Chapter 5: The King's Claim
The metallic taste of him lingered, a shameful sacrament Andre couldn’t wash away. He jumped at the rattle of the door bar; the same guards from the clearing entered, their faces impassive as they gestured for him to follow. He was led not back to the cells, but up winding stairs to a silent corridor where his new room waited—a plush prison of velvet and dark wood.
Opposite his door stood ornate double ones, grim and imposing. His. Andre’s heart hammered against his ribs. Inside his room, he scrubbed his mouth until his gums bled, but the phantom pressure of Draven’s cock on his tongue remained. He stared at his reflection, the boy who threw lightning and swallowed a king’s come.
A week passed since he had seen Draven. He would listen, his ear pressed to the door, to the soft, certain tread of the king’s boots leaving before dawn and returning long after midnight, the heavy door opposite groaning open then clicking shut in the deep quiet.
Andre wasn’t allowed to leave, and he was too unnerved by the memory of the clearing and the taste of salt and power to ask. He knew many from his old pack, now Draven’s spoils, were being integrated into the sprawling compound, their scents a confusing jumble outside his window.
On a Saturday afternoon, a crisp letter slid under his door. He was to attend the inauguration ceremony and receive the Alpha’s blessing. Following it was the Wolf Run. His stomach coiled like cold wire.
Everyone else would find mates or fuck them or simply run wild under the moon. Andre planned to leave. He couldn’t shift, so the Run was a death sentence of exposure; he would melt into the forest after the public blessing was done.
He showered quickly, the water hitting skin that still felt too tight, and dressed in the simple linen clothes provided: a loose white shirt and blue pants. No shoes were allowed for the ritual.
Footsteps echoed outside, final and deliberate. It was time. Andre opened the door himself, stepping out to meet the waiting guard whose gaze held a flicker of something like pity. "This way," the man said, turning without further word.
The main courtyard was a chaos of bodies and raw energy, thrumming with anticipation. Hundreds were gathered, some faces familiar from his past life, their eyes skimming over him with wary curiosity before looking away. The air was thick with the musk of wolves and woodsmoke.
The air was thick with the musk of wolves and woodsmoke. Andre’s old pack wasn’t big, so there were only about a hundred people being blessed today, the others who were loyalists to Lisle having been slaughtered or run. They were ushered into the middle of a massive throne entrance, a stone gullet open to the sky, with the Alpha King’s pack and elders watching from upper balcony chairs like carrion birds.
This location looked like it served many purposes: executions, coronations, tonight’s bloody sacrament. A crushing silence fell, and Andre didn’t need to look at the great oaken doors to know Draven had entered; he felt it, a shift in the air like the drop before a storm. He stared straight ahead and down, fidgeting with his thumbs, listening as the muted conversations around him resumed, people whispering excitedly about the festivities and a life beyond Lisle’s rule.
Draven ascended the dais below his obsidian throne and you could hear a pin drop. He spoke about unity, the joining of wolf spirits, and pledging allegiance, his voice carving through the cold air. He detailed the evening’s events before chanting a guttural prayer in an ancient tongue and, without flinching, drew a blade across his palm.
Blood copiously filled a silver chalice held by a stoic elder. They stood in a single-file line as another elder placed a wreath of sharp pine around each person’s neck, its scent tart and punishing. After this, Draven himself dipped two fingers into his own blood and swiped a wet, burning insignia onto each forehead. Andre purposely drifted to the very end of the line, his heart a trapped thing hammering against his ribs. He would practice being cool as a cucumber.
The line ahead of him dwindled, each person marked and stepping aside with a dazed, blissful look. Finally, it was his turn. The pine needles pricked his throat as the wreath settled, and then Draven was before him, his emerald eyes boring into Andre’s soul. The Alpha King’s blood-slicked fingers ready to ascend.
The Alpha King’s blood-slicked fingers ready to ascend. “Do you pledge your allegiance to this pack, its people, and your king?” Draven’s voice was low, a gravelly promise meant only for him. Andre looked into Draven’s eyes now, the searing emerald gaze stripping him bare.
The words caught in his hammering chest, a trapped bird of panic and unwanted truth. “Ye…ye…yes,” he stammered, the sound thin and shattered in the vast silence. “By blood and by oath,” Draven said, his voice dipping into a dark, intimate register as he swiped his bloody fingers across Andre’s trembling forehead.
