CLAIMED BY THE BLOOD ALPHA

CHAPTER 1: THE VERDICT

LEYLA

The air in the capital of Arandhia feels heavy. And it isn’t just the biting winter cold beginning to gnaw at the stone walls, but the weight of the hatred radiating from the kingdom’s central plaza.

Careful not to be seen, I hide behind the heavy velvet curtains of the royal balcony to watch the human tide roaring below. The crowd is agitated, carrying lit torches that, as they sway, look like a sea of fire. Their cry is one: rhythmic, constant, and terrifying.

“Justice! We want royal justice! It is not fair that only the blood of the poor is surrendered! Let the princess pay this year’s tribute!” the crowd shouted in unison. Over the uproar, I couldn’t tell exactly which voice belonged to whom, or if it was someone I knew—someone who had watched me grow.

No one called it slavery, but I knew that’s what it was. They had named it a “treaty” to avoid admitting it was an exchange of bodies for silence, daughters for truces that were never eternal.

I clench my fists, digging my nails into my palms until I feel the pain anchoring me back to reality. At eighteen, I was the very image of elegance: my raven hair falls in soft, perfect waves over my shoulders. My cinnamon skin contrasts with the white silk of my dress, and my green eyes, I am certain, reflect the anguish I feel in this moment. I knew that, sooner or later, this could happen; for most women, turning eighteen is a curse from which you cannot escape, even if you wanted to.

Some were lucky enough to be ignored by the envoys of other kingdoms; others disappeared, never to have their names spoken again. In Arandhia, we pretended it was an honor. I always knew it was a sentence disguised as duty.

“You cannot continue to hide, Your Majesty,” Chancellor Ferrick’s voice resonates through the room, cold and devoid of compassion. “The people have endured a hundred years of surrenders. A hundred years of watching their daughters taken to the elven forests, the orcish caves, or the wolf mountains, never to return.”

They did not come back because no one brought them back. Once they crossed the borders, they ceased to belong to this kingdom. They were absorbed into pacts men signed without meeting the eyes of the women they handed over.

Now they know the princess has come of age. If you do not surrender her, the people will seek to burn the castle with us inside.

I turn with wide eyes to look at my father. King Aldric seemed to have aged ten years in a single night. He slumps in his throne, his golden crown askew, his eyes bloodshot. Beside him, my younger sister Lyra, barely sixteen, trembles like a leaf, silently sobbing. I knew my father had delayed the thought of surrendering us for as long as he could, but my mother insisted on having her own children before it was too late; as a result, here we are, and here he is, suffering.

“They are my daughters!” the King shouts, though his voice lacks its former strength. “The elves demanded a fertile human to try and save their withered lineage. Anyone will do. I cannot send Leyla to that fate! They say the elves are beautiful, but they are cold as ice. The women who go there become porcelain dolls, emptied of their will.”

Not because magic made them fragile, but because no kingdom that buys people can offer them a place to remain human.

“Father…” I exclaim, stepping forward, indignant and upset. What he had just said sounded so selfish and cruel… I know he said it because he loves us, but it still sounded cruel coming from him. Normally, he is not like this—or at least not with us. But my father ignores me.

“You are mistaken, Your Majesty. The Elven King is demanding that, this time, royal blood be sent.”

“Damnation! We will send the Duke of Vane’s daughter!” my father Aldric suggests desperately. “We’ll say she is of royal blood through her maternal line.”

“The people are not fools, Your Majesty,” Ferrick interrupts him with a weary sigh. “Everyone here has seen Princess Leyla grow. They know who she is and what she looks like. And the elves… they smell lies and detect fear. If we send them one who does not possess royal blood—your royal blood—and they discover it, the ‘Silent Peace’ will end. The elves will launch their enchanted arrows, the orcs will march from the Iron Mountains toward us, and worst of all, the werewolves will break the treaties and enter our territory to hunt. We will be wiped off the map in a week. Is that what Your Majesty wants?”

A burst of shattering glass below makes me startle. The noise is followed by the shouts of a rioting crowd. I cautiously peer over the balcony; they have toppled one of the statues in the plaza. The revolution, in fact, is already at the gates. I glance inside again: there is Lyra, my little sister. She is joy itself, a girl who still dreams of romances and sunny gardens. If the monarchy falls tonight, Lyra will be the first to suffer at the hands of the enraged people. Or worse yet: if I do not go this year, in two years it will be Lyra who turns eighteen and feels the same pressure I feel now.

I was not defending the treaty. I was choosing the lesser evil I knew to avoid a greater one. It was an unjust decision, but the world we lived in offered no clean options for women of my blood.

My heart leaps. I take a deep breath as a strange calm and a gelid resolve take hold of me.

“I will go,” I say calmly. My voice isn’t even loud, yet it is enough to cut through the chaos in the room like a knife. King Aldric, my father, freezes with wide eyes. Lyra stops crying to stare at me in horror.

“What did you say?” Aldric whispers, as if he hadn’t heard me.

“I will go,” I repeat, this time with more confidence, walking toward the center of the room with my head held high. I will not allow myself to be intimidated or talked out of it. “I will not let this kingdom be destroyed by our cowardice. I have been raised and educated to serve my people, and if it is required that I be surrendered to the Elven King, so be it. I would rather be a voluntary sacrifice, leave with dignity and my head held high, than be a prisoner dragged through the mud like a common coward.”

Not because I believe in this rotten system, but because I understand that my refusal would only allow another woman to take my place—perhaps my own sister. And that is not going to happen.

CHAPTER 2: THE PATH TO DESTINY

LEYLA

“No! Leyla, you can’t do this!” Lyra runs toward me and hugs me tightly. “They say the elves use human women for experiments! That they strip us of our humanity so their children are born with magic!”

I look at her with all the love I feel for her, stroking her hair, trying not to let my own hands tremble. She, like me, had grown up listening to all those stories; but the truth was that no human who had crossed the gates of this kingdom ever returned to tell what had happened to them out there. Rumors became truths for lack of voices to deny them. The world of the five races was a dark place, built more on fear than certainty.

The elves were beings of supernatural beauty, but do not be fooled: their arrogance and lack of empathy made them terrifying. At least, that’s what those who had never crossed the Crystal Forest said. Then there were the orcs, who, it was said, hid brutal, savage instincts beneath their human appeara