren’t comeosy, sire.
They are sleeping.
They were exhausted.
Grief is heavy.
It makes it hard to close your eyes.
Malachi went still.
The mention of grief usually triggered his rage.
But looking at his children, curled together like puppies, Vesper clutching’s apron, he couldn’t summon the fire.
He reached out a hand, his large, calloused fingers hovering over Kato’s head.
He didn’t touch him as if afraid he might break the spell.
You are wolfless, Malachi observed, his gaze snapping back to her.
I can smell it.
You have no rank, no aura.
You are nothing.
I am the scullery made.
She corrected quietly.
Isa.
He tested the name, rolling it around his mouth like a foreign object.
Stand up, Isa.
She tried to move, but Vesper mumbled in her sleep and tightened her grip on Eler’s apron.
Isa froze.
I can’t, your majesty.
She will wake.
Malachi looked at the grip his daughter had on the servant.
Vesper hadn’t touched anyone without drawing blood in 6 months.
Then you will stay, Malachi decided.
He stood up.
The decision made with the ruthless efficiency of a warlord.
You do not leave this room.
You do not leave their side.
If they wake and scream, you sing.
If they hunger, you feed them.
If they shift, you calm them.
Isa’s eyes widened.
Sire, I cannot.
I have duties in the kitchen.
Marta will.
Marta is a cook.
I am your king.
Malachi cut her off, his voice like a guillotine.
You have achieved the impossible tonight, Wolfless.
You have bought silence.
Do not think this is a kindness.
If you hurt them, if you betray them, if you turn out to be a spy using some hedge witchery to confound their senses, I will not just kill you.
I will dismantle you.
He walked to the door, pausing at the threshold.
Varic.
He bellowed into the hallway.
The beta appeared instantly, looking disheveled and worried.
He peered into the room and his jaw dropped.
By the moon, are they dead? Asleep, Malachi corrected, a strange note in his voice.
Varic, have a cot brought in here and food and clean clothes for the girl.
She is the new royal caregiver.
But she’s wolfless, Varic stammered, looking at Eler with wide eyes.
The council will never accept a wolfless near the heirs.
It’s a violation of the blood laws.
The council, Malachi snarled.
Can choke on their laws.
Look at my children, Varic.
Just look at them.
Varic looked.
He saw the peace on the twins faces.
He swallowed hard.
Understood.
Alfa.
I’ll get the blankets.
Malachi looked back at Isa one last time.
His gaze lingered on her hand, which was still absent-mindedly stroking Kato’s hair.
A spark of something dark and possessive flared in his eyes, but he turned and vanished into the shadows of the corridor.
Isa was left alone in the wreckage of the nursery, holding the most powerful children in the world, terrified and trapped in a gilded cage.
The transition from the scullery to the royal wing was jarring.
Isa was used to the steam and noise of the kitchens, the rough linen of her uniform, and the invisibility of her station.
Now she was wearing gray silk.
Varic had delivered the uniform the next morning.
It was a simple dress, high collared and longsleeved, but the fabric cost more than Isa’s entire life earnings.
It was the gray of the Blackwood House, marking her as personal staff to the king.
It fits,” Varic noted, standing by the nursery door while Eisler adjusted the cuffs.
The twins were sitting on the floor, currently engaged in a surprisingly calm game of tearing up old decrees that Malachi had given them as scrap paper.
“It feels slippery,” Eeler muttered.
“I’m afraid I’ll drop something.
” “Just don’t drop the heirs,” Varic joked, though his eyes were tired.
The king is meeting with the border patrols.
He expects the twins ready for presentation by noon.
The council of elders arrives early.
Isa’s stomach twisted.
Presentation? Varic.
Look at them.
Vesper still has fur patches on her elbows.
Kato growls if anyone but me moves too fast.
They aren’t ready for a parade.
They don’t have a choice, Varic said grimly.
Lord Vain is leading the council delegation.
He has been petitioning to have the twins removed from Malachi’s custody.
