The fire crackled inside the Alpha’s den.
Thick smoke curled through the room like a living thing, heavy with the scent of burning herbs and something darker. Cora’s wrists were bound in front of her, the leather biting into her skin as she was dragged deeper inside by two silent wolves. The den was built into the base of an ancient tree, hollowed out and fortified with timber and bone. The walls seemed to breathe with the night, lit only by flickering torches.
The Alpha sat on a throne carved from black stone, his body draped in nothing but a loose cloth hanging at his hips. His chest gleamed with sweat, every muscle defined like he was carved from something primal. He didn’t look at her like a man would. He looked at her the way a predator watches wounded prey.
Her bare feet scraped a
