ALPHA PARTHE.
Rorden’s men fell. Like dead flies, their bodies littered my land, soaking the earth with their blood.
And there was nothing more satisfying than that.
Rorden was bleeding from every wound I had given him.
So was I.
But mine were worse. Especially the cuts my mate had inflicted on me. I wasn’t healing.
I had lost too much blood. And the only remedy I had was deep inside my chamber. I couldn’t leave the war zone to go get it.
I had to hold on a little longer.
“You’re losing, brother,” I taunted, my voice rough with exhaustion.
Rorden barely had time to react before my fist collided with his jaw.
Bone cracked. His head snapped to the side.
And still, the bastard grinned.
“Never learned to give up?” I asked, driving my fist into his face in yet another punch. The impact sent blood flying from his lips. But he only laughed before spitting a mouthful of red onto the ground.
“Today is the day you’d breathe your last, Rorden,” I recited a spell under my breath. My fingers burned with dark energy as I drove my fist straight into his ribs.
The force sent him flying across the field. He tumbled like a broken doll, coming to a stop near the corpses of his fallen Alphas.
I exhaled, rolling my shoulders, letting the satisfaction sink in.
I never liked Rorden… Never really liked him. But I never knew I’d be the one to kill him myself. No matter the feud that was going on between us, especially after I mistakenly killed the first woman he ever loved.
It wasn’t intentional, but intent didn’t matter. She had died by my hand. And I had watched something inside him break that day.
Because of this, I forced myself to overlook his arrogance throughout his stay in my pack. That’s why I never retaliated when he wronged me.
Some part of me had felt like I owed him something… I just had this sick sense of guilt wrapped around me each time because he truly did love that girl, and I felt like I had ruined his first best chance at love.
Little did I know he was an enemy and not a relative.
I strode forward, my breath coming in harsh, ragged pulls.
But when I reached the spot where I had flung him-he was gone.
Instead, there was only a smear of blood.
A trail.
I followed it. Step by step. Because this night wouldn’t end until I had his heart in my hands.
He was weak. Wounded. Dying.
I lifted my gaze-and stopped.
Rorden wasn’t alone. And he wasn’t in his beast form anymore.
Somewhere ahead, through the thick smoke and the wreckage of bodies, he had a girl.
A stranger.
His fingers were tangled in her hair, yanking her forward. The sharp edge of his sword pressed against the soft skin of her throat, and she trembled in his grasp.
She wasn’t from my pack. Who the fuck was she?
I stepped closer, changing into my human form.
He chuckled, though it sounded more like a broken rasp. He was barely standing. His tunic was soaked through with blood-his, mine, the nameless men we had killed.
But his eyes-those haunted, hollow eyes-they burned.
“What the fuck? Bringing in a hostage I don’t even know?” I scoffed, “Why? To bargain?”
“Of course not, brother,” he murmured, mocking the word like poison on his tongue.
The girl whimpered, her hands gripping his wrist as she struggled, but he only pressed the blade deeper. A single drop of blood trickled down her neck.
He didn’t even notice.
His gaze was fixed on me.
Fucking hell.
She was such a young girl. Even younger than my mate. She looked pale. Her hair clung to her sweat-damp face, her lips quivering, and her eyes filled with a terror so raw it made my stomach twist. What was this bastard up to?
There was something in Rorden’s expression-something I had never seen before. It wasn’t hatred.
Not rage.
It was something… else.
“She is the cure to our curse, Parthe. She is a direct descendant of Calandus.”
He spat blood onto the ground before letting out a jagged breath, his lips curling. “It seems Luxuria wasn’t the only bastard that man-whore fathered.”
He bared his teeth, grinning wide enough for me to see the blood staining them.
It made me want to crush his skull.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I growled, tired of the drama. I just wanted to get this over and done with already. I had more important things to do-like take the antidote before I collapsed, check on my mate, hold her, kiss her, touch her. Gods, I fucking ached for her.
I had lost too much blood already. My vision blurred at the edges, but I fought to stay upright. To keep my focus on the bastard standing before me.
Rorden only laughed, shaking his head like I was missing some grand joke.
“Nelfas broke the Calandus’ law of never fathering more than one child,” he rasped.
My fingers twitched around my blade.
“He had three.” His grip on the girl’s hair tightened as he yanked her forward.
“Luxuria, Sibille,” he gestured to the trembling girl in his grasp, “and his actual daughter.”
“So, you see? I never wanted to kill Luxuria. I had other solutions for my curse. I really loved your mate, Parthe. I did.”
His revelation came both as a shock and a relief.
I could actually break the curse without having to hurt the woman I love? It’s not as if I would have wanted to hurt Luxuria to redeem myself of the curse, knowing now that she was from the lineage of Calandus – over my dead body. I had already readied myself to die either way if I never found a cure.
But right now, I seem to have some hope. Thousands of images of my possible future with my mate and pups came playing in my head. I had a future, after all. I’ll live past the death date.
Or, so I thought. But Rorden’s next words made all my fantasies dissipate as soon as they came.
A sinister smile appeared on his lips before he spoke, and I felt like slicing it off his face with my blade. “But right now, she dies with me, brother. If I can’t live, then you can’t have her.”