Everyone warned her the chained beast was a bloodthirsty monster.
Risking the executioner’s block, she shattered its rusted silver bindings anyway.
Instead of tearing her apart, the creature shifted before her eyes into the terrifying legendary alpha king.
And in that very instant, he claimed her as his own.
The winter of 1442 brought a cold to the fiefdom of Oak Haven that felt less like weather and more like a curse.
The cobblestones of Lord Reginald Sterling’s imposing keep were perpetually slick with black ice.
And the servants moved like ghosts, heads bowed against the biting wind and their master’s unpredictable cruelty.
Among them was Genevieve, a humble apothecary’s daughter.
She was bound to the keep by a debt her father had left behind upon his death.
A debt Lord Reginald ensured grew larger with every passing season.
Genevieve spent her days grinding bitter herbs, boiling poultices, and tending to the hounds, and occasionally the battered guards of Oak Haven.
She kept her head down.
It was the only way to survive.
But survival became a complicated matter on the day Captain Gideon Croft rode into the courtyard with a prize that made the blood freeze in Genevieve’s veins.
It took 20 horses to drag the reinforced iron cage through the keep’s heavy wooden gates.
And the men riding alongside it looked less like triumphant hunters and more like survivors of a massacre.
Gideon Croft, his armor dented and his face slashed, barked orders with a frantic, breathless panic.
Inside the cage lay a nightmare woven from midnight and shadow.
It was a wolf, but of a size that defied reason.
Its massive body was covered in thick obsidian fur, matted now with dirt and the dark crimson of its own blood.
Several barbed hunting pikes were still lodged in its flanks.
And heavy iron chains, shimmering with a sickeningly bright silver plating, were wrapped violently around its throat, paws, and muzzle.
The beast was barely breathing.
Its chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged gasps.
Get it to the lower dungeons.
Lord Reginald commanded, stepping out onto the balcony, his eyes gleaming with greedy delight.
Bolt it to the bedrock.
We will display it at the festival of the hunt.
Let the whole province see the monster that dared to stalk my woods.
Genevieve watched from the shadows of the kitchen, her hands clutching a bundle of dried yarrow.
She had heard the whispers of the lichens, the ancient shapeshifting warlords who ruled the untamed north.
But the church and the lords swore they had been eradicated a century ago, hunted to extinction for their unnatural blood.
The creature in the cage was no mere animal.
Even beaten and bleeding, it radiated an aura of ancient, terrifying power.
That evening, the heavy oak door of Genevieve’s small apothecary room swung open, revealing the imposing frame of Captain Croft.
Grab your salves, witch, he spat, ignoring the fact that she was a healer, not a practitioner of magic.
Lord Reginald wants the beast kept alive until the festival on the morrow.
If it dies before the crowds arrive to see it burn, your head will take its place on the pyre.
Armed with a satchel of comfrey, witch hazel, and bandages, Genevieve was escorted down into the bowels of the keep.
The lower dungeon was a place where light went to die.
The air was thick with the stench of rot, damp stone, and copper.
At the very end of the corridor, in a cell carved directly into the earth, the beast lay chained.
The guards shoved her inside and locked the iron bar door behind her, leaving her alone with the creature.
Genevieve swallowed the lump of terror in her throat.
The wolf was bolted to the floor by four heavy silver iron cuffs.
A thick chain anchored its neck to a heavy ring in the wall.
As she approached, the beast’s massive head turned.
She froze.
Its eyes were not the dark, soulless pits of a wild animal.
They were a striking, luminescent amber, swirling with profound intelligence, burning rage, and an excruciating agony.
It looked at her, and Genevieve felt a sharp, physical jolt in her chest, a sudden, breathless pull that she could not explain.
I am not here to hurt you, she whispered, her voice trembling but surprisingly clear in the echoing damp.
I am here to stop the bleeding.
The wolf released a low, rumbling growl that vibrated through the soles of her worn leather boots, but it did not thrash.
It watched her every movement.
As Genevieve knelt in the damp straw, she saw the true extent of the horror.
