My freedom tasted so sweet. I laughed, low at first, then louder, because the sound of it filled my chest and made the cave feel smaller, it felt like I was going to die and rot in there, not when the Moon finally decided to stop watching and start moving pieces on the board.
"The prophecy," I muttered, voice rough from disuse. For years I had wondered if it was a lie the witches fed packs to keep them obedient, or a story told to frighten young alphas into staying in line, but tonight a girl had stumbled into my prison like she had been pulled by a string, and when her hands touched my chains the world shifted.
Was it a gift or a curse? It was a blessing I had waited too long for. I rolled my freed wrist, feeling blood rush back into my hand, feeling pain and life together, and the fog that clung to the chains hissed and curled because it knew I was finally free.
I lifted my head, eyes fixed on the cave mouth where she had fled. "I'll find you, mate." Mate, saying it felt right, like the words belonged to my tongue even though I thought I'd never utter those words till my last breath.
Five years, five whole years of darkness and silence, since the Lycan witches took me out and the world turned on me as if I was a monster they had always expected me to be. I was accused of a crime I did not commit, they said I turned on my own people and that I did it all for power. So they chained me here, deep in the forbidden forest, in a cave sealed tight with magic, a place where no outsider was meant to enter.
They told my pack I was dead and crowned another letting my bloodline rot. The only way out was simple and impossible at the same time. Only Lycan witch blood could set me free or the mate bond. The witches would never free me and I couldn't escape, the cave was sealed in a way that anyone outside wouldn't be able to track or smell my scent. And no one would be able to see the entrance with their bare eyes. So only one thing could and she had done it without even knowing.
My mind drifted back to her face as if it had been branded onto my eyes. My precious mate, my little dive.
She had looked at me with terror and heartbreak mixed together, like she had been hurt so many times she didn't know how to trust even her own choices. Her hair had been messy she looked like she was from running, strands stuck to her cheeks. Her lips were pale. Her eyes were huge and shining with tears she didn't have time to wipe away. She was bBeautiful, yes, but looked for fraile.
And her scent… It hit me even now when I thought about it, cherry blossom and honey with a hint of mint, it was mine, she was mine. It called to my wolf like a command and my wolf woke up, howling and chanting like crazy. But what bothered me, what stayed sharp in my mind, was the way she didn't react when I spoke the word mate. Like she couldn't feel it, how could a mate not feel it and why was she running in the first place, why was she bleeding and why did she move like someone who was being hunted.
I had so many questions and I would get answers later. First, I needed my pack, I needed to reclaim what they stole and burn the ones who put me here. I set my feet against the rock and pulled. The chains groaned and the fog hissed as metal bit into my skin. I didn't care, I was a chain away from freedom. I pulled again, harder, letting rage fill the space where despair used to sit. The restraints cracked one by one, bolts ripping from stone with sharp sounds that echoed through the cave. Pain lanced up my arms, but pain meant I was alive.
When the last chain snapped the fog scattered,
I threw my head back and laughed, then I howled, and the sound rolled out of the cave mouth into the forest like a warning to every living thing that had forgotten my name, Draven Blackwood is back.
My body remembered the forest as if it had never been chained. My muscles screamed at first, stiff from years of stillness, but the more I moved the more the world came back to me. Trees blurred, dirt flew under my feet and cold air filled my lungs and tasted like revenge.
Duskwood's border hit my senses before I saw it and there it was, my pack, my land. The scent markers were wrong and faint neglected if I must say. another male's claim layered over mine like an insult. I bared my teeth as I crossed and the first wolves who caught my scent froze and their eyes went wide. I didn't slow down, I tore through the trees and up the path that led to the pack house, and when I reached the front gates, guards stumbled back like they'd seen a ghost.
The doors opened to chaos as gasps erupted inside the great hall, with voices rising and bodies shifting they all stepped back in fear and disbelief.
I walked in like I had never left, like the last five years were nothing. A figure moved at the front of the hall, turning slowly and behold stood my brother and worst enemy Lucian.
He wore the Alpha crest and he stood where I used to stand, that was a fucking slap to my face.
His eyes narrowed, then widened and hardened again, like he had prepared for this moment in nightmares but still didn't know what to do with it in real life. For one second, the room felt like it held its breath ready for the havoc I was about to unleash .
"Hello, brother," I said, voice steady, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Happy to see me?"
Lucian's mouth tightened. "H-how ? You're supposed to be dead," he snapped, a few wolves murmured, trembling. I took a step forward. "Not dead," I said. "Just inconvenient." Lucian's jaw flexed. "Why have you returned traitor ? You should have stayed where they put you."
"They," I repeated, tasting the word. "You mean the witches you invited into my home." His eyes flashed. "Watch your mouth."
"Or what," I said, and the hall felt smaller with my dominance. "You'll order your guards to chain me again?" Lucian's hand went to the blade at his hip. Mine was already in my hand and the room erupted into movement, wolves backed away some shouting, some trying to step in, but no one was fast enough to stop what had been waiting to happen for five years.
Lucian lunged and I met him halfway, the steel collided and rang as we crashed into each other like two storms and all I could see was his face, my brother's face, twisted with anger and fear and something else beneath it. Probably Guilt,we struggled, blades locked, breath harsh, shoulders slamming into pillars, and he hissed, "You don't understand what you were becoming."
I shoved him back. "And you don't understand what I'm going to become now." He swung again, I stepped inside the strike and drove my blade across his throat,it was too quick and shockingly easy. Lucian's eyes went wide. His hands flew up, fingers pressing to the wound as blood spilled between them. He made a wet sound, trying to speak and dropped to his knees.
The hall went silent, the kind of silence that makes even wolves afraid to breathe, lucian fell forward and didn't move. I stood over him, blood on my hand with my chest rising and falling and I felt nothing but the calm that comes after a decision you have waited too long to make.
I turned to the trembling guards, "Call the pack elders," I ordered. "And the shaman too." No one moved at first." And get him a doctor, he is still alive he can't die this easily….. where's the fun in that." My gaze swept the room. "Now," I said and they scattered, rushing to obey.
I looked over the hall, over the faces that had watched my fall and accepted my replacement, and my voice cut through them like a blade.
"Tell everyone your Alpha has returned."