Three Nights in My Enemy Alpha’s Bed

The night wraps Ironfang Keep in a blood-soaked shroud. I kick the rusted grate loose and slide from the ventilation shaft into the master bedroom.

I came to stop the slaughter of my pack. I came to gamble on a ghost of a memory.

Moonlight bleeds through the stained-glass dome, hitting Kael Vane’s bare back.

His Alpha war tattoos crisscross his muscles like cracked tundra. Each jagged line marks a life he ended.

He doesn't flinch. He doesn't reach for a weapon.

"You took your time getting here." Kael turns around.

Golden-green wolf eyes lock onto mine. No alarm rings out. Just the sickening calm of a hunter watching the trap snap shut.

"You knew I was coming." I cross my arms, refusing to show fear.

"Your scent hit the perimeter alarms three miles out."

"Then why didn't you send your guards to shoot me?"

"Because I wanted to see if you were actually stupid enough to crawl into my bedroom."

"Call off the border strikes, Kael. The Silverbloods are done fighting."

"Elara."

He crosses the rug in three massive strides. His hand shoots out, fingers clamping around my jaw.

The pressure makes my back teeth ache.

"You think you can just drop into my stronghold and issue orders?"

"I think you owe me an audience."

"I owe you nothing. Your pack slaughtered my border patrol last week."

"We were defending our hunting grounds! You encroached on our land first."

He crashes his mouth against mine. It tastes of rye whiskey and stale gunpowder.

"I want a treaty," I demand against his lips.

"I'm going to fuck that arrogance right out of you."

He rips my shirt down the center. Buttons scatter across the floorboards.

"Don't pretend you don't want this," Kael sneers, unbuckling his tactical belt.

"You're a monster now."

"And you're spreading your legs for a monster."

He forces my knees apart, his heavy frame pinning me down onto the four-poster bed.

"Tell me to stop," he challenges, his thumb pressing hard into my clitoris.

"Fuck you."

"That's exactly what I'm going to do."

He thrusts two fingers deep inside my cunt, stretching me open.

"Ah!" I arch off the sheets.

"You're soaking wet for a warlord you claim to hate."

"Shut up and fuck me."

"Impatient bitch."

He replaces his fingers with his cock, driving into me with brutal force.

"Yes!"

"Say it louder."

"Fuck me harder, Kael!"

He grabs my hips, slamming his pelvis against mine over and over.

"I remember every weakness, Elara." He bites the thin skin behind my left ear.

"Don't..."

"I remember how you flinch on your left rib." He digs his thumb into my side, making me gasp. "I remember the exact sound you make when I hit your cervix."

He thrusts deeper, hitting the spot perfectly.

A high-pitched moan escapes my throat.

"There it is," he smirks, pumping into me relentlessly. "Three days, Elara. I'm going to keep you in this bed, fucking you until you forget why you came here."

"You won't break me."

"I don't need to break you. I just need to remind you who you belong to."

For three days, he keeps me tethered to this mattress. He doesn't use whips or chains. He uses the devastating precision of his memory.

He dismantles my defenses, exploiting every sensitive nerve until I mistake his rough obsession for lingering love.

Until Day Three.

Morning light floods the window sill. I open my eyes, a genuine smile curving my lips.

"Morning," I whisper to the empty side of the bed.

A bucket of liquid silver crashes over my skull.

"Ahhhhh!"

My flesh sizzles like raw steak thrown onto a hot iron skillet. White smoke erupts from my shoulders, neck, and cheeks.

I thrash wildly, tumbling off the mattress and slamming onto the hardwood floor.

The metallic liquid burns through my silk nightgown, melting straight into my muscle fibers.

Kael stands in the morning sun. He holds the empty steel bucket.

The corners of his mouth curve upward, mimicking the permanent ice of the northern wastes.

"Turns out immortal Silverbloods feel pain too?"

"What the fuck did you do?" I shriek, clawing at my own melting skin.

He squats next to me. His thumb and index finger pinch my scorched cheek.

He digs his knuckles directly into the festering, raw meat.

Tiny bubbles of silver poison froth inside the open wound.

"Stop! Stop it!"

"Does it hurt?" Kael asks, his voice entirely hollow.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because you deserve worse."

"I gave you everything these past thirty days! I thought you understood why I came!"

"You thought you could fuck your way into a peace treaty?" He laughs, a harsh, grating sound. "You thought opening your legs would make me forget?"

"Forget what?"

"Your pain is worth nothing compared to what you did."

"I came here to negotiate!"

"You came here to spy. You took my parents from me."

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"They vanished the night your pack raided the southern ridge. Don't play dumb."

"I wasn't even at the southern ridge! I was negotiating with the River Pack!"

He twists his fist into my hair. My scalp screams in protest as he drags me across the room.

"Get your fucking hands off me, you psycho!"

"You're going to tell me exactly where they are."

He ignores my thrashing. He hauls me toward the massive floor-to-ceiling window.

"Look at them."

He smashes my forehead against the heavy steel window frame. Blood instantly rushes down my eyebrow, blinding my left eye.

"Look!" he barks.

I blink through the crimson haze.

Outside, massive iron racks dominate the courtyard. Flayed werewolf corpses hang from heavy meat hooks.

The morning wind blows. The gray, blood-matted fur sways gently in the breeze.

"My pack..." I choke out. "You killed them."

"I butchered them. This is just the beginning."

He leans in close. His breath scorches my ear like volcanic ash.

"Tell me where my parents are hidden, or you never leave Ironfang Keep."

"I swear to the Moon, Kael, I didn't take your parents!"

"You don't get to invoke the Moon in my house."

"I'm telling the truth!"

"Then you die here."

He drags me backward by my ankles. I claw at the floorboards, scraping my fingernails to the quick.

"Don't do this!"

He yanks my leg toward the foot of the bed. A heavy, cold metal cuff snaps shut around my ankle.

A silver shackle.

He locks the other end of the thick chain to the solid copper bedpost.

My ankle immediately begins to smoke. The hiss of burning skin fills the quiet room.

I collapse onto my stomach, panting through the blinding agony.

"Take it off!" I scream.

"It stays on until you confess."

"It's going to eat through my bone!"

"Then you better talk fast."

"You promised me," I gasp, staring at the smoking metal.

"I promised you nothing."

"When we were fifteen. At the moon altar."

He pauses by the door, his broad shoulders rigid.

"You knelt down," I force the words out, fighting the silver poison racing through my veins. "You gave me your carved wolf fang. You called me your Luna."

"I was a stupid kid."

"You said your territory, your bloodline, and your fate belonged to me."

"Now you're just a bitch chained to my bed."

"I loved you, Kael!"

"Love doesn't kidnap a man's family."

Kael steps out into the hallway and slams the heavy oak door shut. The lock clicks into place.

I lie on the floor, watching the silver burn deeper into my bone.

The agony radiates up my calf, settling deep in my marrow.

He doesn't know the truth about my kind.

He thinks he has all the time in the world to break me.

A Silverblood wolf dies if they stay away from the Moon Blessed Lands for three years.

I have been trapped inside Kael's territory for two years and eleven months.

My death sentence is already signed.

I only have thirty days left to live.