He claims Malachi is too emotionally compromised to raise strong alphas.
If Vain sees them acting feral, he will invoke the rights of the pack and take them to the northern training camps.
Eisler felt a cold chill.
The northern camps were notorious.
They broke children to build soldiers.
They are 5 years old.
They are kings, Varic corrected.
Power has no age, Eler.
Get them ready.
He left.
Isa turned to the twins.
They were watching her.
Who is Vain? Vesper asked, ripping a piece of parchment with her teeth.
A very boring man, Isa [clears throat] said quickly, crouching down.
He likes rules.
He doesn’t like fun.
So, we have to play a game called Secret Statue.
Kato tilted his head.
“How do you play?” “You have to be perfectly still and quiet,” Eisler explained, grabbing a hairbrush.
“If you growl, you lose.
If you shift, you lose.
If you bite the boring man, you definitely lose.
” “What do we win?” Vesper demanded.
Isa paused.
She needed a bribe.
If you win, I will take you to the kitchens tonight secretly and we will steal the chocolate tart that Martr is baking for the council.
The twins eyes went wide.
The concept of stealing, of sneaking, appealed to their predatory instincts immediately.
“Deal,” Kato said solemnly.
Isa spent the next hour grooming them.
It was a battle.
Their hair was tangled, their nails were claws, and they had a tendency to vibrate with energy.
But she kept up a steady stream of low humming, the same vibration she had used the night before.
The hum kept their wolves dormant.
It soothed the itch under their skin.
By noon, they looked like children, dressed in miniature velvet dublets, hair sllicked back.
They looked regal.
Terrifying, but regal.
The doors opened.
King Malachi entered.
He was dressed for court.
Black military leathers with silver threading, a heavy fur cloak draped over one shoulder, and the obsidian crown resting on his brow.
He looked like a god of war.
He stopped when he saw them.
Isa had managed to get Vesper into a dress without being clawed.
Kato was standing straight.
They weren’t screaming.
Malachi looked at Ecer.
She was standing by the window, hands clasped in front of her gray silk dress, trying to fade into the drapes.
“Leave us,” Malachi ordered the guards.
When the doors clicked shut, Malachi walked over to his children.
He knelt on one knee.
He didn’t reach out this time.
He just looked at them with a desperate, hungry pride.
You look like your mother,” he rasped, his voice cracking on the last word.
Kato stepped forward and sniffed Malachi’s cloak.
“You smell like rain and angry men.
” Malachi let out a short, startled laugh.
“Yes, the council is here.
They are very angry men.
” “Iler said they are boring.
” Vesper announced.
Malachi’s head snapped up.
He looked at Isa.
Did she? Isa blushed, the color rising in her pale cheeks.
I I was trying to explain the context, your majesty.
Malachi stood slowly.
He walked over to Isa.
The sheer size of him was overwhelming.
He smelled of pine, cold steel, and that underlying storm scent.
Boring, Malachi mused, a glint of amusement waring with the exhaustion in his eyes.
Lord Vain has been called a tyrant, a butcher, and a usurper, but never boring.
I like it.
He leaned in closer.
Whatever you are doing, keep doing it.
If they survive this meeting, ask for any reward, and it is yours.
I don’t want a reward, Isela said, her voice shaking but clear.
I just want them to be safe.
Malachi searched her face, looking for the lie.
He didn’t find one.
The confusion in his eyes deepened.
He wasn’t used to selflessness.
It was a foreign language.
“Come,” he commanded the room.
“It is time to face the vipers.
The throne room of the Obsidian Citadel was designed to intimidate.
” The walls were black stone.
The ceiling vanished into shadows, and the throne itself was carved from a single piece of volcanic glass.
The council of elders sat at a long table at the foot of the throne.
There were 12 of them, representing the major families of the seven packs, but only one mattered.
Lord Vain.
He sat in the center.
He was an older alpha, his hair white, his face a road map of scars.
He radiated a cold, malicious power.
When the doors opened and Malachi entered with the twins, the room went silent.
