CALYRA VEYNE

"You are the monsters! The beasts! Let me go, you wretched cowards!"

Calyra kept screaming and thrashing as they dragged her down the stone stairs into the dark lower chamber of the tower.

At the top, Alpha Therion, Alpha Padain, and Alpha Gomer stood watching her descent down the spiral steps.

"So what now? She just dies? And I lose a cunt I didn't even get to fuck? A virgin cunt, no less," Gomer grumbled, voice thick with lechery.

"Do you ever see the world beyond cunt, Alpha Gomer?" Padain snapped in response.

Gomer only grunted, unbothered.

"I know how this plays out," Therion said, his gaze fixed below. "She's untouched. Still a virgin. And with the thoughts in her head-knowing she'll likely die down there-if Varos is truly regaining strength, if his instincts are returning... then she'll survive. The Varos I knew wouldn't kill her if he can read her thoughts and sees she's no threat, especially not one sent by me."

He paused, his jaw tightening. "It's been a century since the null binders started suppressing him. This will prove whether he's slipping from control."

"And if she comes out alive?" Padain asked.

"Then a bond will already have begun," Therion answered coldly. "We'll force a beast's rut. He won't be able to resist. He'll ravage her-break her body and her trust. I want her shattered for thinking Varos is worthy of my throne."

Padain's tone turned sharp. "This is starting to sound like your ego talking. This isn't just about you. The Nine Courts are at risk. If Varos reaches full strength, we're all dead. And your silly 'beastly rut' won't weaken him."

"I agree with Alpha Padain, High King," Gomer said, for once serious.

Therion turned on Padain, fury flashing in his eyes. "You will learn to trust me. I've kept Varos weak, kept him beneath me for a century. He is my prisoner-and he will stay that way."

With that, Therion turned and strode away, his steps echoing into the dark.

....

As Calyra was being led down the darkest part of the cell, she saw ten tall figures heavily draped in black overall robes, their faces caged with iron-sculpted beast masks. Their appearance was chilling and horrifying to look at. Calyra's skin formed goosebumps; she was frozen with fear.

Four of these figures held heavy silver chains, and the other six were inside the deeper cell, where Varos' rune collar was properly connected and chained to the massive iron pillar in the middle of the big cell.

Varos didn't hurt them. He couldn't even move. He sat with his face against the wall, and only his massive, clawed, bleeding back was barely visible to her. She realised these heavily draped figures were the Null-Binders-and they were hurting him. They were taming and weakening him with that silver chain and runed iron collar tightened around his neck.

The moment the Null-Binders were done, the delta guards pushed Calyra inside the cell, and the heavy iron gate slammed shut. Calyra didn't even try to hit the gate for them to let her out. She knew there was no way out of the iron cage-her cries would only make Varos aware of her presence.

Calyra huddled far away from Varos, scared to death. She wondered if Varos knew his prize for the battle was at the corner of his cell, trying to disappear into the wall.

Calyra sat there for over an hour, watching Varos closely. Then came a low growl, and his blood gushed out from his flesh, streaming down onto the marble bench seat.

Seeing this much blood and the untreated wound, she immediately tore her flimsy clothing and rushed to him-forgetting how dangerous this man was. He was a beast who had been imprisoned for a century, and yet, because of a clawed flesh wound, she forgot about her safety and attended to his wounds first.

Cleaning the open flesh injury-the gashes were too deep and serious, some even infected-she trailed her fingers around his skin. And before she knew it, he clamped his hand around her throat so suddenly, Calyra thrashed as he raised her mid-air like she was a newborn cat.

"Please let me go..." Calyra yelped in pain. As she thrashed, he looked at her so closely, scrutinising her body with his glowing red eyes-then he dropped her mid-air. Calyra's body was wrecked in pain.

He was silent. All he did was grunt. Calyra's heart was beating too fast. This male didn't care about her. He didn't pounce and ravage her like she expected.

"I won't hurt you... I just want to help stop your bleeding," Calyra said, hoping she could gain his trust, even when her entire being was shivering like a leaf-scared shitless. Calyra got closer again, and he pushed her so violently that her frail body hit the wall. Her vision blackened, and she passed out.

