~The Alpha King (Jasper) ~

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The taste of her still clung to my tongue.

No, not her scent. Not her skin. Not her heat.

Her defiance.

It was metallic. Sharp. Bitter like betrayal and sweet like sin. Zaria. The Omega I cast out. The one I should have broken.

But instead?She broke me.

No one knows that part of the story. No one dares to ask why the King of Red Hollow bears no Queen. Why the bond that should’ve been sealed during her first heat was left bleeding in the dark.

Because if they knew what she did how she refused me, challenged me, bit me before I could mark her they’d question my rule.

So I buried her name. Burned her image from every scroll, every hall. Declared her a rogue.

But a King doesn’t forget.

Not when she was mine before the moon ever whispered her name. Not when the tether still throbs in the marrow of my bones, refusing to break, no matter how many others I’ve touched, f*ck*d, or killed.

And now she’s stirring hell again.

She thinks she’s fire.

Let her burn.

I watched through the scrying flames as my soldiers limped back to the gate. Bloodied. Shamed.Her name on their lips like a curse.Zaria.

Even hearing it sent something feral through me.

My Beta approached from the shadows, cloak dragging over the marble.

“She refused to come willingly,” he said.

“She always did,” I murmured, rising from the throne.

My Beta swallowed. “Shall I send more? Or… go myself?”

I turned. Slowly.

He flinched.

“Tell me, Cade,” I said, voice low. “If I sent you, and she tore your throat out the way she did Darius’s, would you beg for mercy, or would you thank her for the privilege of dying by her hand?”

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

Because no wolf walks away from Zaria without scars. Physical or otherwise.

And that’s the thing about scars…

They belong to her now.

The war room reeked of sweat and metal.

Map spread across the table. My kingdom fragmenting at the edges.

Territories slipping. Borders disobeyed. Packs questioning the bloodline.

All because she returned.

One woman.

One goddamn Omega.

But Zaria was never just anything.

The other Alphas want her.

Some to claim her.

Some to tame her.

Some just to watch her fall.

They’ll never get the chance.

Because I will reach her first.

And this time?

She won’t walk away.

Two nights later, I rode alone.

No guard. No banner. No crown.Just me and the scent trail still clinging to the northern wind.

She was smart covering her tracks with ash, pine, blood.But the bond didn’t need a trail.It sang to me.

And I followed the hum of it straight to a tavern that reeked of piss, smoke, and danger.

I didn’t knock.Didn’t pause.

I kicked the door off its hinges.

And every b*st*rd inside scattered like fleas from a flame.

Except her.

Zaria sat at the bar, boots on the stool, glass in hand, looking at me like I was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

Not fate.Not fury.Not the King of all she once swore to destroy.

Just a man she used to love.

Or maybe loathe. The line always blurred with her.

“Awful dramatic entrance,” she said, sipping. “Trying to impress someone?”

I stepped forward, the room warping around us.

“I should rip your throat out for the mess you’ve made.”

She stood slowly, leaned against the bar.

“Do it, then. But you’ll still smell me on your hands.”

Gods. That mouth.

She had no idea how close I was to slamming her against the wall and reminding her why she once whimpered my name beneath moonlight.

Or maybe she did.

She stepped closer.

The scent hit me. it was faint. Not heat. Not lust.Just Zaria.

Like dark forests and the bite of winter.Like everything I was ever denied.

“You came all this way,” she whispered. “Just to pretend you don’t want me?”

I reached for her throat.

She didn’t flinch.

My fingers curled, not to choke but to touch.

Her pulse fluttered beneath my thumb like a wild thing trapped in a cage.

“You left me,” I said.

“You exiled me,” she shot back.

“I spared you.”

“You feared me.”

We stared.Tension so thick it could’ve torn the room in two.

“You could have been my Queen,” I said quietly.

“I still might be,” she answered.

Then smirked. “But I’m not sure the crown is worth the King anymore.”

I backed her into the wall before I could think.

Her breath hitched.

I kissed her like a punishment.

She bit back like a challenge.

