Blackmoor Castle was exactly as horrible as it sounded.
Black stone, towers stabbing the sky like clenched fists, walls designed to tell you that you weren't welcome. Irina watched it appear between the mountains from the window of the perimeter guards' truck and thought that if someone had asked her to draw the most inhospitable place in the world, she'd have fallen short.
"Welcome to Blackmoor Castle," said the guard driving.
"Welcome? To this? Do you say that to everyone or just the offerings?"
The guard didn't respond. He probably wasn't paid enough to deal with sarcastic omegas covered in mud.
A thin man with prematurely gray hair was waiting on the entrance steps. He had the face of someone who hadn't slept well in years and the manners of someone who'd learned to be diplomatic with difficult people.
"I'm Ezra. The king's Beta. You must be..."
"The offering. Yes. Irina Volkov." She climbed out of the truck and felt every muscle in her body complain at the same time. "Where's your king?"
"The king doesn't receive visitors without—"
"Two of his emissaries are dead on a dirt road. Outlaws killed them. I drove the truck here without knowing how to drive and I've got mud in places I'd rather not mention. So protocol means very little to me right now. Where is he?"
Ezra looked at her. He looked her up and down: mud, dried blood, destroyed dress, and a pair of eyes that weren't asking permission — they were demanding answers.
"Follow me," he said.
The castle's interior was as welcoming as the outside. Stone corridors, high ceilings, electric lighting that fought against the building's natural darkness and lost. Irina walked behind Ezra leaving muddy footprints on the floor and feeling like a stain on a painting that didn't want her.
The throne room was enormous. At the far end, sitting in a carved stone chair as if the entire world owed him something, was Theron Blackmoor.
Irina stopped.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Black hair, gray eyes, a jaw that looked designed for clenching. The kind of alpha who filled a room with his presence without needing to say a word.
But Irina had eight hours of hell behind her and wasn't in the mood to be impressed.
"You're Blackmoor?" she said from the doorway.
Theron looked up. He looked at her. Mud, blood, hair plastered to her face, torn dress. His expression didn't change.
"And you're the Volkov?"
"Irina. My name is Irina."
"I didn't ask your name."
"And I didn't ask for your opinion on my appearance, but you're screaming it with your face."
Ezra, behind her, suppressed a sigh.
"My emissaries are dead," Theron said.
"Yes. Four outlaws in no-man's land. Your men couldn't handle them."
"And you could?" He leaned forward. "An omega without a wolf against four wolves."
"I got lucky."
"Nobody gets that lucky."
"I do. It's the only thing I've got. Luck and a bad temper. Are you going to explain what I'm doing here, or are we going to keep playing twenty questions?"
Theron rose from the throne. When an alpha his size stood up, the space shrank. He walked toward her in slow, deliberate steps until he was less than two meters away. Irina had to tilt her head to look him in the eye.
"You're here because your father signed an agreement to settle a three-generation blood debt. You'll stay until the Red Moon ceremony, where we'll be joined before the moon goddess. It's a ritual that doesn't require us to get along. Only that we show up."
"And after?"
"After, you're my luna."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you live here. You carry my name. And you don't ask questions."
"Is that a threat?"
"It's advice."
Irina looked up at him. Ninety kilos of omega without a wolf facing the most powerful alpha in the eastern territory. Covered in mud, exhausted, alone. And still, she didn't lower her gaze.
"I've got some advice for you too," she said. "Don't treat me like furniture. I already had a father who did that for eighteen years. I'm here because I had no choice, not because I want to be. And the first chance I get to leave, I'm gone."
Something crossed Theron's eyes. Not anger. Something more like the surprise of someone who expected submission and found teeth.
"Ezra," he said, without taking his eyes off her. "Take her to her room. Clothes. Food. Bath."
"And the explanations?" Irina pressed.
"Explanations come when I decide to give them. Today isn't that day."
"Fantastic. A father who ignores me, a sister who hates me, and now a king who gives me orders. The moon goddess has a disgusting sense of humor."
Theron almost — almost — moved the corner of his mouth. But he caught himself. He turned and disappeared through a side door.
Ezra took her arm diplomatically.
"Are you always like this?" he asked as they walked down the corridor.
"Like what?"
"This direct with alphas who could rip your head off."
"Only the ones who deserve it."