A vision infiltrated both their minds the instant the warm, metallic touch made contact. In it, Andre’s lips parted, and he took Draven’s offered fingers into his mouth, sucking the blood clean with a desperate, hungry pull. He saw, felt, his own throat working, his tongue sliding wetly against the rough skin as a low groan vibrated from Draven’s chest.
As quickly as the vision came, it vanished, leaving the stark reality of the courtyard and the sticky brand on his skin. Draven blinked his eyes for a moment, never letting them leave Andre’s, his nostrils flaring with a sharp, startled intake of breath. “Fuck,” Andre thought to himself, the curse a silent scream in his skull; so much for cool as a cucumber.
Draven cleared his throat, a rough sound that seemed to drag itself from somewhere deep, and turned to address the waiting crowd. He closed that part of the ceremony with guttural words in an ancient tongue that vibrated through the stones and reached into Andre’s bones, a permanent, mystical seal. The mark on his forehead burned, a brand he now knew they both had seen, and as the crowd’s murmured response rose around them, Andre watched the first sliver of moon break the horizon.
The mark on his forehead burned, a brand he now knew they both had seen, and as the crowd’s murmured response rose around them, Andre watched the first sliver of moon break the horizon. The ceremony dissolved into chaotic movement as the wolves filed out. Their human forms made haste.
Their human forms made haste, fleeing the stone gullet for the roaring feast outside. Rows of long tables groaned under haunches of meat, wheels of cheese, and steaming pies that scented the air with rosemary and game. Andre’s stomach clenched, empty since morning, overruling his desire to hide.
He grabbed a plate, his fingers trembling slightly as he piled it with roast venison and warm bread. The smell was phenomenal, a visceral punch of fat and herbs that made his mouth water. He took a seat far from the crowd, his back to a stone pillar, and ate quickly, head down.
A few familiar faces from his old pack waved; he offered a tight, fleeting smile in return. He didn’t want to see Draven. The bench shifted as someone settled heavily across from him, and Andre looked up, a piece of bread halfway to his lips.
Draven’s emerald eyes locked onto his, the king’s own plate piled obscenely high with food. “Eating alone,” Draven stated, his voice a low rumble that cut through the surrounding chatter. Andre looked down, focusing on the grain of the wooden table.
“Not much for crowds,” Andre muttered, pushing a piece of meat around his plate. The burning insignia on his forehead felt fresh, a shared secret thrumming between them. Draven took a slow bite, chewing while he watched Andre’s every nervous twitch.
“That vision,” Draven said, his tone casually brutal. “Was that your fantasy, or mine?” Andre’s fork clattered against his plate. The noise seemed too loud, and he felt several nearby glances dart their way.
He forced himself to meet Draven’s gaze, the weight of it physical. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Andre lied, the words tasting ashen. Draven leaned forward, his scent of winter pine and iron enveloping Andre.“Liar,” he whispered, the word a rough caress. “Your pulse is racing right now. I can smell it.” He let the accusation hang, then leaned back. “Enjoy your food. We’ll continue this later.
More people started to fill in at the table, including a few of his warriors, a lady with a throaty laugh who openly flirted with him, and a man he learned via the conversation that was transpiring around, was his beta and best friend Thorne. Andre kept his eyes focused on his plate, shoveling the last bites of venison into his mouth with a speed that bordered on rudeness. He rose and walked away, but he could feel the weight of Draven’s gaze like a physical hand between his shoulder blades, burning through the linen of his shirt.
He power-walked through the throng of celebrating wolves, their laughter and clinking cups a jarring chorus to the dread tightening his chest. He was stopped by a small group from his previous pack—Elena, Marcos, and the twins—who introduced themselves to others nearby and pulled him into a conversation about the new hunting grounds. The time was 11:30 as he looked at the clock on the great hall’s mantle, and he desperately wanted to end the conversation but he was too fucking nice, nodding along as Marcos detailed the berry thickets to the east.
After he spoke with them for what felt like an eternity, he walked with intent, pushing through hundreds of wolves gathered in the torch-lit gardens to finally make it to the house’s side entrance. A guard materialized from the shadows, his voice flat as he asked him where he was headed. Andre told him he didn’t feel well and that he was going inside, but the guard informed him, with no room for argument, that attendance at the midnight Full Moon Run was mandatory for every new pack member.
