The door to Kristen’s private cabin was nearly kicked off its hinges.
The heavy oak frame slammed against the drywall with a thunderous crack that made the windowpanes rattle.
“We leave you alone for a few hours and you get hitched to a fucking vamp?!” Malachi’s voice boomed through the small living room before his boots had even fully crossed the threshold.
Kristen groaned miserably, burying his face deeper into the plush fabric of his couch cushion.
He pulled his heavy fleece blanket completely over his head, desperately wishing he could morph into a molecule and vanish into the floorboards.
His entire body ached from the lingering, toxic adrenaline of last night’s disaster.
His throat felt dry, his ears were still practically ringing with the echo of Julian Vance’s mocking voice, and the absolute last thing his sanity needed was his loud, chaotic friends before he’d even had a sip of water.
“I heard the bastard has long hair, wears nothing but imported silk, and has a penthouse downtown,” Theo chimed in, stepping into the cabin right behind Malachi.
Without missing a beat, he balled up a stray receipt from the coffee table and tossed it directly at Kristen’s covered head.
“Is it true, Kristy?
Did you secure us a rich vampire sugar daddy just to fix our intercepted supply routes?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Kristen’s muffled voice growled from beneath the blanket.
He violently threw the fleece off his face, sitting up abruptly and glaring at his friends who had already made themselves entirely at home.
Malachi was leaning against the kitchen counter, his blue Omega eyes wide with a mixture of disbelief and genuine anxiety.
Theo, true to form, was already casually rifling through Kristen’s refrigerator, inspecting a carton of eggs as if he didn’t just barge into a private residence at seven in the morning.
“Can you two jackasses lower your voices for once in your pathetic lives?” a deep, gravelly voice rumbled from the armchair by the window.
Kristen blinked, tracking the sound.
Dalton was sitting there, his large frame swallowed by the shadows of the corner.
He had his long legs stretched out, his piercing green eyes locked onto Kristen with intense seriousness.
Unlike the other two, Dalton hadn’t burst in shouting, but the heavy, protective Alpha aura radiating off him proved he was just as tightly wound.
The cabin Kristen lived in was a solitary structure, built about a ten-minute walk away from the bustling center of the pack village and the massive, multi-story packhouse where his parents and sister resided.
Growing up, Kristen had loved the packhouse, but his unique traits had eventually forced a change.
The moment his parents and the pack doctor realized he could consciously communicate with his inner wolf, living in a communal building with dozens of other wolves became a psychological nightmare.
Because wolves had exceptional hearing, Kristen’s habit of accidentally answering his inner beast out loud led to a lot of awkward staring.
Half the pack thought he was talking to ghosts; the other half thought he was genuinely losing his mind.
Furthermore, as the future Pack Alpha who possessed a rare golden-eyed lineage and the terrifying ability to half-shift, Kristen’s aura was naturally heavy.
When he got stressed or angry, his subconscious dominance would ripple through the packhouse walls, inadvertently causing the Omegas to whimper and the young pups to hide under their beds.
To give everyone peace of mind, his father had helped him clear this plot of land and build this cabin.
It was his haven.
A place where he could be a freaky, golden-eyed wolf-talker in peace.
But right now, his haven was being occupied by three nosy jackasses.
“Seriously though, Kris,” Malachi said, his voice dropping into a softer, more grounded register as the initial comedic bravado faded.
He stepped away from the counter and sat on the edge of the wooden coffee table, looking directly at Kristen.
“The entire pack community is whispering this morning.
The boundary guards are terrified.
They said Julian Vance himself blurred right past the perimeter defense last night like it was nothing.
Is Scarlet okay?
Is your dad okay?
The rumors say they were carried out of the office.”
Kristen sighed, rubbing his palms flat against his face until his skin burned from the friction.
The sassy, reality-show drama of his friends was a welcome distraction, but the crushing weight of reality was right behind it, threatening to choke him.
“Scarlet and Dad are fine.
They’re upstairs at the main house resting.
Their necks are bruised, but they’re healing,” Kristen muttered, his voice cracking slightly as the image of his father on his knees, weeping and choking, flashed through his mind.
He shook his head to clear it.
“But the rumors are true, guys.
The alliance is set.
There’s no backing out.”
Theo froze, a half-eaten apple pausing halfway to his mouth.
The playful, teasing glint in his chocolate-brown eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a grim, somber realization.
“So… Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
you’re actually leaving?
To live with them?
In their territory?”
“I don’t have a choice, Theo,” Kristen said softly, staring down at his bare feet on the rug.
“You didn’t see him last night.
You didn’t feel his speed.
Mom wasn’t lying when she said the vampires evolved.
Julian…
he’s a monster.
If I don’t go through with this, he’ll tear down our borders and let the hunters drain us, or he’ll just massacre the pack himself.
He nearly killed my dad and sister in less than three seconds just to prove a point.”
Dalton stood up from the armchair, his heavy boots thudding against the floorboards as he walked over to the couch.
His green eyes darkened, a flash of red tint flickering beneath the surface—the marking of his Alpha status.
“He touched the Alpha lineage on our own soil?