The wounds from the pikes were severe, but they were not what was killing the creature.
It was the chains.
The silver plating on the iron was reacting violently with the wolf’s skin, burning through fur and flesh, leaving raw, blackened, and blistering scars.
The silver was poisoning it, suppressing its natural healing abilities.
With trembling hands, she applied the soothing paste to the deep puncture wounds, careful to avoid the sizzling burned flesh around the chains.
As she worked, she murmured softly, telling the beast about the winter, about her father’s garden, anything to fill the heavy silence.
The wolf’s breathing began to slow, the frantic rhythm easing into a steady thrum.
When she reached for the wounds near its neck, her bare fingers accidentally brushed against the thick mane of black fur.
A shock of warmth traveled up her arm.
The wolf let out a soft, almost human exhale, leaning infinitesimally into her touch.
Genevieve looked into those amber eyes and saw the terrible truth.
This was no beast.
This was a prisoner of war.
And tomorrow, Lord Reginald was going to drag it into the courtyard, torture it for the amusement of drunken nobles, and burn it alive.
I cannot heal the burns, she whispered, a tear slipping down her soot-stained cheek, landing on the wolf’s massive paw.
Not while the silver binds you.
I am so sorry.
The wolf stared at her, its gaze intense, almost piercing her soul.
It didn’t look like a creature resigning itself to death.
It looked like a king memorizing the face of the one person who had shown him mercy.
The following night was the eve of the festival of the hunt.
The keep above was alive with the chaotic sounds of preparation, the roasting of meats, the tuning of lutes, and the raucous laughter of visiting lords and knights.
Genevieve sat in her dark room, staring at her blood-stained hands.
The image of the chained beast haunted her every waking second.
If she did nothing, the creature would die a slow, agonizing death for the crime of merely existing in woods claimed by a greedy lord.
But to help it meant committing high treason.
It meant a guaranteed death sentence.
Yet, as the clock struck midnight, Genevieve found herself wrapping a thick woolen shawl around her shoulders and slipping a heavy iron crowbar into her skirts.
She had made her choice.
The descent into the dungeons was terrifyingly quiet.
The jailer, a boorish man named Thomas, was slumped in his wooden chair at the top of the stairwell, dead to the world after consuming two jugs of strong winter ale.
A heavy iron ring of keys hung precariously from his thick leather belt.
Genevieve held her breath, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs, as she reached out.
Her fingers brushed the cold iron.
She lifted the ring, praying the metallic clinking would be masked by the distant sounds of the feast above.
She slipped the keys off his belt and hurried down into the suffocating darkness of the lower depths.
When she reached the cell, the beast was in far worse condition than before.
The silver had eaten deeper into its flesh, and a sickly grayish pallor had overtaken its muzzle.
It didn’t even raise its head as she unlocked the cell door and slipped inside.
I’m Genevieve whispered frantically, dropping to her knees beside the massive The wolf’s amber eyes flickered open, dull and hazy with pain.
It let out a weak, protesting whine, as if trying to warn her away, to tell her to save herself.
Hush, she commanded gently, her hands shaking as she sorted through the heavy ring of keys.
Let me do this.
She found the smallest key, the one meant for the heavy padlocks on the silver-plated cuffs.
She started with the front left paw.
The lock was rusted with blood and dampness.
Genevieve gripped the key, twisting with all her meager strength.
The metal bit into her palms, breaking the skin, but she gritted her teeth and pushed harder.
Click.
The first cuff sprang open.
The wolf let out a sharp gasp as the burning silver fell away from its charred flesh.
Genevieve didn’t pause.
She moved to the second paw, then the back legs.
With every lock that fell, the air in the cell seemed to grow heavier, charged with a strange, crackling energy.
Finally, she moved to the thickest chain, the collar bolted around its neck.
As she wrestled with the heavy padlock, footsteps echoed down the stone corridor.
Heavy, armored footsteps.
Who goes there? A voice barked.
It was Captain Croft, accompanied by two armed guards.