Andre could feel himself spiraling into a full-blown panic attack, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps that fogged in the cold air. He couldn’t shift. He would be easy prey, a human-shaped morsel in a forest of teeth and claws, and he couldn’t face Draven, not after the blood-marking, not after the vision, not after tasting him on his tongue . He had seen the predator in his eyes, felt the silent promise of ownership in that shared, shameful fantasy.
Andre tried to calm down and stood behind a sprawling oak tree to try to control his hyperventilating, the rough bark against his forehead a feeble anchor. He was fucked. Draven had set him up, he was sure of it; the king knew he would try to leave, knew his weakness. He walked into the lion’s den, and the lion was patiently waiting for his meal.
Then, as he looked upon the crowd gathering at the tree line, he saw everyone’s eyes glowing with the moon’s rising influence, their bodies beginning to tremble with the impending change. And then he met his eye across the clearing. Draven stood, apart and watching, a dark smirk slicing across his stark features.
Draven’s gaze pinned him to the oak, a command as tangible as a rope. The first crack of bone echoed from the tree line as someone began to shift. Andre’s own spine felt brittle, an icicle about to snap. “Feeling unwell?” Draven’s voice materialized right behind his ear, the heat of his chest a furnace against Andre’s back.
He flinched, a trapped animal reflex. “I can’t—” “Run?” Draven finished, his lips brushing the shell of Andre’s ear. The woods were now a cacophony of snarling change. The scent of wild magic and fear was thick enough to choke on.
“You knew.” Andre’s whisper broke. Draven’s hand closed on his shoulder, fingers digging in. “I know everything about what you are.” Another wave of bone-cracking shudders rolled through the crowd. “You have two choices,” Draven said, turning him forcefully to face the churning mass of fur and muscle now loping into the dark.
“You can go in there as you are and be torn apart for the lie.” His other hand slid down Andre’s chest, palm flat and heavy. “Or you can come with me.” He cupped Andre’s crotch through the linen, finding him already half-hard with terror and a shameful, gripping want. “And finally show me what you are.”
He ground his palm down. Andre gasped, his head falling back against Draven’s shoulder. “Decide.”
Draven’s hand remained a branding weight against his groin. The savage symphony of the shift echoed around them, a stark counterpoint to the frantic thrumming in Andre’s veins. He felt the hard line of Draven’s own arousal pressed against his back, a promise more lethal than the forest.
“I’LL COME WITH YOU.” ANDRE CHOKED OUT.
“GOOD BOY.” REPLIED DRAVEN.
The term “good boy” shot through Andre, a white-hot wire of shame and electric need that made his knees weaken. Draven’s grip on his shoulder tightened, steering him away from the tree line’s chaos and toward a secluded side entrance of the keep, his other hand still possessively cupping him. They moved through stone corridors empty of all but flickering torchlight, the sounds of the Run fading into a distant, bestial roar. Draven didn’t speak again until he shouldered open the heavy door to his private chambers, a space dominated by a massive bed and the lingering scent of him—rain, iron, and power.
He pushed Andre inside, the door shutting with a final thud that sealed them in silence. “Now,” Draven said, his voice a dark gravel, “show me.” He grasped the collar of Andre’s linen shirt and ripped it open, buttons pinging off the stone floor. Andre stood exposed, his chest heaving, the pine-needle wreath still hanging absurdly from his neck. Draven’s gaze was a physical scrape, raking over his caramel skin, his freckles, the taut muscles of his stomach. “The hands that glowed,” Draven murmured, grabbing Andre’s wrists and pinning them to the cold wall beside the door. He leaned in, his breath hot on Andre’s mouth. “Did you think I’d forgotten?”
He kissed him then, a consuming, violent claim that tasted of wine and dominance. Andre moaned into it, his body betraying him, arching into Draven’s hard frame. Draven broke the kiss, biting a trail down Andre’s neck to his shoulder, sucking a mark into the skin that would bruise. “Tell me you want this,” he growled, his hand sliding down to fumble with the tie of Andre’s pants. “Say it.” Andre’s head thumped back against the wall, a desperate sound tearing from his throat. “I want it.” The confession broke something loose inside him. Draven yanked the pants down roughly, freeing Andre’s cock, which jutted out, already slick at the tip. He spat into his palm, his green eyes locked on Andre’s, and gripped him with a rough, calloused stroke that made Andre cry out. “You belong to this pack now,” Draven said, his other hand digging into Andre’s hip, fingers pressing hard enough to leave marks. “And you belong to me.”