Eisler walked three paces behind them, head bowed as protocol dictated.
Malachi ascended the deis and sat on the throne.
The twins stood on either side of him.
They looked small against the vastness of the black stone.
King Malachi, Vain began, not bothering to stand.
We were surprised to hear the heirs were available.
The reports we received stated they were feral, unfit for court.
Reports can be exaggerated, Lord Vain, Malachi said smoothly, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
As you can see, my children are perfectly well.
Vain’s eyes narrowed.
He looked at Kato.
Are they? The boy is shaking.
Kato was indeed vibrating.
The amount of alpha pherommones in the room was overwhelming.
It was making his wolf itch.
Isa felt the hum in the room spiking.
It sounded like scratching on a chalkboard.
He is excited to see his elders.
Malachi lied.
Vain stood up.
He walked around the table approaching the deis.
This was a breach of protocol, a direct challenge.
I think not.
I think he is holding back a shift.
I think he is a danger to himself.
Vain stopped at the bottom step.
He locked eyes with Kato and then he did something cruel.
He released a burst of dominance.
It wasn’t an attack technically.
It was a test.
A wave of aggression meant to trigger a response.
Kato gasped.
His eyes flashed green.
His hands curled into claws.
A low growl ripped from his throat.
See, Vain shouted, turning to the council.
He has no control.
He is a beast.
Vesper screamed.
Leave him alone.
And lunged forward.
Her hands were already shifting, fur sprouting along her arms.
Chaos erupted.
The council members stood up, shouting.
Guards reached for weapons.
Malachi roared, “Silence!” But his voice was lost in the panic.
He moved to grab Vesper, but Kato was already shifting, his bones cracking, the pain making him shriek.
Vain drew a silver dagger.
I will subdue the boy for his own safety.
He moved toward Kato.
And then a blur of gray silk moved faster.
Isa didn’t think.
She didn’t calculate.
She just reacted to the hum of terror coming from Kato.
She threw herself between the alpha lord and the child.
She slammed into Vain’s chest.
She was tiny compared to him, a fragile human against a werewolf tank.
But the surprise made him stumble back.
Do not touch him, screamed.
Her voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the room like a bell.
The room froze.
A wolfless servant had just physically blocked a high lord.
Vain looked down at her, his face twisting in fury.
You dare, you filth? He raised his hand.
The backhand would likely snap her neck.
Isa flinched, closing her eyes, shielding Kato with her body, but the blow never landed.
There was a sound like a thunderclap, a snarl that shook the foundations of the castle.
Malachi had moved.
He caught Vain’s wrist in midair.
His grip was crushing.
The sound of Vain’s radius bone snapping was audible in the silence.
you,” Malachi whispered.
His voice a void of pure terrifying darkness will not touch her.
Malachi’s eyes were glowing pure gold.
His wolf was at the surface, ready to kill.
“She is a servant,” Vain wheezed, dropping to his knees as Malachi twisted his broken arm.
“She interfered.
She is under my protection.
” Malachi roared, shoving Vain backward so hard he skidded across the stone floor.
Malachi turned his back on the council, a massive insult, and looked at Isa.
She was trembling, kneeling on the floor, clutching a half-shifted, terrified Kato to her chest.
“Isa,” Malachi said, his voice instantly dropping to a rough rumble.
Isa ignored the king.
She ignored the council.
She pressed her cheek to the top of Kato’s head and she began to hum right there in the middle of the throne room with swords drawn and blood in the air.
Sleep little shadows.
The effect was visible.
The green faded from Kato’s eyes.
The fur receded.
His breathing slowed.
Vesper, who had been ready to kill, crawled over and hid her face in Ecer’s skirt.
The council watched in stunned silence.
They watched a wolfless girl with no magic and no rank tame the bloodline that had conquered the continent.
Malachi watched her, too.
And for the first time in years, the ice around his heart didn’t just crack.
It shattered.
He turned back to the council, placing himself between Eisler and the room.