He had come to check on their prize.
Panic seized Genevieve’s chest.
Please, she whispered to the lock, her bloody hands slipping on the iron.
Please.
The apothecary Croft roared, drawing his broadsword as he saw her through the bars.
Open the gate! She’s tampering with the beast.
Genevieve threw her entire body weight into turning the key.
With a loud metallic snap, the heavy silver collar broke open and clattered onto the cold stone floor.
The reaction was instantaneous.
The moment the last piece of silver left its body, the beast let out a roar that shook the very foundations of Oak Haven Keep.
It was not the howl of a wolf.
It was a sound of pure unadulterated primordial power.
Genevieve was thrown backward by an invisible force, hitting the damp wall as the creature’s body began to convulse violently.
The sickening sound of bones snapping, elongating, and reforming echoed in the cramped space.
The black fur seemed to melt away, pulling back into the skin as the massive frame shifted.
Muscle knitted together, scars formed over raw wounds, and the sheer heat radiating from the transformation instantly dried the dampness in the air.
Before the guards could even get the cell door fully open, the beast was gone.
In its place stood a man.
He was breathtakingly massive, standing well over 6 and 1/2 ft tall.
His chest and shoulders corded with thick powerful muscle.
His skin was tanned and marred by a map of pale jagged scars, a testament to a lifetime of brutal warfare.
Long midnight black hair hung wildly around a face carved with aristocratic harsh lines.
But it was his eyes that stole the breath from Genevieve’s lungs.
They were the exact same luminescent terrifying amber.
Reese, the alpha king of the northern Lycans, had been unbound.
Captain Croft froze, his broadsword trembling in his grip.
“Kill him!” “No!” he shrieked, terror stripping his voice of its usual bravado.
The two guards lunged.
Reese moved with a speed that the human eye could barely track.
He didn’t have a weapon, nor did he need one.
He stepped inside the guard’s guard, his large hand wrapping around the man’s throat.
With a sickening crunch, the guard crumpled.
Reese caught the second man’s spear shaft, shattered the thick ash wood with his bare forearm, and drove the splintered end into the man’s chest.
It was over in seconds.
Blood pooled on the stone floor.
Captain Croft, realizing the monster he had brought into his home, dropped his sword and ran for the stairs, screaming for the garrison.
Reese did not pursue him.
Instead, the Lycan king turned slowly, his massive chest heaved, his amber eyes burning with a primal fire as they locked onto Genevieve.
She pressed herself against the cold stone wall, terrified.
She had freed a monster, a legend of bloodshed and war.
He walked toward her, his bare feet making no sound on the bloody stones.
He stopped mere inches away, towering over her.
The heat radiating off his body was immense.
He reached out a large calloused hand.
Genevieve squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the killing blow.
Instead, she felt his rough thumb gently wipe a streak of blood and soot from her cheek.
“You bleed.
” His voice was a deep gravelly baritone that vibrated straight through to her bones.
He looked down at her small lacerated hands, torn open from forcing the locks.
A low growl rumbled in his chest, not of anger at her, but of profound displeasure that she was hurt.
He bent down, picking up the heavy woolen cloak from one of the dead guards, and wrapped it securely around his waist.
Then, without a word of warning, Reese stepped into her space, wrapping his massive arms around Genevieve.
He buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling deeply.
Genevieve gasped, stiffening, but the scent of him, pine needles, petrichor, and raw masculine heat was intoxicating.
“Mine.
” He murmured against her skin, the word sending a shiver of absolute electricity down her spine.
“The fates have a twisted sense of humor, planting my mate in a cage of silver.
” Before she could process the impossibility of his words, “Mate.
” Reese scooped her up into his arms as easily as if she weighed nothing at all.
He held her tight against his broad chest, shielding her.
“Hold on, little bird.
” Reese commanded softly, his amber eyes flashing toward the corridor as the sound of a hundred armored men began echoing down the stairs.
“I’m going to tear this keep down to its foundations.
” The stairwell of Oak Haven Keep became a slaughterhouse in the span of a single heartbeat.