Hours passed. She woke up again-and this time, he was seated facing her, studying her like she was something strange and otherworldly. Silent still. She groaned in pain.

"Can you not talk? I only wanted to help you. I'm not going to hurt you!" Calyra said, facing him – like she could even hurt the toe of his nail. He was a big beast-too feral and wild.

"Who are you, little wolf?" A deep, male, reverberating voice came into her head, and Calyra flinched back, the voice hurting her ears as she shut her ears with her hands so tightly.

She looked around to see who spoke; it certainly wasn't Varos; he didn't move his lips. She knew he was silent; perhaps cruel Therion had cut off his tongue.

"Why are you not afraid for your life? You should be clawing at the iron gate, screaming for an easier death, rather than being locked up here with me." Calyra heard this reverberating voice again.

"Did you hear that too?" She asked Varos, but he was inscrutable and remained silent, only watching her closely like a predator monitoring its prey.

She panicked, hugging her knees like it would shield her from this horror or perhaps madness haunting her. When Varos didn't move his lips and utter any word, who else was locked up in here with them?

Calyra began to panic, closing her eyes shut, but even darkness was not peaceful; the screams of her mother and the gruesome memory of how the very womb that bore her was carved out by her father punished her.

"No-no-no-"

She screamed, rocking back and forth. Tears streamed down her cheeks, hot and bitter. She was truly a curse. She had to be. If she weren't, her mother wouldn't have died like that. She would've passed the ceremony and become queen.

She would've protected her.

Her fingers dug into her chest, scratching, like she could rip the pain out of her skin. Across from her, Varos didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't flinch.

She was nothing but noise to him. Her grief didn't even lift a hair on his skin; she was just a new soul who had only lived eighteen years; she hadn't experienced true pain.

"Brace yourself and save your strength, little wolf, if you have any hope for survival."

She froze. Her eyes darted to Varos; he was still silent. But she felt it now-his presence in her mind. He wasn't mute. He was inside her head. She realised Varos was communicating with her through a mind link.

And what he said next made her blood run cold.

"Therion will force a rut soon. And when it comes, my beast will take control. He's not merciful. He doesn't know the difference between prey and threat-he only sees movement."

Varos's eyes darkened, like storm clouds rolling in behind his pupils.

"Don't run. He'll chase you; my beast enjoys the chase; he will see you as prey and devour you. Don't scream, or it'll see you as a threat and rip you apart. My beast will treat you the way you present yourself, Present yourself as a sex, give him something to mount-and you will be ravaged; only then can you survive."

CALYRA VEYNE

Calyra watched in silence as the century-bound king retreated into the depths of his shadow-drenched cell. The silver chain was tethered to the runes-carved iron collar around his neck, and it clinked with every slow, predatory step he took.

How ironic, the clinks echoed like a power that is caged and also madness that is restrained. His figure blended into the darkness until even his silhouette was swallowed whole.

Calyra wondered, not for the first time, if life was truly worth enduring for a king like him. Wouldn't death be kinder than this?

Than more than a century of solitude, of chains and cruel games? He could end it all and slip into silence, let oblivion take him. But instead, he lived...

Living as a breathing weapon. A beast paraded for the nine Alphas' court pleasure; why would he do that to himself? Or could he not just do himself the favor of death?

And somehow, that choice made the darkness and terror of his words feel even heavier.

Calyra couldn't stop wondering, especially why he would tell her all that. All that warning-why would he care about an eighteen-year-old like her compared to a century-long unfortunate situation?

Calyra was finally able to rest her head against the wall for a little bit of comfort. Since the bound king wasn't closer to her, she wondered how deep his cell gets, where he had just retired into after terrifying her with his unspoken words.

Why did he use the mind-link technique for her too? He could just speak with his tongue. The more Calyra thought about this mysterious king, the more perplexed she got.

A few hours passed, and she fell asleep.

...