The heirs stay, Malachi declared, his voice final.
and the girl stays.
He looked at Vain who was being helped up by healers.
And if anyone looks at her with anything less than the respect due to a savior of this pack, I will mount their head on the gates.
The aftermath of the council meeting was not a celebration.
It was a siege.
Malachi had effectively declared war on the traditionalists by protecting a wolfless servant over a high lord.
That night, the nursery felt less like a bedroom and more like a fortress.
Ea sat by the window, watching the moonlight cut through the heavy rain.
Her hands were shaking.
The adrenaline of the throne room had faded, leaving behind the cold reality of what she had done.
She had humiliated Lord Vain.
Men like him did not forgive.
Stop thinking so loud.
A deep voice rumbled from the shadows.
Yella jumped.
Malachi was standing by the fireplace, nursing a tumbler of amber liquid.
He had shed his armor, wearing only loose black trousers and a linen shirt unbuttoned at the top.
The firelight danced over the scars on his chest.
“I apologize, your majesty,” Isela murmured.
“I was just worrying.
[clears throat] You have a habit of saving my children, Malachi said, swirling his drink.
And saving me, “I haven’t seen Vain look that afraid in 20 years.
” He walked over to her.
The air in the room grew heavy with his scent, pine rain, and a new underlying note of spice.
“Musk, Isa,” he said, his voice dropping to a register that made the fine hairs on her arm stand up.
“What are you?” Isler looked up at him.
I told you I am a scullery maid.
No.
Malachi shook his head.
I had my archavists dig into your employment records while you were settling the twins.
Your parents were deltas.
Unremarkable.
But your grandmother, she was recorded as a silence.
Isa frowned.
I don’t know what that means.
It is an old term, a myth mostly.
Malachi explained, stepping closer until his knees brushed hers.
They were wolves born without a wolf spirit, but with a soul so deep it could act as an anchor for others.
They were prized.
They were the only ones who could calm an alpha in a blood frenzy.
They were hunted to extinction because they held too much power over the strongest warriors.
He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
His fingers lingered on her jaw.
“You are not just a wolfless, Eeler.
You are an anchor.
” Isa’s breath hitched.
“I just I just feel things, and I sing to make the hurting stop.
You stopped a room full of alphas with a hum,” Malachi corrected.
“And you stopped me.
” He leaned down.
His face was inches from hers.
The tension was unbearable.
Isa could feel the heat radiating from him.
The sheer raw masculinity of the Alpha King.
“Do you know why I didn’t kill Vain?” Malachi [clears throat] whispered, his lips brushing her cheek.
“Because it would start a civil war.
” “No,” Malachi breathed against her skin.
Because when you touched me, when you looked at me with those gray eyes, my wolf didn’t want to kill anymore.
He wanted to claim.
Isa’s heart hammered against her ribs.
Sire.
Malachi, he corrected.
Say it.
Malachi, she whispered.
He groaned a low animalistic sound and captured her lips.
The kiss wasn’t gentle.
It was starving.
It was the taste of a man who had been living in the dark for years and had finally found the sun.
[clears throat] Isa melted into him, her hands tangling in his hair, the hum inside her rising to a crescendo of pure golden light.
For the first time in the history of the Obsidian Citadel, an alpha king kissed a wolfless girl, and the world didn’t end.
It began.
Happiness, Isla learned, was fragile.
Two days later, the citadel was infiltrated.
It happened during the changing of the guard.
Lord Vain, humiliated, and nursing a broken arm, had not left the territory.
He had called in favors.
Mercenaries, rogues with no scent and no honor, slipped past the perimeter.
Isa woke to the sound of a muffled cry.
She was sleeping on the cot in the nursery.
She shut up, her heart pounding.
The window was open, the rain was blowing in, and Kato’s bed was empty.
Vesper, Isa hissed, checking the other bed.
Vesper was there, sleeping soundly.
Isa scrambled to the window.
Two stories down, she saw a shadow moving across the courtyard, carrying a small bundle.