Reese did not run like a hunted animal.
He advanced like a conqueror.
Genevieve pressed her face into the crook of his neck, queezing her eyes shut as the deafening clash of steel and the screams of dying men echoed off the claustrophobic stone walls.
He held her securely against his chest with his left arm, turning his body to shield her from every stray blade and flying splinter.
While his right arm became an instrument of absolute devastation, he didn’t bother picking up a sword.
When the first wave of armored guards rushed down the narrow spiral stairs, Reese met them head-on.
He caught the downward swing of a halberd with his bare calloused hand, the steel biting into his palm but failing to sever bone.
With a brutal twist, he ripped the weapon from the guard’s grip and drove the blunt wooden haft into the man’s breastplate with such force that the iron caved inward.
Genevieve could feel the deep rhythmic thrum of Reese’s heart against her side, steady, unhurried, terrifyingly calm.
He moved with a fluid predatory grace, throwing armored men down the stairs like ragged dolls.
Every time a blade came dangerously close to Genevieve, a low guttural snarl would vibrate through Reese’s chest, and the offender was dealt with swiftly and lethally.
They breached the main hall.
The roaring fireplace cast long chaotic shadows across the tapestries.
The feast had been entirely upended.
Overturned tables and spilled wine painted a scene of panicked hysteria.
At the far end of the hall, blocking the heavy oak doors that led to the courtyard, stood Lord Reginald Sterling, flanked by a dozen of his elite knights and Captain Gideon Croft, who looked pale and sweating.
But it was what Reginald held that made Genevieve’s blood run cold.
Dragged by her hair, weeping in absolute terror, was Clara, a sweet young scullery maid who had often slipped extra rations into Genevieve’s apron.
A blade was pressed tightly against Clara’s throat.
“Halt, monster!” Reginald shrieked, his voice cracking with a mixture of rage and fear as he beheld the towering blood-soaked alpha king.
“Put the witch down and drop to your knees, or this little rat’s blood will paint my floors.
” Reese stopped.
The silence that fell over the hall was heavy and suffocating.
He looked at Reginald, his luminescent amber eyes narrowing into slits of pure concentrated malice.
“Please.
” Genevieve whispered, her voice trembling as she looked up at Reese’s harsh jawline.
“Please, don’t let him hurt her.
Clara is innocent.
” Reese didn’t look down at her, but his grip around her waist tightened in silent reassurance.
He stepped forward, his bare feet leaving crimson prints on the polished stone.
“You think you hold power, little lord?” Reese’s voice was a low resonant rumble that seemed to shake the very dust from the rafters.
It wasn’t a shout, but it commanded the room completely.
“You bind me in poisoned silver.
You torture me for your amusement.
And now you threaten what is mine.
You have miscalculated.
” “Shoot him!” Croft suddenly shrieked to the crossbowmen positioned on the upper balcony.
“No!” Genevieve screamed.
Three things happened in a fraction of a second.
Reese violently pivoted, throwing his broad back over Genevieve to absorb the volley.
Two heavy iron bolts thudded sickeningly into his shoulder and back.
He didn’t even flinch.
Instead, utilizing the momentum of his pivot, he kicked the heavy solid oak dining table in front of him.
The massive piece of furniture, weighing hundreds of pounds, flew across the room as if it were made of kindling.
It smashed into the line of elite knights, shattering bones and throwing them into disarray.
In the ensuing chaos, Reginald stumbled backward, his blade slipping from Clara’s throat.
Reese lunged.
He closed the distance of the great hall in three massive strides.
Before Reginald could even raise his sword, Reese’s hand clamped around the lord’s face.
With a brutal effortless heave, he lifted Reginald off the floor by his skull and threw him backward into the roaring fireplace.
The lord’s screams filled the hall, adding to the absolute pandemonium.
Clara scrambled away, sobbing, darting toward the kitchens.
“Hold tight.
” Reese commanded Genevieve, ignoring the crossbow bolts still protruding from his flesh.
