The Alpha's Bloodbound

Seven Years Ago — The Blackridge War

The forest was surrounded by fire.

Ashes spiraled in the air, settling on broken spears, torn banners, and bodies too twisted to name. A thousand wolves lay still. Fur soaked in crimson, steam rising from cooling blood.

The snow had melted hours ago.

Now, the ground was muddy

The stench of burnt fur hung low, thick enough to choke. The wind didn’t carry it away, it held it there

Lucien stood at the heart of it all, chest heaving, blade dripping red.

Blood soaked his knuckles, stained the edge of his jaw, and ran in slow lines beneath the collar of his armor.

The wolf inside him paced just beneath his skin and snarled to be let out again

But it wasn’t over, not yet.

A howl broke the silence. Distant. Raw.

Then nothing.

He turned toward the sound, but it didn’t come again.

“Where is she?” he growled

Behind him, the old priestess stepped through the smoke, her robes scorched

She had no weapon.

“She waits beyond the circle,” she rasped.

Lucien didn’t turn to her.

“The cost remains,” the priestess said.

His jaw tensed.

“I said name it.”

“You’ve already offered your blood.”

She nodded toward the open gash across his palm.

“But the moon does not trade in flesh alone, Alpha. It demands more.”

“What more?”

She stepped forward. Her voice dropped.

“The moon wants the part of you that cannot be regrown”

Lucien didn’t hesitate.

He stepped forward, into the ring of stone.

The runes flared faintly under his boots, recognizing his blood before it hit the altar.

He didn’t flinch as it fell, drop by drop onto the center of the stone circle.

The symbols burned black.

He knelt.

“I give it,” he said.

A vow.

The sky cracked. A sharp noise split the night.

The flame on the altar turned black.

Somewhere inside him, the beast howled.

Not in rage but fear.

The priestess staggered backward.

“Lucien, no…”

But it was too late.

The circle closed.

The light went out and the bond inside him snapped

The silence was deafening.

Something older slipped through his blood and curled around his soul..

It didn’t overtake, it settled.

Coiled around the root of him like a second soul. A darker one.

Lucien arched forward, eyes wide, breath torn from his chest.

He didn’t cry out because the pain wasn't the kind that made you scream.

It was the kind that marked you

The priestess collapsed to her knees.

“What have you done?”

Lucien rose, slowly.

His shadow stretched across the altar, long and twisted, moving when he didn’t.

He looked up.

The moon had turned red.

Somewhere in the trees, a star winked out.

And the wolves who survived that night would never again speak of the price that was paid.

Only that their Alpha walked out of the circle alive and never came out the same.

Long after he left the altar, the priestess remained kneeling. “The moon binds what man breaks,” she whispered into the ashes. “But it will unbind it too. One day… when she returns.”

Far beyond the circle, past the blood-stained trees, a figure watched from the shadows. She said nothing, made no sound but when the wind blew, her scent vanished like it had never existed at all.

Lucien

The scent hit him first or rather, didn't.

It was just after moonrise. Wind moved through the trees, dragging the scent of pine and frost from the cliffs above. Lucien stood at the ridge, arms folded behind his back, cloak brushing his boots.

Nothing moved but everything felt wrong.

The kind of stillness wolves only noticed after years of blood. The kind that made the air feel thin. The kind that said something is here but you wouldn’t know until it had its teeth in your throat.

His wolf shifted under his skin without snarling or warning, just listening.

He didn’t move right away. He never did. Let the wind speak first.

Far below, the forest looked still. Silent but stillness was never safe. Stillness was the shadow before something broke.

And then, there was movement

The figure emerged between trees like she’d been there all along. Too smooth to be a rogue, too still to be prey.

Lucien didn’t move.

She did.