Teeth. Tongue. Bruises blooming.

It was violence disguised as desire. Or maybe the other way around.

When I pulled back, blood trickled from both our lips.

“I don’t want your heat,” I snarled.

She licked her lip. “Good. Because I wasn’t offering it.”

“You think I’ll let you burn my kingdom to the ground?”

She leaned up. “I don’t think, your Majesty. I plan.”

I should’ve shackled her then.

I should’ve dragged her home and broken her bond by force.

But I didn’t.

Because there was still something I hadn’t admitted.

I missed her.

Not just the body. The fight. The fury.

But the fact that when she looked at me, she saw the monster I tried to hide and loved me anyway.

Even when she left.

Even now.

She slipped from my grasp like smoke, walking toward the shattered tavern door.

“Go back to your palace,” she said. “Your throne’s lonely without you.”

I stared.

She turned.

“But soon, it’ll be mine.”

Then she was gone.

And the tether?

It pulled.

Stronger than before.

More alive than ever.

She wasn’t mine.

But I was still hers.

And if I wanted to keep my crown…

I’d have to take her heart.

By force.

Or by fire.

Zaria~

They say some wars are fought with steel.

Mine?It’s fought with scent. With secrets. With skin.

And I’m about to win it all.

The tavern burned behind me.

No literal flames yet. But the tension Jasper left in his wake was enough to set every wall crackling. I could still feel his breath against my mouth. His voice in my blood. His rage braided into the tether that pulsed under my ribs like a war drum.

I hated that he still moved me.

I hated more that I let him.

But there’s a difference between feeling a pull and following it. And I had no intention of crawling back into a collar, no matter how much gold they poured over it.

I made it two miles into the woods before I felt him again.

Not Jasper.

Levi.

His presence wasn’t a roar it was a shadow. Silent. Familiar. A comfort wrapped in chaos. I knew he’d follow me. He always did.

“You still smell like him,” came his voice from the dark.

I didn’t turn. “And you still think that bothers me.”

He stepped out from between the trees, shirt half-unbuttoned, chest rising with the rhythm of a storm barely held back.

“It should bother you. He’s the reason you were exiled.”

“And you’re the reason I survived it.”

Silence.

Gods, it hurt to look at him sometimes.

Levi wasn’t just a Beta. He was the only wolf who didn’t flinch when I bared teeth. Who didn’t try to tame me, chain me, or break me. He knew how to fight beside me not above me.

He moved closer.

“You let him touch you,” he said, low. “Why?”

I met his eyes. “Because I wanted to remind him what he lost.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Zaria.”

I smiled. “Good. Danger’s the only thing that makes me feel alive.”

He reached for me. Not roughly. Not like Jasper. He cupped my jaw like I was made of ash and starlight something precious and barely held together.

“I know you don’t need anyone,” Levi said. “But d*mn it, Zaria, I’m here anyway. I always have been.”

My throat tightened.

He leaned in.

I let him kiss me.

It wasn’t fury like Jasper’s.

It was something else. A promise. A prayer. The kind of kiss that tasted like home if home had ever been safe.

But safety wasn’t what I needed right now.

Power was.

I broke the kiss with a breath that trembled more than I wanted it to.

“Tell me what you’ve heard,” I said, switching gears before I crumbled into him again.

Levi stepped back, jaw clenched.

“There’s movement in the east. Alpha Ronin’s packs are shifting toward Red Hollow. They smell blood in the water.”

“And they’ll drown in it if they think Jasper will fall that easily.”

Levi’s gaze hardened. “And what about you, Zaria? Where do you stand in all this? With the King? Or against him?”

I didn’t answer right away.

Because the truth?

I didn’t know yet.

JASPER

“She left you standing in a pile of your own power,” Cade muttered as he stitched a wound on my side. “Bet that felt nice.”

I didn’t kill him.

That’s how you know I’ve matured.

“She’s planning something,” I said through gritted teeth. “She wouldn’t show up just to tease the throne. She wants a war.”

Cade nodded. “Then maybe it’s time we give her one.”