He hit the massive oak doors of the keep with his shoulder.
The iron hinges shrieked and gave way, bursting outward into the freezing howling winter night.
They were out, but the entire fiefdom was waking up, and the courtyard was swarming.
Reese didn’t stop to fight.
With a powerful leap that cleared the raised drawbridge, he carried Genevieve into the biting darkness of the encroaching northern woods, leaving Oak Haven Keep burning in their wake.
The winter storm swallowed them whole.
The temperature was well below freezing, the wind whipping sharp crystalline snow into Genevieve’s face.
She was shivering violently, her thin apothecary skirts completely inadequate for the brutal elements.
Yet, pressed against Reese’s chest, she felt a radiant furnace-like heat that was the only thing keeping the frost bite at bay.
He ran for hours.
He didn’t tire, his breathing never growing ragged despite the grueling pace and the deep snow.
The terrain grew steeper and more treacherous.
The civilized roads of Oak Haven replaced by ancient, towering pines and jagged stone.
Finally, as the first gray light of false dawn began to bleed into the horizon, Reese ducked beneath the roots of a massive fallen oak tree.
It revealed a deep, dry insulated from the biting wind.
He set Genevieve down gently on a bed of dry pine needles.
She immediately curled into a tight ball, her teeth chattering so hard they ached.
Reese knelt beside her.
In the dim light, the brutal reality of his injuries was apparent.
The crossbow bolts were still lodged in his back, the surrounding skin black with dried blood.
Yet, he paid them no mind.
He reached out, his massive hands gently grasping her freezing, lacerated fingers.
“You are freezing, Genevieve.
” He murmured, speaking her name for the first time.
It sounded foreign and revered on his tongue.
“How do you know my name?” She stammered, her breath pluming in the freezing air.
“I heard the guards speak it.
” He replied.
He shifted, pulling the thick, stolen woolen cloak from his waist and wrapping it securely around her trembling shoulders.
Then, he laid down beside her in the pulling her back against his broad chest, enveloping her in his impossible, radiating body heat.
The intimacy of the position made Genevieve’s heart race, a strange, magnetic flutter replacing the terror.
“You are shot.
” She whispered, looking over her shoulder at the heavy wooden shafts protruding from his muscle.
“The bolts.
” “They cannot kill me.
” Reese said dismissively, though a tight grimace flashed across his aristocratic features.
“But they are tipped with silver residue.
” “It slows my healing.
I need them out.
” Genevieve, despite her exhaustion and fear, felt her apothecary instincts flare to life.
She was a healer first and foremost.
“I can pull them.
” “But it will bleed heavily.
” “Do it.
” She shifted, kneeling behind him in the cramped space.
His back was a canvas of terrifying scars, old and new.
She gripped the shaft of the first bolt.
“On three.
” She said, her voice shaking.
“One, two.
” She yanked it on two.
Reese let out a sharp hiss through his teeth, his muscles bunching like coiled steel, but he remained perfectly still.
Black blood welled from the wound, but almost immediately the edges of the flesh began to knit together, steaming slightly in the cold air.
Genevieve stared in awe.
It was a terrifying, beautiful display of unnatural resilience.
She quickly removed the second bolt, watching the same miraculous healing process occur.
Exhausted, she slumped back against the dirt wall.
Reese turned to face her, his amber eyes glowing softly in the shadows.
“Why did you let yourself be captured?” Genevieve asked, the question tumbling out before she could stop it.
“A man, a king who can tear a keep apart with his bare hands does not get caught by ordinary hunters.
” Reese looked away, his jaw tightening.
“I was not caught by ordinary hunters.
I was betrayed.
” He picked up a handful of dry dirt, letting it sift through his massive fingers.
“My pack is fractured.
A rival alpha, Alister of the blood moon, seeks to usurp my throne.
He knew I was scouting the southern borders alone.
He tipped off Lord Reginald’s silver hunters, provided them with the chains, and ensured I was ambushed in a gorge where I could not maneuver.
” He looked back at her, his gaze piercing.
