Chapter 164

"Marcus, Hold the kid." Marcus didn’t hesitate. The vampire moved with grace, appearing behind Alaric before the boy could even blink.

Pale, iron-cold fingers clamped down on Alaric’s shoulders, pinning his arms to his sides.

Alaric’s skin crawled at the touch— "Hey! Get your hands off—" Alaric began, his voice rising in a panic.

He tried to lunge forward, his bare feet digging into the dirt, desperate to reach Clara, to make her look at him with something other than that freezing boredom.

But he never finished the sentence. The world tilted. One second, Alaric was staring at the emerald flames of the eastern woods and the twisted, snarling face of Rohan.

The next, the horizon buckled. The ground beneath his feet vanished, replaced by a sensation of being sucked through a straw made of ice.

Then, as suddenly as the pressure had arrived, it vanished with a sickening *thump*. The smell of burnt fur and forest pine was gone.

In its place was the smell of damp stone, iron, and the sharp, biting cold of the high North. Alaric’s knees hit the gravel first.

His vision was a swirling mess of grey and silver. The world tilted left, then right, then spun in a dizzying circle.

His stomach, already knotted with pain and adrenaline, finally gave up. He doubled over, his naked body heaving as he vomited onto the pristine grey gravel, his chest burning with the effort.

"Gods..." Alaric wheezed, his fingers clawing at the stones. He felt like his brain was sloshing around inside his skull like water in a bucket.

Beside him, he heard a heavy, staggered footstep. He risked a glance upward through his tangled hair.

Marcus, the unbreakable vampire, was swaying abit on his feet. The vampire’s copper hair was disheveled, and his red eyes were blown wide, blinking rapidly.

Marcus reached out a hand, leaning heavily against a massive stone pillar to keep himself upright.

"Clara..." Marcus shook his head, his hand tightening on the stone until the rock began to fracture under his grip. "A warning... next time... would be appreciated."

Clara, however, stood perfectly still. She hadn’t moved an inch. She stood in the center of the path, her gown unruffled, her spellbook tucked neatly under her arm.

Barnaby, the shadow-hound, was no where to be found. "The border was crawling with scouts," Clara said, her voice steady and unapologetic.

"Walking would have taken hours we don’t have. And I didn’t feel like listening to.yhose wolves poetry for another minute." 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Alaric finally managed to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, gasping for air. He looked up, and for the first time, he saw where she had brought them.

Rising up before them was a set of gates so massive they seemed to touch the low-hanging clouds.

The bars were made of a black, matte iron that didn’t reflect the moonlight, twisted into the shapes of thorns and weeping vines.

Behind the gates, the silhouette of a sprawling mansion loomed, its windows dark and watchful.

This wasn’t just a house. It was a fortress. Alaric shivered, finally feeling the bite of the Northern wind on his bare, wounded skin.

The cuts from the glass on his shoulders were starting to stiffen, the blood drying in dark streaks. "Where are we?" Alaric asked but when he looked to Clara’s left, then to her right, his eyes scanning the shadows of the courtyard.

The massive beast was absent. "The hound," Alaric rasped, his voice sounding thin. He looked at Clara, his eyes wide with a sudden dread. "Where is the monster? Barnaby... he didn’t come with us?"

Clara didn’t stop her steady march toward the iron gates. She didn’t even break her stride. "Barnaby is finishing his hunt. He doesn’t like being interrupted when there’s fresh meat on the table."

Alaric’s heart stopped. He saw the image of Rohan—crippled, bleeding, and helpless on the forest floor—and the other scouts who were only following the laws of the pack.

"No," Alaric breathed, stumbling forward as he tried to bypass Marcus. "No, you can’t. Rohan is the packs beta... they were just protecting me!

You have to bring him back. Stop that thing!"

He reached out, his fingers desperately trying to snag the silk of Clara’s sleeve, but Marcus’s hand was back on his neck in an instant, shoving him down.

"Please!" Alaric screamed, his voice echoing off the high stone walls of the fortress. "They won’t follow us here! Just spare them! I’m the one you want, right? Just don’t let that thing kill them!"

Clara stopped. She turned slowly, her white eyes fixing on Alaric with a look of such profound, icy detachment that his breath hitched.

She looked at him not as an alpha, and certainly not as a mate, but as a particularly noisy insect that had just crawled onto her dinner plate.

"And who exactly do you think you are to negotiate with me?" Clara asked, her voice dangerously soft. "I don’t need you, okay! You are naked, you are bleeding, and you are currently standing on gravel that belongs to a man who would peel the skin from your bones for simply existing."

She took a step toward him, the smell of honey and lilies suddenly turning sharp, like the scent of flowers at a funeral.

"Rohan and your scouts didn’t just ’follow orders,’ boy. They crossed a border. They brought violence into my woods. In this territory, that isn’t a misunderstanding—it’s an execution."

"He’s a father!" Alaric begged, tears of frustration and physical pain stinging his eyes.

"He’s an Alpha’s Beta! You’re starting a war!"

"I’m ending a nuisance," Clara corrected. She leaned in closer, her white eyes boring into his molten gold ones.

"Barnaby is a sentinel. His entire existence is tied to the protection of these borders. If I called him back now, he’d be offended. And trust me, Alaric, you don’t want to see what that dog does when he’s offended."

She turned back to the gates, dismissively waving a hand.

"Your scouts are dead. They were dead the moment they stepped over the ravine. Now, be a good little stray and shut up. You have enough to worry about regarding your own survival without crying over the ashes of men who would have killed me without a second thought."

Alaric’s head dropped as the reality of the massacre set in. He was a prisoner in a land of monsters, and the woman he was tied to had just ordered the death of his people without so much as a blink.

Marcus leaned in, his copper hair brushing against Alaric’s ear as he hauled him back up. "She’s right about one thing, pup," the vampire whispered, his red eyes fixed on the mansion doors.

"Stop worrying about the dead." They passed through the massive gates, Alaric felt the heavy iron groan shut behind them.

He looked at Clara’s retreating back, the sweet scent of her magic still mocking him in the cold wind, and for the first time, Alaric realized that being her mate wasn’t going to be a journey of love.

It was going to be a struggle to stay alive.