Panic, cold, and sharp, flooded her veins.
She didn’t scream.
Screaming took time.
Malachi was in the east wing.
By the time the guards mobilized, the rogue would be in the forest.
Isa didn’t think.
She grabbed a heavy silver candlestick from the mantle and climbed out the window, sliding down the wet trellis vines with a recklessness that would have terrified her a week ago.
She hit the ground running.
She was barefoot, the stones tearing at her skin, but she couldn’t feel the pain.
She could only feel the hum.
Kato’s fear was a jagged, screaming line in her head.
She chased the shadow into the gardens.
“Stop!” she yelled, her voice carrying that strange, resonant power.
The rogue turned.
He was huge, wearing a mask.
He held Kato under one arm like a sack of flour.
Kato was thrashing, his mouth gagged.
“Go back to sleep, girl!” The rogue growled.
“Or you die, too.
Put him down,” Isel commanded, stepping forward.
She raised the candlestick.
The rogue laughed.
“A wolfless with a stick.
Vain said you were trouble, but you look like a snack.
” He dropped Kato.
The boy scrambled back, eyes wide with terror.
The rogue shifted, his bones cracked, fur sprouting.
He was transforming into a massive gray wolf.
He lunged for Eisler.
Eiseler didn’t run.
She couldn’t.
Kato was behind her.
She stood her ground.
She closed her eyes and she screamed.
It wasn’t a normal scream.
It was the hum weaponized.
She poured every ounce of her fear, her love for the twins, and her rage into a single high-pitched frequency.
The sound hit the rogue like a physical blow.
He mid lunge, whining, pouring at his ears.
The frequency disrupted his inner ear.
His balance, his wolf’s connection to his brain.
He crashed to the ground, writhing, but the effort drained Isa instantly.
Her vision blurred, her knees buckled.
Isa, Kato screamed.
Another shadow emerged from the trees.
Lord Vain.
He wasn’t shifting.
He was holding a crossbow.
Annoying Vain spat.
You ruined everything.
He aimed at Isa.
Isa looked at Kato.
Run.
She whispered.
The bolt flew.
Isa flinched, waiting for the bite of steel, but it never came.
A blur of black darkness slammed into her, knocking her sideways.
A roar shook the very earth, shattering the windows of the palace above King Malachi.
He had taken the bolt.
It was buried deep in his shoulder, but he didn’t seem to notice.
He was in his full alpha form, a black wolf the size of a warhorse, eyes burning with red hellfire.
He didn’t just attack Vain.
He obliterated him.
The healing wing was quiet.
Malachi sat on the edge of the bed, his shoulder bandaged.
Wolves healed fast, but the bolt had been silver tipped.
It would leave a scar.
He didn’t care about the scar.
He only cared about the girl sitting in the chair opposite him, holding Kato’s hand while the boy slept.
Isa had cuts on her feet and bruises on her arms.
She looked exhausted.
You jumped out of a window, Malachi said, his voice rough.
He had Kato, Eiseler replied, not looking up.
You faced a shifted rogue with a candlestick.
He had Kato.
Malachi let out a long breath.
He stood up and walked over to her.
He knelt, wincing slightly as his shoulder pulled.
He took her hands in his.
Eisler, look at me.
She looked.
Her gray eyes were filled with tears.
I’m sorry, Malachi.
I’m just a scullery maid.
I can’t I can’t protect them like you can.
I almost got us all killed.
You are the only reason my son is alive.
Malachi said fiercely.
You are the only reason I am alive.
I was drowning.
Isa, for 2 years I was drowning in that house.
And then you walked in with a cookie and a song.
He reached into his pocket.
He pulled out a ring.
It wasn’t gold or diamond.
It was a band of black obsidian inlaid with a vein of silver.
The queen’s ring.
Malachi, you can’t, gasped, pulling back.
The council, the laws.
I am wolfless.
The council is being restructured.
Malachi said grimly.
After Vain’s treason, no one will dare question me.
