Isabella
Heat bit into her wrists, those metal bands glowing sharp through every mile. The car hummed, tires eating road while pain pulsed behind skin.
A heavy click sealed my wrists to the floor - cold metal biting skin. The car moved without a sound, black glass swallowing the city lights. Kai stayed stiff in front, eyes forward, never turning. My shoulder pressed into leather, heartbeat loud in my ears.
Silence stretched twelve long hours.
Flesh crisping under heat for half a day, red drops falling across soft car seats. Then silence.
Each minute I marked it passed like footsteps on pavement. One after another they stacked up behind me.
By the ninth hour, feeling had simply faded away.
Eleven o'clock hit - then came the laugh. Not loud. Jagged. Unhinged. A sound that didn't feel like mine.
Fear flashed across his face as he peeked at the rearview mirror.
Kai moved his head at last.
"What's so funny, little wolf?"
My smile showed red teeth, stained by my blood.
"I'm free," I whispered. "Your brother was the last person I had to kill from that pack. The rest can live. I don't care anymore."
Frost crept into his gaze, sharpening each blink. The chill settled deep behind pupils gone still.
"You think this is freedom?"
"No," I said, shifting closer so the metal bit harder into my skin. That moment - maybe it was just the start of something rougher
A shadow passed over his features, sharp with need.
His gaze shifted back ahead.
Not a word passed between us during that last stretch of time.
Only when the wheels quit moving did we realize - nowhere near a pack house stood that car.
A stone giant stood where the wind once roamed.
Towering black stones rise up, thirty feet into the air. Wolf skulls form the gates, sun-scorched until bone-white. Snipers stand watch above, rifles ready, silver rounds tucked inside. The weight of silence presses hard where only echoes move.
Step into lands where Blackthorn holds sway.
Out stepped Kai. Down went the guards on their knees without delay.
Footsteps reached me before his hand touched the latch.
The moment that chain came free, my body shot forward, jaws snapping toward his neck.
A sudden grip on my chin stopped it in time. Against the car door I went, force strong enough to split the glass beside me.
That was when his face changed. A real smile showed up.
His voice dropped low, a warning sliding out as his thumb pressed hard against my lower lip, drawing blood. The words hung there, sharp. Back in the trunk, he said, if I didn't listen. Stillness followed
Faces got wet when I spit at him.
A drop traced down his face, so he drew his tongue across just that spot. The motion lingered without hurry.
He picked me up, tossed me over one shoulder as if I were weightless, moved into the house without slowing. The air shifted around us, steps echoing just once before the door shut behind.
The space felt hollow. Not a soul among the ranks. Nobody tending the halls. Only dim shapes moved, along with the sound each step made.
Up ahead, a staircase stretched without end when he led me forward.
A lone black door sat high above everything else.
The door flew back when he struck it.
A space wide as a dance hall, yet used for sleep. Silk coverings dark as midnight, floors of black stone, drapes that swallowed light. From within it all, fire blazed cool blue in a hearth too large to believe. Not a glow, but a pulse - steady, strange, casting no warmth you could feel.
Floor gave way beneath my feet when he moved. The mattress took me next, sudden and without warning.
Up I sprang, fumbled into a crouch, braced for what came next.
There he stayed, pulling up the sleeves of his dark shirt, showing arms tight with strength and marked by faded burns like liquid metal once seared into the skin.
"Strip," he ordered.
I burst out laughing right at him. "Go ahead, try it."
One breath he wasn't there - then suddenly closing in. The air shifted before I even saw him move.
A fist clutches my hair, jerking my skull upward. My shredded shirt tears away - ripped free by a sudden, brutal tug from the second hand.
Fangs bared, my fist cut through air toward his face.
A sudden grip on my wrist - then both arms pressed up high, held fast by just one of his hands.
Close now, his breath warmed my skin. He shifted nearer, lips grazing the curve by my ear.
"I was going to wait," he whispered. "Be civilized. Give you a shower, food, a fucking blanket."
Fangs just barely touched my neck.
"But you killed my brother. So now I'm going to take everything you have left."
A sharp twist of my neck brought his ear between my teeth. Pain split the air as skin gave way under pressure.
A rumble rose from his chest - low, raw, something wild. It shook me from within, humming past marrow and muscle alike.
Biting came after his move.
A brush of lips? Maybe. A mark left behind? Could be. Neither one fits quite right.
Fangs sank deep, locking onto the neck's main bloodline without warning. A raw grip crushed down where pulse meets skin.
Blood warmed both of us when teeth broke through. His lips met the rush just as mine felt the cut open.
A sharp ache burst through my skull like lightning. Then everything turned bright.
I screamed.
He drank.
A bit here. Enough though - to leave a trace. Tied together anyway.
Faded backward, his mouth carried a crimson mark, gaze now fully amber.
A faint trace of warmth crossed the cut - one slow stroke, that was all.
A sting deeper than any cuff left behind. Worse by far was how it stayed.
Fingers trembled like a leaf caught in wind. Stilling them felt impossible.
Back he moved, hands off my wrists, eyes on me as if ownership had been decided long ago.
My fingers brushed the wound. Already it began to mark him, like a name carved deep.
My eyes lifted toward his face, saltwater tracing paths through crimson streaks down my skin.
And I smiled.
"Your move, Alpha."
A sudden glow lit up his eyes.
The buttons came loose one by one, his fingers moving without hurry.
"This is going to hurt," he promised.
His black silk sheets felt cool beneath me, legs apart, blood smearing the fabric, lips curled. A quiet warmth stayed in my face despite the mess. The room held its breath while I did not move. Something sharp ran through the moment, cutting clean. Smiling came easy even then.
"Good."
A weight dropped, sudden as thunder. It pressed down before I could blink.