"You're not going to last long here."
"Or I'm going to last a very long time and make everyone's life miserable. One or the other."
Ezra almost smiled. Almost.
"One thing," he said before leaving her at the room. "When night falls, lock your door. Don't come out. No matter what you hear."
"Why?"
"Because I'm asking you, Irina. And I'm the only person in this castle who's treating you like a human being. So trust me on this."
Something in his tone stopped her. It wasn't an order. It was a real warning, from someone who knew something he couldn't say but needed her to believe.
"All right," she said.
The room was large, cold, with an enormous bed and a window overlooking the cliff. There were new clothes folded on a chair, a food tray on the table, and clean towels in the bathroom.
Irina showered until the water ran clean. She put on the new clothes — the fabric was soft, dark, fit her as if someone had taken her measurements without asking — and sat on the bed to eat.
She devoured everything. She hadn't eaten in over twelve hours and her body demanded it with the urgency of an animal that doesn't know when it'll eat again.
Then she lay down. She was exhausted. Every muscle ached, her twisted ankle throbbed, and she had the kind of tiredness that doesn't heal with a nap but with a week of unconsciousness.
She closed her eyes.
Tomorrow I'll find a way out of here, she thought. Tomorrow I check the exits, the routes, the blind spots in the security.
She fell asleep in seconds.
She opened her eyes past midnight. The room was dark and the moon came through the window, drawing rectangles of silver light on the stone floor.
Something had changed.
The air was heavier. Hotter. Charged with an electricity that made her skin prickle and her heart race before her brain understood why.
She turned her head toward the door.
It was open.
Irina sat up in bed. She was sure she'd locked it. Ezra told her to lock it. But now it was open and in the gap, blocking the dim light from the hallway, stood something.
Something enormous.
The beast was in her doorway.
Black. Gigantic. Yellow eyes glowing in the darkness with an intensity that Irina recognized instantly. The same eyes from the lake. The same eyes from the forest when it saved her from the outlaws.
But now there was no lake between them. No distance. Just five meters of stone floor between the bed and the most terrifying creature she'd ever seen in her life.
Her heart hammered against her ribs so hard it hurt. Her hands shook. Every survival instinct she had screamed at her to run, to hide under the bed, to scream for help.
This is what Ezra didn't want me to see, she thought. This is what happens at night in the castle. This is what everyone knows and no one says.
The beast entered the room.
One step. Two. Each one made the floor tremble. It approached the bed with that deliberate slowness she already knew, as if it had all the time in the world and didn't want to scare her more than she already was.
It's in my room. The thing from the lake is in my room. At two in the morning. And I'm in a nightgown.
The beast stopped at the edge of the bed. It lowered its head. Its yellow eyes came level with Irina's.
It looked at her.
Irina stopped breathing.
It's not going to hurt you — that instinct born at the lake, speaking louder every time. It didn't hurt you in the water. It didn't hurt you in the forest. It's not going to hurt you now.
But Irina wasn't stupid. Instincts were all well and good, but the creature in front of her weighed ten times what she did and had fangs that could split a log.
"If you're going to eat me," she whispered, her voice trembling but her gaze steady, "I hope I at least give you indigestion. Ninety kilos aren't easy to digest."
The beast opened its mouth.
Irina closed her eyes.
Hot breath hit her face. Then something wet and enormous brushed her cheek.
She opened one eye.
The beast had licked her face.
"Did you just— Was that a lick?" Irina wiped her cheek with her sleeve. "The most terrifying creature I've ever seen just licked me like a dog?"
The beast let out that low rumble she already knew. It lay down on the floor beside the bed with a weight that made the furniture shake, rested its massive head on its front paws, and closed its eyes.
Like a dog. A horse-sized dog with nightmare fangs, lying beside her bed as if that were its rightful place.
Irina sat in bed with her heart still racing, watching the beast settle at her feet with the calm of something that had finally found what it was looking for.
What the hell is going on?
And beneath that question, another one — deeper, more dangerous — that pulsed in her chest with a force that scared her:
Those eyes. From the lake. From the forest. And now here. It's following me. Why is it following me?
The beast breathed slow, heavy. Its rumble vibrated through the floor and traveled up through her legs to her chest.
Irina didn't sleep all night.
But she didn't scream either.
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