And as for the laws, he slipped the ring onto her finger.
It fit perfectly.
The law says the alpha king must marry his true mate, the one who balances his soul, the one who protects his pack.
He kissed her hand, then her lips.
“You tamed the devils of the citadel, Eler.
You tamed the king.
You are not wolfless.
You are the heart of this pack.
The door creaked open.
Vesper stood there rubbing her eyes, holding her stuffed rabbit.
Is the boring man gone? She asked sleepily.
Eisler laughed, a wet, choked sound.
She opened her arms.
Vesper ran into them.
Kato stirred and woke up, joining the hug.
Malachi wrapped his massive arms around all three of them.
For the first time in years, the storm outside the Obsidian Citadel stopped.
The silence wasn’t empty anymore.
It was full.
It was a family.
But the world outside the healing wing still spun, and dawn brought with it the expectation of the pack.
They had heard the roar.
They had smelled the blood.
They knew the king had killed a high lord.
When the sun crested the mountains, bathing the citadel in gold, Varic knocked on the door.
He looked exhausted, but for the first time in memory, he was smiling.
The packers gathered in the courtyard.
“My king,” Varic said, bowing low.
“All of them, the warriors, the elders, the families, they want to know if the heirs are safe.
” Malachi stood up.
He wore fresh clothes brought by the servants, a black tunic embroidered with the royal crest.
He looked at who was still in her torn, muddy night gown.
They are safe, Malachi said.
And they will see for themselves.
He turned to Isela.
Are you ready? Isa stood smoothing her hair.
I don’t have a uniform, Malachi.
I look like a disaster.
You look like a queen who fought for her children, Malachi corrected.
But if you prefer, he nodded to Varic, who stepped forward with a garment draped over his arm.
It wasn’t the gray of a servant.
It was deep midnight blue velvet, the color reserved for the royal matriarch.
Isa stared at it.
I can’t wear that.
The pack will riot.
Let them try, Malachi growled playfully.
An hour later, the great balcony doors swung open.
The roar of the crowd was deafening.
Thousands of shifters stood in the stone courtyard below.
When Malachi stepped out, holding Kau’s hand, the cheer shook the mountains.
Vesper walked beside him, waving her stuffed rabbit like a scepter.
Then Malachi turned back to the shadows of the doorway and extended his hand.
Isa stepped out.
The crowd went silent.
They knew who she was, the scullery maid, the wolfless.
The rumors had flown fast, that she had bewitched the king, that she was weak.
Isa felt the wall of skepticism hit her like a physical force.
The hum of the crowd was jagged, anxious, judgmental.
Malachi squeezed her hand.
“Show them,” he whispered.
Eiseler took a breath.
She didn’t try to look like an alpha.
She didn’t puff out her chest.
She simply opened her senses to the sea of people below.
She felt their fear of the future, their worry for the stability of the pack.
She closed her eyes and projected the hum.
Not a song this time, but a feeling.
Peace, safety, home.
It rippled out from the balcony, a wave of calm that washed over the warriors and the mothers and the elders.
It was undeniable.
It was the feeling of a mother’s hand on a fevered brow.
One by one, the wolves below dropped to their knees, not in fear, but in relief.
Malachi looked at his people, then at the woman standing beside him.
[clears throat] He raised her hand high in the air.
“Long live the queen,” he roared.
“Long live the queen.
” The pack thundered back, a promise etched in stone and spirit.
Eisler looked at the twins, who were grinning up at her, and then at Malachi, who was looking at her as if she were the only star in the sky.
She realized then that she didn’t need a wolf to be strong.
She just needed a heart big enough to hold them all.
And so, the wolfless Omega did the unthinkable.
She didn’t just survive the alpha king, she saved him.
Eiseler proved that power isn’t always about claws and teeth.
Sometimes the strongest thing a person can do is be gentle in a world that wants them to be hard.
She became the most beloved queen in history.
The only one who could silence a room with a whisper and bring a king to his knees with a smile.
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