Alpha's Last Heir

The air reeked of blood and pine—sharp, raw, and metallic. My eyes burned, but no one looked twice. Of course they didn’t. The Silverclaw Pack’s full moon ceremony wasn’t for omegas like me. Just shadows to hide in, cold stone under my bare feet, and the ache in my ribs from where Jarek’s boot had caught me earlier.

“Know your place, mutt,” Jarek had snarled.

And I did: back row, silent, markless. Invisible.

Alpha Ryker’s voice boomed over the sacred clearing. “Tonight, we honor the blood that binds us!” His son, Jarek, stood center-stage, shirtless and smug, preening under the pack’s admiration. Moonlight glinted off the ritual dagger in his hand.

My stomach twisted. Not from jealousy—from the itch.

It started as a prickle between my shoulder blades.

Then fire.

I bit my tongue hard, copper flooding my mouth. Don’t scream. Don’t move. But the burn spread, molten gold searing through veins I didn’t know I had. A gasp tore from my throat as light erupted—golden, blinding—across my right shoulder.

The ritual dagger clattered to the stone. Jarek stumbled back.

Silence—then gasps. Then whispers.

“The mark… the First Alpha’s mark…”

More murmurs surged like a wave.

“She bears it—just like in the old stories…”

“No one’s carried that symbol since the blood trials!”

“That line was supposed to be dead!”

The whispers turned from awe to panic.

I didn’t need to see it to know. The air hummed, thick with something old. Primal. My knees buckled, but I forced myself upright.

Run. Now.

Pain flared behind my eyes—visions I didn’t summon: a woman kneeling in firelight, chanting in a language I didn’t know. Blood at her feet. Smoke rising like breath from the earth.

Then it was gone.

Elias’s voice cut through the chaos. “Seize her!”

Warriors lunged. But their hands froze inches from my skin, as if something unseen held them back. A current of heat rippled outward, crackling at the edges of my vision. My pulse thundered in my ears.

What am I?

Jarek’s snarl broke the spell. “Freak!”

I ran.

Branches clawed at my arms. My lungs burned. But the mark—gods, the mark—still glowed faintly under my tattered shirt. It wasn’t just hot. It was alive. Listening.

By the creek, I dropped. Couldn’t breathe. My hands shook. Teeth knocked together like they might break.

Never let them see. Mom’s voice, ghost-soft, from memories I’d buried. She’d died when I was six, fever stealing her before she could finish her warnings.

But now I understood.

I yanked the fabric aside.

The symbol pulsed—a crescent moon entwined with flames, etched in gold beneath my skin. Alive. Hungry. It beat in sync with my heart, with something deeper than blood.

Mom once whispered, “Fire remembers, Ayla. It never starts alone.” I thought she meant candles. Hearths. But maybe she meant this.

The creek gurgled behind me, oblivious. I stood slowly, legs shaking, and looked up the path that led back toward the ritual site. For one terrifying second, I thought about going back. Throwing myself at Elias’s feet, demanding answers. Or mercy.

Instead, I reached into the pouch at my hip—half torn in the run—and pulled out a handful of crushed sage. Ceremony-grade. Symbolic. Holy.

I scattered it into the current.

"You don’t get to choose who’s sacred," I whispered.

The herb curled away, carried off like ash.

For the first time that night, I didn’t feel hunted.

I felt... defiant.

Footsteps.

I scrambled back—but it was just Liora. Her healer’s robes swished as she knelt, face pale.

“Ayla…”

“Don’t.”

I shoved her hands away.

“They’ll kill you too if they find you here.”

She ignored me, wrapping her cloak around my shoulders. Lavender hit me first—same as her bathwater that time in Tulsa. Her thumb found the raised skin.

"Not cursed," she said, too quick, like she’d been practicing in rearview mirrors since Wichita.

The scar burned anyway. Her lie smelled like gardenias.

I laughed—harsh, broken. “Tell that to Elias.”

Her jaw tightened. “The Council’s scared. Scared people make stupid choices.”

Like executing me?

I didn’t say it. Liora’s optimism was a flickering candle in this hell. She pressed a vial into my palm. “Dreamless sleep. For tonight.”

I pocketed it. Useless. Sleep meant dreams. And dreams meant her—the woman in my visions, crowned in starlight, screaming as flames consumed her.

“Ayla.” Liora gripped my wrist. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m terrified.” The admission cracked me open. “What if I’m not… what if I’m just a mistake?”

She didn’t answer.

Wolves howled in the distance—hunting. For me.

Dawn came too soon.

The summons arrived with a fist pounding my door.

“Council demands your presence. Now.”

Village wolves lined the path to the stone hall. Their stares pricked like knives.

Freak. Abomination. Threat.

I kept my chin up, but my nails dug bloody crescents into my palms.

Jarek leaned against a post, smirking. “Dead girl walking.”

I kept moving.

Then—him.

A shadow at the forest’s edge. Tall. Cloaked in black. Hood low. But I felt his gaze—hot, relentless—searing through me. The mark flared in response, pulsing like it knew him.

Kieran.

The exiled Alpha. The pack’s boogeyman. Stories said he’d slaughtered his own brother for power. Now he watched me like he recognized a ghost.

The hall loomed ahead, its arched doors carved with wolves mid-howl. My heart thundered. War drum. Death knell.

Inside, torches cast jagged shadows. The Council sat high on a dais—seven elders, Elias at the center.

His silver beard couldn’t hide the venom in his glare. “Ayla of No Bloodline. You stand accused of heresy.”

My voice shook.

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“Liar!” He slammed his fist. “That mark belongs to the First Alpha’s line—extinct for centuries. How does a mutt bear it?”

The word stung. I lifted my chin. “Ask my dead mother.”

Murmurs rippled. Elias’s eyes narrowed. “Your insolence proves you’re unfit. The mark must be purged.”

Purged.

A pretty word for flayed alive.

Jarek stepped forward, dagger in hand. “Let me do it, Elder.”

The door creaked open.

All eyes snapped to the figure silhouetted in sunlight—Kieran.

His voice rumbled, low and dangerous. He didn’t stride in—he carved silence with every step, like the shadows feared him more than the Council did.

“Touch her,” he said, voice like stone cracking. “And your blood joins the others who failed to stop her rise.”

Silence.

Elias rose, trembling. “You dare—”

“I dare.” Kieran’s hood fell back, revealing scars that twisted down his neck like claws. “That mark isn’t hers to bear. It’s ours. And I’ll kill anyone who forgets it.”

Gasps. A stir of confusion. Ours?

The room erupted.

But all I saw was Kieran’s stare—golden, feral—locking onto mine.

Mine, it said.

Finally.

The door slammed behind me.

The chamber’s cold bit deeper than winter. Ayla stood motionless at the stone table’s edge, her breath fogging in the air. Twelve elders circled her, their robes pooling like spilled ink. The air tasted of old stone and older fear.

Elias’s stare felt like a blade pressed to her throat.

Omega. Marked. Heretic.

The words hissed in her mind, louder than the crackling torches.

“Explain yourself,” Elias growled.

She swallowed. How do you explain a wildfire that lit itself in your bones?

“It—it just happened.”

“Lies!”

He lunged—faster than she expected—grabbing her wrist. Her mark flared again, light spilling through her sleeve like molten fire.

The elders recoiled. Elias didn’t flinch.

“This belongs to the Flameborn,” he spat, as if the word itself were poison. “Their line died centuries ago. So tell me, mutt—how does filth like you bear it?”

Her knees wobbled. Filth. The word carved deeper than any knife. She’d heard it h