And we’re just letting him walk away with you?” Dalton clenched his fists, his jaw tight.
“We have weapons, Kristen.
We can fight them.
I’d rather die in a war than hand our future leader over to a bloodsucker as a political toy.”
“We can’t win a war, Dalton,” Kristen said, looking up to meet his fellow Alpha’s gaze.
“They can walk in the daylight.
They don’t have the blood weakness we thought they did.
If we fight, sixty percent of our pack dies in the first wave.
I won’t let our people become extinct just to save my own skin.”
‘And he called us a kinky mutt,’ his inner wolf chimed in suddenly, its voice echoing clearly in Kristen’s mind.
‘Don’t forget the ear-licking.
Honestly, Kristen, if we have to submit, at least the bloodsucker is hot.
Have you seen his jawline?
Smells like expensive cologne and ozone.’
Shut the fuck up, Kristen snapped back in his thoughts, his jaw clenching.
He literally choked my family.
I don’t care how hot he is.
‘I’m just saying, it could be worse.
You could be marrying a decrepit, ancient vampire with dust for skin,’ the wolf countered reasonably.
“Kris?
You’re doing the zoning-out thing again,” Malachi interrupted, snapping his fingers in front of Kristen’s face.
“Is your wolf talking to you right now?
What is he saying?”
“Nothing,” Kristen lied quickly, a faint, involuntary pink hue dusting his cheeks.
“He’s just being an idiot.”
“He’s probably terrified too,” Theo said, tossing the core of his apple into the trash can with perfect accuracy before walking over to sit on the arm of the couch.
He leaned in, bumping his shoulder against Kristen’s.
“Look, man.
If that leech tries anything crazy, you just give us the signal.
The Ironbound pack doesn’t abandon its future Alpha.
We’ll crawl into that vampire mansion and drag you out ourselves.”
Kristen managed a weak, appreciative smile.
“Thanks, dude.
But please don’t.
I’d rather not have to plan your funerals before my wedding.”
Before the banter could spiral into another round of insults, a sharp, rhythmic knock echoed from the front cabin door. This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
The four of them went silent, their wolf ears twitching in unison.
A familiar, grounding scent filtered through the cracks of the door—cedarwood and rain.
“Come in,” Kristen called out.
The door swung open, and Scarlet stepped into the living room.
She was wearing an oversized flannel shirt and sweatpants, her long dark hair pulled back into a messy bun.
A faint, dark purple shadow of a bruise was still visible around her throat, a brutal reminder of Julian’s grip, but she carried herself with her usual defiant posture.
Kristen, whose alpha instincts were always highly attuned to environmental changes, immediately noticed the change in Theo.
The brave, sarcastic Beta had completely frozen.
Theo’s chocolate-brown eyes widened, a dark, heavy flush creeping rapidly up his neck and flooding his cheeks.
He hurriedly stood up from the arm of the couch, smoothing down his shirt nervously, his usual confident posture dissolving into that of a flustered pup.
Scarlet caught sight of the three of them and offered a tired but warm smile.
“Hey, guys.”
“S-Scarlet,” Theo stammered, his voice cracking slightly on the first syllable.
“Hey.
You’re…
you’re awake.
How’s your neck?
Do you need anything?
I can go to the pack clinic and get some soothing salve, or—or I can make tea?
Do you like chamomile?”
“Thanks, Theo.
I’m okay.
Wolves heal fast, remember?
Just a little sore.”
Theo looked like he was about to faint from the sheer joy of her speaking to him nicely.
He nodded quickly, backing up until his spine hit the kitchen counter again.
Kristen stared at the display, he was not sure what was happening, but he had a devasting hunch and as he stared at Theo’s flushed face, he really hoped — for the first time ever — that his gut was wrong.
He sobered as Scarlet’s face hardened.
“Mom sent me,” Scarlet said, her tone shifting into something formal and heavy.
“The elders have been assembled.
There’s going to be an emergency pack meeting at the communal hall in thirty minutes.
They need to officially announce the alliance and explain the situation to the pack members before the rumors cause a panic.”
Kristen felt his stomach drop, a cold sweat breaking out across his palms.
The official announcement.
This meant he would have to stand in front of the entire Ironbound pack and look them in the eye while his mother announced he was being married off to a vampire.
Worse, he knew the elders would review the contract details.
The thought of the pack elders knowing about the submission clause made him want to throw up.
“Do I have to go?” Kristen muttered, looking at his sister with a desperate, pleading gaze.
“You’re the future Alpha, Kris.
You have to be there,” Scarlet said softly, her eyes shining with that deep empathy from the night before.
She walked over and squeezed his shoulder.
“We’re all going to be right there with you.
Dad is already there helping Mom set up the hall.”
Malachi, Theo, and Dalton instantly straightened up, their protective pack instincts kicking into high gear.
“We’ll walk with you, Kris,” Malachi said firmly, his playful demeanor completely gone.
“No one is going to whisper or say anything stupid while we’re around.”
“Yeah,” Dalton growled, his Alpha presence flaring to reinforce the statement.
“Let any of those old elders try to talk down to you.
We’ve got your back.”
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