“Alister wanted me humiliated, broken, and burned by humans.
It is a death that would shatter my legend and hand him the northern territories without a civil war.
” “But I freed you.
” Genevieve realized, the weight of her actions finally crashing down upon her.
She hadn’t just saved a beast, she had altered the political landscape of the entire continent.
“You did.
” Reese murmured, reaching out to gently brush a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
His touch was incredibly delicate for a man who had just ripped a man’s skull open, which makes you the most dangerous woman alive to Alister, and the most vital to me.
“You called me your mate.
” She whispered, the word feeling heavy and dangerous.
“What does that mean? Is it magic? A curse?” “It is neither.
” Reese said, leaning closer, his voice dropping an octave.
“It is the soul recognizing its equal.
Lycans do not choose their mates, Genevieve.
The fates bind us to the one soul that balances our own.
I have lived for three centuries, fought a hundred wars, and never felt the pull.
Not until a brave, foolish girl walked into my cage with a satchel of herbs and looked me in the eye instead of cowering.
” Genevieve’s breath hitched.
Three centuries.
He was ancient, immortal, a god of war.
And he was claiming her, a peasant girl with nothing to her name but debts and soot-stained hands.
“I cannot be a queen.
” She said, shaking her head, panic rising in her chest.
“I don’t belong in your world of fangs and blood.
” “You already are.
” Reese replied softly, his thumb tracing her lower lip.
“You just don’t know it yet.
” Before Genevieve could process the weight of his words, a sound pierced the silence of the dawn.
It was distant, but carrying clearly on the crisp winter wind.
Awoo.
It was the deep, rhythmic baying of hounds.
But it was followed by a harsher, more guttural sound, the horn of a lycan hunting party.
Reese stood up instantly, his amber eyes flashing with dangerous violence, his muscles tensing for war.
“Croft survived.
” Reese growled, peering out into the swirling snow.
“And he is not alone.
Alister’s trackers have joined the human dogs.
” He looked down at Genevieve, extending his hand.
“We have to move.
The real hunt has just begun.
” The blizzard swallowed the forest, turning the world into a raging white abyss.
Reese moved through it like a shadow, swift and unstoppable, with Genevieve clinging tightly to his back.
But the hunters were close now, their hounds no longer distant, but snarling just behind them.
“They’re gaining!” Genevieve cried.
“Leave me, you’ll outrun them.
” Reese stopped cold, turning with blazing amber eyes.
“Never.
” He growled.
“I do not abandon my mate.
” They had reached the whispering pass, a narrow gorge of black stone, the wind shrieking like spirits.
There was no escape.
“We make our stand here.
” Reese said.
He lifted Genevieve onto a high ledge.
“Stay hidden, no matter what.
” A horn split the storm.
Through the snow came soldiers, hounds straining, weapons gleaming.
At their head rode Captain Gideon Croft.
But it was the towering figures beside him, eyes glowing, unmoved by the cold that froze Genevieve’s blood.
“Garrett.
” Reese called, voice dark with recognition.
“So they sent the king’s executioner.
” The largest of the lycan trackers stepped forward.
He was a brute of a man, his face marred by terrible burn scars and his jaw set in a permanent, cruel sneer.
Garrett laughed, a sound like grinding stones.
“You are broken, Reese.
The silver poisoned your blood, and you stink of human desperation.
Alister wants your head, but I think I’ll take my time peeling the skin from your back right here.
” Croft raised his sword, his voice trembling as he addressed his men.
“Fire at will.
Bring the beast down.
” The crossbowmen raised their weapons, but Reese did not wait to become their target.
He didn’t just shift, he erupted.
The transformation was instantaneous, a violent explosion of muscle, bone, and midnight fur.
In the blink of an eye, the man was gone, replaced by the towering, monstrous alpha king that Genevieve had first seen in the dungeon, only now he was not bound by rusted iron and poison.
With a roar that completely drowned out the shrieking wind, Reese leaped.
He cleared 50 ft in a single bound, landing directly in the center of the human vanguard.