I stared out the window of the war room.

The sky was turning black.

Not with clouds.

With wings.

Scouts. Messengers. Smoke trailing behind.

And every single whisper they carried was the same.

Zaria. Zaria. Zaria.

My exile had become her legend.

And now the legend was coming home.

ZARIA

Mother Myra didn’t flinch when I returned.

But her voice was steel wrapped in velvet.

“You kissed him again, didn’t you?”

I blinked. “You spying on me now?”

“I don’t need eyes to smell your soul.” She pointed at my chest. “It’s fraying.”

“It’s burning,” I corrected. “That’s different.”

Myra shook her head, mixing herbs with something that hissed and smoked. “You can’t war with two men at once. Not when one still holds your name in his blood, and the other holds your heart.”

“I’m not choosing between them.”

“No,” she agreed. “You’re choosing yourself. And that’s why it terrifies them.”

LEVI

I found the Alpha King’s guard before they found me.

Stalking near the southern ridge. Trying to pick up Zaria’s trail.

Idiots.

I killed the first one fast. Arrow to the neck. He never made a sound.

The second begged.

I didn’t listen.

The third?

I left him alive. Just barely.

“Tell your King,” I whispered, crouched beside his bleeding body, “that she’s not his anymore. And if he touches her again, I’ll burn his palace to the ground brick by brick.”

Then I walked away.

Because Levi the Beta wasn’t soft anymore.

Not when it came to her.

ZARIA

The next night, I stood on a cliffside, wind whipping through my hair, cloak snapping like a banner of war.

Below me? Red Hollow glowed like a city of embers.

Behind me? Wolves stirred. Rogues. Outcasts. Scars on their skin and fury in their eyes. My army wasn’t royal. Wasn’t pureblooded.

But it was mine.

“We ride at dawn,” I said, loud enough for the stars to hear.

“To take back what they tried to bury.”

“To carve our names into the bones of kings.”

And deep in the dark, the tether snapped.

Not broken.

Activated.

Jasper felt it too I knew he did.

Because for the first time in years…

He howled.

And it wasn’t a call for power.

It was a warning.

That the Queen was coming.

And she wasn’t coming to kneel.

She was coming to reign.

~​LEVI~

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I haven’t slept in days.

Not because I’m tired. Because I’m awake. Wide-eyed and bloodthirsty. The kind of wakefulness only obsession brings.

Zaria is the match.

And Jasper? He’s the fuel.

But me?

I’m the explosion waiting to happen.

I knew this would come to a head eventually. I knew the moment she rose from exile wearing a grin made of war and a scent soaked in sovereignty, it would only be a matter of when, not if, the King and I would meet.

But gods… I craved it.

Not just to fight him.

To ruin him.

To carve Zaria’s name into the inside of his skull so that no matter how many crowns he wore, no matter how many thrones he built

He’d never forget who made him bleed.

I stood at the edge of the southern bluff, eyes on the citadel where his wolves trained. Watched them march. Watched them grunt. Watched them pretend they were ready.

They weren’t.

Because they’d never faced me.

Not Levi the Beta. Not the quiet one. Not the shadow.

No.

They were about to face the monster she made.

JASPER

The smell of Levi’s kills was still fresh when I arrived.

Three guards dead.

One gutted and staked to a tree like a d*mn warning flag. Another strangled with his own entrails. The last? Left alive just long enough to piss himself and die whispering her name.

Zaria.

Her scent lingered, but she hadn’t touched these bodies. He had.

Levi.

F*ck*ng snake.

I used to trust him. Used to keep him close. Used to believe that Betas were loyal by nature, that their instincts would never allow them to rival an Alpha let alone challenge one.

But Levi wasn’t just a Beta.

He was a problem.

And I was going to solve him.

With steel. Or fire. Or both.

LEVI

I found Jasper before his wolves did.

Because I wanted to.

He was on the eastern ridge, overlooking the ruins of the Moonspire Watch an old territory I burned for Zaria two years ago. Funny how ghosts circle back when you least expect them.