THERION VEX

At the pavilion of pleasure, which was once a place of courtly reverence and relaxation under the previous High King Varos,

It had become a temple of unholy indulgence; the atmosphere was filled with quivering moans, wet skin hitting skin, and brutal fucking of throngs of female slaves.

The sharp crack of leather whips hitting flesh and round buttocks that resisted taking thick and huge phalluses of some of the Nine-Courts Alpha, Crimson Lantern bathed everywhere and everything in a blood-red glow.

Wet grinding sounds of toothless slaves thrusting and sucking lengthy penises, others still in chains and their lips parting and forced to swallow the massive cocks,

The air was heavy with incense and soft groans of both pleasure and pain, excruciating ones and also indistinguishable in their intensity.

At the center of it all, on a dais wrapped in velvet, with two slave girls massaging his shoulder, another collared noble daughter-just turned slave-lying curled at his feet, sucking his toes and applying oil to soothe his feet,

Therion watched with dissatisfaction in his eyes; perhaps the gorgeous woman dancing before him-whose body was painted in shimmering oil-provoked him.

No matter how Nyzara moved her waist, swirled her hips, bent her neck, and curled her fingers, Therion didn't see the passion she had whenever she danced for Varos a century ago.

And that does not entice him; it infuriates him greatly, and jealousy courses through his veins like a lethal poison, and he hates that he's even feeling jealous.

He growled and smashed the glass goblet half-filled with expensive wine at the marble floor close to Nyzara, which made her pause. Seeing the anger in Therion's face and the shattering glasses that splattered and even slashed her flesh, she fell to her knees.

"Do I bore you this much, High King?" Nyzara Vorell asked with her head bowed so low that her lips kissed the cold marble floor. Therion grunted, as if there were a shift in his anger.

Why would everything he desired be all that Varos ever had so effortlessly? Even Nyzara wouldn't dance for him with the same passion, with the same zeal she does whenever she tries to impress Varos all those years.

"Forgive me, High King. The weather's too harsh. It's messing with how I move in these pieces-barely even clothing," Nyzara Vorell said, her face blank, her voice stripped of care.

She didn't bother pretending anymore.

What did Therion still expect from her? What kind of pleasure could he possibly squeeze out of the "Forbidden Lover's Requiem" dance now? She'd danced it for him more times than she could count. Over and over. The same steps. The same look in his eyes, like he was chasing something that wasn't even there anymore.

She used to love this dance.

Back when it was for someone else. For Varos.

Varos, the bound king. Her first love. The one who never even saw her-not really. Not her feelings, not her devotion. Nothing. Just a girl in the background, dancing her heart out for a man who never reached for it.

And when he fell, she didn't fall with him.

Therion took her. Or maybe she let him. Maybe that was the only way to survive in a world where women were nothing, owned nothing-not even their own life or body-and talked about their life -they had to trade for it. Sell it. Bleed for it.

Now the dance felt like a joke. A dead thing she was forced to drag out night after night.

And she was tired.

Amidst the fuss, Alpha Sammael-the next most powerful Alpha of the Nine Courts after Padain and Gomer, in that order-sat alone, observing the rising tension. Tilting his head slightly, he finally spoke.

"Over a century now, Nyzara still gets on High King's nerve... It must be exhausting to be hunted not by your enemy, but by a woman's divided desire, one for the very king you bound".

He paused, letting the silence breathe, then his lips curled.

"Why do you think Nyzara is the reason behind my anger, Sammael?" Therion asked with a smirk,

"to rule the entire realm-absolute power. Yet you couldn't rule a woman's heart. Even if you possessed her, you never tasted what a chained king was given freely. Of course that enrages you, High King.

But truth be told, you've never struck me as the angry, wailing ninth cub -the one left starving while his eight brothers nursed from their mother's full teats."

Sammael said, and the court laughed hysterically at his subtle shade. As he continued, seeing how it got on Therion's nerve, he continued,

"The high king simmers like a heartbroken pup over a cunt that wouldn't stay."

A collective laughter once again filled the pavilion, knowing Therion could stab him to death that moment if it were another Alpha, but it was already a constant silent war at this point between Sammael and Therion.