It was a massacre.
The hounds, bred for hunting, whimpered and broke formation, their instincts screaming at them that they had just cornered a god of death.
Reese swiped his massive, razor-sharp claws, shattering wooden shields and the armored men holding them as if they were made of brittle parchment.
Genevieve clamped her hands over her mouth, stifling a scream as she watched the sheer, unadulterated carnage from her ledge.
Reese moved with a terrifying grace, a hurricane of shadow and blood.
The crossbow bolts that managed to strike him simply snapped against his thick muscle or were ignored entirely.
Captain Croft, finally realizing the catastrophic error of his arrogance, spurred his warhorse, trying to flee back down the gorge.
Reese’s massive head snapped toward the fleeing captain.
He dropped to all fours, his powerful hind legs propelling him forward like a siege missile.
He overtook the horse in three terrifying strides.
Reese’s jaws clamped around the horse’s flank, bringing the massive animal down in a spray of red snow.
Croft tumbled violently to the ground, his armor clattering against the rock.
The beast stood over Croft, its amber eyes burning with the memory of the dark, damp dungeon.
Croft scrambled backward, sobbing, pleading for his life to the creature he had meant to burn alive.
Reese raised one massive paw and brought it down.
The crunch of steel and bone echoed off the cliffs and the captain moved no more.
“Enough playing with human meat.
” Garrett roared.
The human soldiers were dead or fleeing.
Now, the real fight began.
Garrett and the three other Lycan trackers shifted in unison.
The gorge was suddenly filled with the terrifying sounds of four massive rabid wolves charging the Alpha King.
Reese met them with unparalleled fury, but the odds were devastating.
He was stronger, older, and vastly more skilled, but he was still weakened by days of silver poisoning.
Garrett’s pack fought dirty.
Two wolves clamped their jaws onto Reese’s hind legs, anchoring him to the snow, while a third leaped for his throat.
Reese ripped his head back, catching the third wolf midair and crushing its windpipe with a sickening snap.
He shook off the wolves on his legs, throwing one against the canyon wall with enough force to shatter its spine, but the momentary distraction was all Garrett needed.
The massive enforcer, shifting into a horrifying bipedal hybrid form, tackled Reese.
Garrett’s claws raked across Reese’s chest, reopening the barely healed silver wounds from the crossbow bolts.
Reese let out a deafening roar of pain, tumbling backward into the deep snow.
Garrett pressed the advantage, pinning the Alpha King down, his jaws snapping viciously at Reese’s face.
“Your reign is over.
” Garrett snarled, saliva dripping onto Reese’s snout.
“Alister takes the throne and I take your head.
” Up on the ledge, Genevieve’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
She watched the man who had claimed her, the king who had shielded her from every blade, being torn apart.
“Do not come down.
” His voice echoed in her mind.
She looked down at her hands.
Clutched tightly in her frozen fingers was the heavy iron crossbow bolt she had pulled from Reese’s back hours ago.
The tip was coated in a lethal residue of pure silver.
Genevieve didn’t think.
The pull in her chest, the inexplicable, agonizing bond that tied her to the dying king below, overrode every instinct of human preservation.
She slid down the icy embankment, her skirts tearing on jagged rocks.
She hit the floor of the gorge at a sprint, the snow slowing her down, her lungs burning with the freezing air.
Garrett was too focused on tearing out Reese’s throat to notice the fragile human running toward him, but Reese saw her.
Even pinned and bleeding, his amber eyes widened in terror.
Genevieve didn’t scream.
She didn’t announce her presence.
She closed the final distance, gripping the heavy wooden shaft of the bolt with both hands, and drove the silver-coated iron tip directly into the base of Garrett’s thick neck, right where the spine met the skull.
The reaction was catastrophic.
Garrett’s body arched backward, a sound tearing from his throat that was half scream, half howl.
The silver hit his nervous system like a lightning bolt.
His grip on Reese completely evaporated as he clawed frantically at his own neck, the flesh around the wound already sizzling and turning black.