“And you belong to me.”
Draven’s words were a final stone sealing Andre’s fate. Andre was trembling under Draven’s touch, his body vibrating with a wild, trapped energy that felt like a caged storm. “Show me, dammit,” growled Draven, his voice raw against Andre’s throat as his demanding hand worked Andre’s shaft with brutal, knowing strokes. His other palm splayed hot and heavy over Andre’s stomach, fingertips pressing into the muscle as if seeking the power beneath.
“I can’t,” Andre whined, the protest a weak thing shredded by a moan as Draven’s thumb swiped over his slick tip. The conflict was tearing him apart—shame, fear, and a desperate, clawing need that Draven was expertly exploiting. “You will,” Draven said, his voice somehow deeper than usual, a guttural resonance that seemed to vibrate the very air; his aura projected tenfold, a crushing, magnificent weight of pure alpha dominance that stole the breath from Andre’s lungs.
Then he rubbed his palm down Andre’s clothed shaft, the rough friction of the linen a brutal contrast to the fluid stroke of his hand, and Andre’s eyes rolled back, a white-hot spike of pleasure-pain short-circuiting his last shred of control. When he reopened them, Andre’s body, including his eyes, were that lightning blue, a cool, electric radiance bleeding from his pores and illuminating the dark room. The glow pulsed in time with his pounding heart, casting unearthly shadows across Draven’s stark, awe-struck face.
“Holy fuck,” said Draven, his grip slackening for a single, stunned second as he stared in awe. Andre didn’t realize he was glowing, didn’t realize his tether was pulling at Draven, an invisible, desperate cable of power and yearning that hooked deep behind the king’s ribs and drew him closer. “What’s wrong?” Andre asked Draven, the luminescence making his freckles look like distant stars, his voice suddenly small and insecure as he looked away from Draven’s intense scrutiny. He misinterpreted the stunned silence as disgust, his own light now a source of unbearable vulnerability.
He misinterpreted the stunned silence as disgust, his own light now a source of unbearable vulnerability. Andre looked at his hands and then realized that he was glowing. “I don’t know what this means, or why I glow uncontrollably around you. I’m sorry and I promise I am not going to use my power to hurt anyone.” He blurted out. “Look at me Andre.” Draven demands.
Draven reached out slowly, his calloused fingers settling not on Andre’s jaw but against his temple. The contact was shockingly gentle. A resonant, layered voice, a chorus ranging from a breath to a roar, filled Andre’s skull: "Soul bound. Soul bound. SOUL BOUND."
Andre jerked back, the blue light flickering. “I don't know what this means.” He looked up and his breath hitched; Draven’s emerald eyes now blazed with their own internal fire, a vibrant, unnatural green that mirrored the intensity of Andre's glow. “Your eyes,” Andre stammered.
Draven didn't speak. He only assessed Andre, his glowing gaze a physical weight. Then his lips moved, forming guttural, ancient syllables that bypassed Andre’s ears and vibrated directly in the core of his being, a hook sinking deep into his spirit.
Andre panicked. "What was that?" he gasped, his hand clutching at his own chest as if he could dig the resonant words out. He felt them there, anchored, a new and permanent scar on his soul.
“Your power is not only of old blood,” Draven said, each word slow and deliberate, as if he was listening to a script only he could hear. “It’s a beacon. A tether to bind another soul.” He paused, the green fire in his eyes flaring. “The tether was a beacon for your soul bound, and that chant you just felt was me accepting it.”
“And guess what, Andre,” Draven whispered, leaning in conspiratorially, his hot breath ghosting over Andre's lips. “I’m the Alpha King in the presence of my soul bound, under a full moon.” He stepped back, his glowing gaze performing a slow, possessive inventory of Andre’s trembling, illuminated body. Andre’s mind scrambled for an exit, any excuse to flee this impossible truth. “No,” was all the king said, the single word a law written in stone.