Therion has only ever thrown slurs at him for liking males, slave boys, and twinks, and for rarely indulging in female slaves, he was always Therion's target at court, even now with no slave sucking his cock like the others, which makes him barely appear at court, but he has to, at least once in a while, to check on Therion.

"Such poetry from a man who gets fucked by twinks... taking phalluses like a proper little bitch, Sammael, did you know you are the only Alpha I know who howls louder on his back than in battle?"

Therion immediately responded, even while Sammael's shade got under his skin.

"I don't lay on my back; I do the fucking! At least I dominate men; perhaps you don't have the balls to do the same, High King?" Sammael became agitated, and Padain cut into the tension.

"You all should stop the squealing; I had hoped we'd prioritize a more pressing issue! than a boy fucking Alpha!"

"You...!" Sammael grinned at Padain, but Therion cut in.

"What matter do you speak of, Padain? I hope it isn't about the one you spoke to me about the last time. I thought I said it was under control. How dare you bring it up again!"

Therion smashed his fist on his armrest, clearly angry.

"I guess the High King should listen to what the Null Binders have to say." Padain said as he signalled as they allowed two Null Binders to enter the pavilion.

"High King..."

A guttural low growl came from a null binder heavily draped in black leather robes and their silver wolf skull mask.

"We've concluded the test. Indeed, Varos had regained some of his clear thinking instincts; he didn't harm the cursed flame girl. Command us to commence the Beastly Rut."

"The Beastly Rut should start immediately." Therion Growled.

CALYRA VEYNE

The clank of the gates closing was accompanied by a deep, guttural growl and unnatural noise, which disturbed Calyra's sleep. As she squinted her eyes open, she felt like she was engulfed in darkness with a blurry, crimson pair of eyes prowling towards her from the deepest part of the cell.

Her body still wracking with pain, as she decided to move her body, she winced in pain as she shut her eyes again, and her blurry vision cleared up. She could see the mighty giant figure with a crimson burning pair of eyes.

Prowling slowly, growling unnaturally, her heart beating outside her chest as she ran so fast towards the iron gate without thinking twice,

Her shivering hands slammed the iron gate, but it was too ironclad to even shift. Her weak hands started to bleed from the pain, but this pain; she couldn't feel at the moment. By this time the giant beast had gotten close to her; two sudden candlelights were lit up outside the gate, and Calyra could see a faint image of this towering beast.

She turned, shouting to whoever or whatever had lit the candlelights, "Who is there, please! Someone help me! The beast has gone mad!" Calyra panicked, but she turned to face the beast, her back clammed against the gate like she could break it with her buttocks. Staring at the beast was terrifying.

The bound Alpha King, who was the most handsome-looking man she's ever seen despite his muzzles and injury some hours ago, is now towering in his beast form.

He stood nearly seven feet tall, its massive shoulders hunched beneath a coat of matted, dark-gray fur, soaked at the edges with sweat.

Thick claws curved from its fingers, razor-sharp and twitching with anticipation.

Its snout was elongated and twitching, nostrils flaring as it moved and inhaled her scent, its snout digging into her neck, and her body froze, her soul disappearing from her body.

Its lips curled back to reveal long, white fangs, a barbed, fleshy, hard tongue sticking and licking her skin whilst brushing red streak marks on her body; she was too frightened to even think straight.

The deep, rhythmic growl vibrating from its chest never ceased; it was constant, so alive, like a warning and a promise.

But it was the creature's eyes that rooted Calyra in paralyzing terror, glowing crimson, burning with hunger.

Perhaps for her blood? Or for a mount?

Between its muscular thighs, unmistakable and monstrous, jutted a thick, huge, fat red phallus; erect, pointed, veined with black lines like it pulsed with its own will.

It stood hard against the fur of its lower belly, obscene in its length and shape, glistening and dripping at the tip with precum, so ready to mount her, her eyes wide open, remembering what Varos had told her to submit herself bare for his beast or it'd devour her.