Genevieve stumbled backward, falling into the bloody snow, gasping for breath.
Reese did not hesitate.
Given a single second of freedom, the Alpha King surged upward.
He shifted out of his wolf form, returning to his massive, heavily scarred human state.
He grabbed Garrett by the fur of his chest, hauling the paralyzed enforcer to his feet.
With a roar of absolute sovereignty, Reese drove his fist directly into Garrett’s chest, his fingers piercing the ribs and ripping out the enforcer’s heart.
He dropped Garrett’s lifeless body to the snow.
The single remaining Lycan tracker, bloodied and terrified, froze.
He looked at the dead human soldiers, at Garrett’s ruined corpse, and then at the towering, blood-soaked Alpha King.
Reese stood over Garrett’s body, his chest heaving, his amber eyes burning through the blizzard.
Slowly, he turned his gaze not to the surviving enemy, but to Genevieve.
She was sitting in the snow, trembling violently, her hands covered in the enforcer’s blood.
The surviving tracker followed his gaze.
He looked at the fragile human woman who had just assassinated their strongest fighter with nothing but a rusted bolt and sheer audacity.
Slowly, the wolf lowered his head.
He dropped to his belly in the bloody snow, whining softly, exposing his throat in absolute, unconditional surrender.
He was submitting to the Alpha, and he was submitting to his mate.
Reese ignored the tracker.
He walked through the snow, dropping to his knees in front of Genevieve.
The heat radiating off his battered body was a stark contrast to the biting winter wind.
He reached out, his massive, blood-stained hands gently cradling her pale face.
“I told you not to come down.
” he whispered, his voice thick with an emotion that bordered on reverence.
“You were dying.
” Genevieve choked out, tears finally spilling hot and fast down her frozen cheeks.
“I couldn’t.
” “I felt it.
” “In my chest.
” “It felt like I was dying, too.
” Reese closed his eyes, leaning forward to press his forehead against hers.
“The bond.
” he murmured.
“You feel it.
You are entirely mine, Genevieve, and I am entirely yours.
” He opened his eyes, the luminescent amber glowing with fierce, eternal devotion.
“You are no longer a servant, little bird.
You are the queen of the north.
You just killed Alister’s greatest champion, and you saved my life.
” He stood, pulling her up with him, lifting her into his arms as easily as if she were made of air.
He turned his face to the blinding snow, looking toward the jagged peaks of the northern mountains.
“Alister thought he could break me with iron and silver.
” Reese rumbled, his voice carrying over the wind, a promise of absolute ruin for his enemies.
“Instead, he gave me my queen.
Now, we go north, and we burn his world to ash.
” With Genevieve securely against his chest, the Alpha King stepped over the bodies of the fallen, his loyal, newly won tracker falling into step behind him.
The winter storm swallowed them, but Genevieve was no longer cold.
She buried her face in the neck of her mate, the beast who was a king, and for the first time in her life, she was completely, unequivocally safe.
From a chained beast in a damp dungeon to a reigning Alpha King, Reese has finally found his mate in the most unexpected of places.
But their journey is just beginning, and the war for the northern throne will run red with blood.
Will Genevieve embrace her dangerous destiny as the Lycan Queen? If you loved this intense werewolf romance, hit the like button, share with your friends, and subscribe to the channel for more epic fantasy stories.
Now, we go north, and we burn his world to ash.
With Genevieve securely against his chest, the Alpha King stepped over the bodies of the fallen, his loyal, newly won tracker falling into step behind him.
The winter storm swallowed them, but Genevieve was no longer cold.
She buried her face in the neck of her mate, the beast who was a king, and for the first time in her life, she was completely, unequivocally safe.
From a chained beast in a damp dungeon to a reigning Alpha King, Reese has finally found his mate in the most unexpected of places.
But their journey is just beginning, and the war for the northern throne will run red with blood.
Will Genevieve embrace her dangerous destiny as the Lycan Queen? If you loved this intense werewolf romance, hit the like button, share with your friends, and subscribe to the channel for more epic fantasy stories.
