Chapter 2 - The Scent of Betrayal
The horses and wolf-drawn transport carriages pounded through the frozen mud of the northern trails for hours under the blanket of a starless night. Exhaustion pulled heavily at Iris’s eyelids, but the overwhelming presence of the three Alphas riding close beside her carriage kept her nerves wired raw.
When dawn finally broke, casting a pale, sickly light over the frozen landscape, they made camp beside a wide, ice-choked stream. The royal guards set up a perimeter quickly, building a roaring fire that cast long, dancing shadows against the frozen pines.
Fenrir motioned for Iris to sit on a dry log near the flames, handing her a thick woolen blanket and a tin cup of hot broth. She accepted it with trembling fingers, her eyes darting to the three men who sat across from her. Up close, without the chaos of the ritual, their intimidating aura was almost suffocating.
Fenrir stared into the snapping orange flames, his face carved from stone. He finally broke the heavy silence, his deep voice cutting through the crackle of the wood.
"Fifteen Omegas have disappeared over the last five years," Fenrir began, his gaze distant and hard. "Every single one of them was a trained healer. And every single one of them was taken from packs that were actively suffering from this exact same mysterious, rotting 'disease'."
Oren Nightfang leaned forward, resting his heavy forearms on his knees. His dark curls fell across his forehead, shadowing his jagged scar. His voice was hollow, filled with a raw, festering grief. "My younger sister, Neve, was one of them. She discovered anomalies in the pack death tolls and vanished into the night while investigating the local healers. I’ve searched the borders for her for five long years with nothing to show for it."
Then, Kam turned his piercing blue eyes onto Iris, asking the terrifying question that no one in the pack had dared to voice aloud.
"Iris... do you know what a Bridge Omega is?"
Iris froze, the tin cup halfway to her lips. She shook her head slowly, her heart sinking. "I... I've only heard old nursery rhymes and ancient myths."
"It's not a myth," Kam said softly, leaning closer. "It is an extremely rare, genetic anomaly—an Omega whose soul and energy core are completely unbounded, capable of forming a simultaneous pack bond and mating link with more than one Alpha."
Iris’s stomach twisted into a violent knot. She dropped her gaze to her hands. "That's impossible. One Omega to one Alpha is the law of the Moon Goddess. Multiple bonds... that's unheard of."
Fenrir stared hard into the firelight, the heat catching the angles of his sharp cheekbones. "Our wolves didn't just recognize you as a stray. They reacted with total, undeniable authority."
"As what?" Iris whispered, terrified of the answer.
None of the men answered immediately. The heavy silence stretched between them like a tightrope.
Finally, Oren spoke, his rough voice dropping to a low growl: "Our mate."
Iris let out a sharp, hysterical laugh born entirely of pure shock. "All three of you?! Are you insane? I'm just an ordinary, weak healer from a third-rate failing pack! I can't even hold my wolf form for ten minutes!"
"Three distinct bonds," Fenrir murmured, turning his gold eyes directly onto her, burning with an intensity that made her breath catch. "The last time a Bridge Omega was recorded in our history books, empires rose, kingdoms fell, and wars were fought across every territory on the continent."
Before Iris could process the sheer scale of what he was saying, a sudden, brutal sound shattered the cold morning air.
Awoooo!
Howls ripped through the darkness from all directions. The perimeter guards shouted warnings, their weapons clashing against steel as heavy, snarling shapes burst from the dense underbrush.
Rogues. Dozens of them, foaming at the mouth, their eyes glowing with unnatural, blood-red madness.
Fenrir, Kam, and Oren didn't hesitate for a single second. Their bodies convulsed, bones snapping and reshaping with terrifying speed as all three massive wolves surged forward into the chaos of battle.
The clearing instantly erupted into a nightmare of blood, howling, and flashing claws. Iris scrambled backward, pressing her spine hard against the trunk of a massive pine tree as the fighting surged around her.
Out of nowhere, a massive, scarred rogue wolf broke through the defensive line, completely ignoring the royal guards, and lunged straight for Iris with razor-sharp fangs bared.
Kam intercepted him mid-air, slamming the rogue into the frozen dirt with a bone-crunching thud. But before Kam could finish the beast, three more massive rogues swarmed him from behind, sinking their jaws deep into his silver-gray flank. Claws tore mercilessly through his thick fur, spraying dark blood across the snow.
Kam let out a choked, agonized yelp and collapsed heavily onto his side, unmoving.
"No!" Iris screamed.
Something deep inside Iris—a hidden reservoir of power she never knew existed—shattered completely open, flooding her veins with blinding white light.
Without thinking, she threw herself across the snow beside Kam's bleeding body and pressed both of her bare palms flat against his deep, jagged side.
WHOOSH.
A blinding wave of pure, silver-white light erupted instantly from her hands, illuminating the dark forest like midday. Under her palms, torn flesh and muscle aggressively knitted and stitched themselves back together at miraculous speed. The dark, black-veined poison hissed and burned away from his blood, evaporating into thick white smoke.
Kam’s eyes snapped open. He shifted instantly back into human form, rolling over and staring down at his own healed flesh in absolute, trembling disbelief.
"You... you healed me," Kam breathed, his voice laced with awe. "In seconds... completely."
Before anyone could catch their breath, a deafening roar echoed across the clearing. Fenrir had pinned the largest rogue to the frozen ground, his massive jaws clamped threateningly around the beast's throat.
"Who sent you?!" Fenrir bellowed, his voice vibrating with demonic fury.
The dying rogue coughed up a mouthful of dark, thick blood, a twisted, bloody smile spreading across his snout. He forced out a rattling laugh.
"The... The Collector..."
Oren went entirely rigid, his face draining of all color. "What Collector?!" he roared, dropping to his knees beside the dying beast and grabbing scruff of its neck.
"He pays top dollar... for the rare ones..." the rogue wheezed, his failing eyes shifting past Fenrir to lock directly onto Iris standing frozen in the snow. "Omegas with gifts... bloodlines worth a kingdom..."
With a final, violent shudder, the rogue's head slumped backward, and his body went entirely still.
Fenrir slowly turned his head away from the corpse, his gold eyes locking onto Iris with terrifying intensity.
May you like
Someone out there had known exactly where she was going. Someone had orchestrated the pack's fake sickness to force a desperate sacrifice. Someone knew what her bloodline could truly become.
And whoever had ordered the attack had just sent an army of killers into the freezing night, not to destroy her—but to bring her back alive, at any cost.