But how could her sex fit this monstrosity that was his phallus?

The beast still seemed engrossed with anger, its snout pressed on her neck hot, heavy, and reeking of primal lust.

Its snorts grew louder, more frantic, as its snout pressed into the side of her throat, right where Therion had bitten her. The mark was still fresh, aching beneath the skin, but the beast seemed enraged by it. Possessive and Disgusted.

The creature's tongue, long, thick, and barbed; dragged wetly across the mark. The sensation wasn't a lick. It was an act of erasure.

Each stroke of that spined tongue scraped the flesh, not gently, not sensually, but like it was trying to strip her clean of someone else's claim.

The barbs tugged at skin, tearing it open in tiny, burning lashes. Blood welled. Calyra whimpered, her body locking in shock as the pain bloomed sharp across her neck.

He licked over the mark again and again until the skin was raw, the wound fresh, bleeding under its assault.

But then something aroused within her; this assault turned to a burning heat sensation within her. It was hot, it was hormonal, her cunt soaked with slick wetness, and her nipples peaked hard in response to his tongue licking her neck. She was horny.

Not ordinarily horny, it felt like a sexual gland within her had turned rebellious. It yearned, yearning for a pounding, with a raw, primal urgency, for a hard relentless fucking.

Her vagina clenched, convulsing around nothing, breathing with every beat of her heart like it had a will of its own, hungry and alive.

She slammed her thighs shut, closing the slippery grip of her walls, the only act of defiance she could still manage, trying to trap the fire, to contain the madness threatening to swallow her whole,

But the ache only worsened, throbbing against her resistance, pulsing like a second heartbeat between the hot slick seam between her legs.

But the beast knew it; she was resisting, deliberately closing her hungry flesh for him. He growled and grunted angrily whilst clawing at the iron gate, like he would claw at her next if she didn't submit and bare herself to him.

"You just can't fit, please! Your phallus is too.

"Your phallus is too big," Calyra whimpered, hoping the beast could hear her, but the beast was aggressive, possessive and persistent.

The beast's shaft, so thick and red like seared flesh, jutted forward with animalistic urgency. It wasn't smooth like a man's own, no. It was bigger, textured, veined with swollen ridges, and glistening at the pink tip with a slick sheen of wet arousal.

Each pulse made it twitch, flexing with unknown intent as it brushed against her trembling thigh, requesting her to present her pussy for it.

She immediately lay down on her back, her legs raised up, her hands crossed under her thighs, and her fingers separated her pussy lips. It was pink, wet, and glistening with moisture, throbbing, gripping, and waiting for a hard thrust of that phallus.

And so abruptly the Beast's barbed tongue buried into her dripping folds, licking and brushing, sending jolts of electrical shocks throughout her core.

Her legs trembled as it intensified the licking and the thrusting. The itching heat within her body and the soothing barbed tongue fucking made her moan so loud, her cries echoed throughout the deep cell.

She couldn't even feel the pain; she felt pleasure and heat, and then she felt it, the nudge of his glistening penis tip on the entrance of her glossed folds, tugging in forcefully, sliding in, the stretch of her folds, the burn and fullness of his tip until an excruciating pain wracked her entire being, her pussy immediately resisted this fat intrusion like a curse and it slid back out.

It was suffocating, the hot, slick nudge of the beast's tip pushing against her soft entrance.

It was like steel wrapped in heat and flesh, pulsing and unyielding, coated in a glistening sheen. The pressure grew unbearable as it plunged its way in again, demanding passage where her body fought to stay closed. Her breath caught violently in her chest.

Then she felt a pain so sharp and splitting.

Her entire body arched. The intrusion was too much, too thick, like her very slit rejected it. Her walls clenched down instinctively, resisting, but the beast was relentless.

She gasped, her hands clawing at the ground, her mind fracturing between the torment and the terrifying heat still curling deep inside her.

And with a very hard, deep thrust, she felt her bone shift and the tip find its way in, but she felt numb, couldn't feel her leg, but an excruciating gland coming down from within her stomach to reach the tip that had just thrust into her.