“You’re getting sloppy,” I said, stepping from the trees.

Jasper turned. Slow. Controlled.

His eyes were gold-glowing slits.

“Still hiding behind your Beta rank like a coward?”

“I’m not hiding,” I replied, tossing a blade to the dirt between us. “I’m waiting.”

He stared at the weapon. Then at me.

“So this is it? You want to fight me over her?”

I laughed. Low. Cruel.

“You’re not worth fighting over, Jasper. You’re worth ending.”

Lightning cracked above us. Rain hadn’t started yet, but it wanted to.

Just like us.

Jasper moved first predictably. Arrogant. Alpha.

He swung wide, heavy. Like he thought I’d cower.

I ducked. Slammed an elbow into his ribs. He grunted.

“You forget,” I snarled, “I trained with you. I know where your rage lives.”

He caught my next punch. Twisted my arm. I felt the bone pop.

“I also know where yours breaks.”

We clashed like beasts.

Fists. Fangs. Fire in our blood.

He tackled me into a tree, and I kicked him off with both legs, launching him backward into the dirt.

Blood in my mouth. Bone in my shoulder grinding like gears.

Still wasn’t enough.

Because I saw it in his face.

He still thought he had the right to her.

And that?

That was unforgivable.

ZARIA

I smelled them before I heard them.

The blood.

The madness.

The history.

It was thick in the air masculine, primal, stupid.

I dropped down from the ridge, landing silently between trees slick with dew. My cloak tangled around my legs, but I didn’t stop.

Didn’t pause.

Because I could already see it:

Levi and Jasper fighting like gods in the dirt, ripping through each other like the throne was made of my bones.

Idiots.

“Are you two done measuring your dicks,” I called, “or do I have to break them for you?”

They froze.

It was Levi who turned first.

His face was bloodied, one eye swelling, lip split but he still grinned like I was a miracle.

Jasper didn’t grin.

He growled.

“Tell your lapdog to back off, Zaria,” he said, wiping blood from his mouth. “Before I bury him.”

“Funny,” I replied, stepping between them, “because from where I’m standing, it looks like he buried you.”

That set Jasper off.

He lunged but I moved faster.

Faster than both of them.

My claws caught his throat not to slice. Just to warn.

His golden eyes met mine.

I could feel his pulse hammering under my fingers.

“Touch him again,” I whispered, “and I’ll end you before your wolves even find the body.”

Jasper held my gaze. “He’s poisoning you.”

“No,” I said, letting go. “He’s protecting me from you.”

Then I turned to Levi.

His hands were clenched at his sides, eyes burning with questions he’d never ask out loud.

“I told you not to come,” I said softly.

“I never left,” he replied.

And gods… I hated him for that.

Because it made it so much harder to hate him at all.

JASPER

She sided with him.

Publicly.

I could’ve burned the forest down.

Instead, I straightened. Wiped the blood from my face. And did the one thing neither of them expected.

I smiled.

Because if Zaria thought siding with a Beta made her strong…

She hadn’t seen what an Alpha King becomes when he’s finally pushed to war.

“You want to challenge me, Zaria?” I said. “Fine. But I won’t fight you in the shadows.”

I pointed to the moon full, glowing, cruel.

“Tomorrow night. Red Hollow. The old arena.”

“Trial by bond?” she asked, eyes narrow.

“No,” I said, voice like smoke. “Trial by submission.”

She tilted her head. “You still think I’ll kneel?”

“You don’t have to kneel to break.”

She didn’t flinch.

Didn’t blink.

Just smiled.

“You better pray I don’t, Jasper,” she said. “Because if I ever do… you’ll be under me.”

LEVI

The moon rose higher as we descended from the bluff.

Zaria walked ahead, shoulders straight, cloak fluttering like wings.

Jasper vanished into the trees licking wounds and planning vengeance.

And me?

I followed her.

Not because I was behind her.

But because I chose to be.

Because while Jasper played at war…

I was building a revolution.

One carved in the blood of kings.

And crowned by the only Omega who ever dared to bite back.