Beneath the Crown's Teeth

NIKOLAI VOLKOV:

"They said the blood of two realms would come like a storm. Not like this."

She looked like a corpse someone forgot to bury.

Curled on the leather berth, half-draped in a healer's wool blanket like it could erase the stench of death clinging to her skin. Thin. Filthy. Covered in grime and ghost-blood, like she'd clawed her way out of a battlefield-and maybe she had. The scent was worse than rot. Ash. Steel. Old chains. A slave's perfume.

She didn't whimper. Didn't beg.

But her body was a language of its own-spine locked in fear, fists curled like she still thought she was in a fight.

I sat across from her, elbows digging into my knees, eyes fixed. Hands clasped so tight the bones popped.

Not out of pity. Not out of curiosity.

Only calculation.

Two centuries alive, and it still came down to this-one moment. One girl. One ruin in the shape of fate.

I had scoured temples where no wolf dared tread. Bled under moonless skies. Followed shadows into places that reeked of death and old gods. The last shaman had whispered in my ear with smoke on his tongue: "She will wear contradiction like a crown. Flesh of moon. Blood of bone. No name. No face. Only a pull toward the relic."

No name.

No fucking warning.

I expected a boy cloaked in power... a weapon. Something with teeth.

What I got was a girl with blistered feet and bones jutting under too-loose fabric, her body swamped in a tunic stained from collar to hem. Hair matted and tangled across her cheek like forest rot. Healing runes still faintly glowing on her collarbone. And beneath all of it... nothing.

No scent. No pack signature. No trace of a wolf.

But the talisman around my neck-old as the mountain and twice as stubborn-burned every time I looked at her.

It had glowed like fire the second she hit the auction floor. Blazed when she tried to run.

I wanted to believe it was wrong.

I needed to believe it.

Because if this girl was truly the key-the one who could unlock the vault under Starborne-then every soul I'd bled, every alliance I shattered, every enemy I kissed before I slit their throat... was just a prelude to something darker.

"She's healing slower than I thought," Isaac said behind me, voice low, detached.

He leaned against the jet's steel wall like it was part of him. Arms crossed, posture easy, but his eyes-those never rested. They tracked her breathing like a surgeon studying a ticking bomb.

"She'll live."

That was all I needed. Her survival. Her existence.

Everything else could rot.

"She clawed the handler's eye out before they sedated her," he added. "Didn't stop until they shattered her hand. Didn't scream once."

Of course, she didn't.

I'd seen the footage. The way she moved through the corridor-fast, vicious. She didn't fight like someone trying to live. She fought like something that remembered how to kill.

She shifted.

Barely. Just a flicker. A subtle twitch, like her body didn't trust the rest.

Her brow knit, lashes fluttering. Lips parted like a question was trying to claw its way out of her throat.

"She's waking," Isaac murmured.

The air tightened, folding in on itself. The hum of altitude dulled beneath the crackling heat of the talisman burning against my chest. The entire cabin felt like it was holding its breath.

And then-her eyes opened.

Not wolf. Not human.

Just... something.

Honeyed amber. Fevered. Glassy. And locked on me like she knew exactly what I was.

Or worse-what I'd done.

Her voice was barely there, cracked and raw as broken stone.

"You-"

I didn't blink. "Yes."

Her mouth twitched, like she might scream. Or spit. Or sob. Instead, she tried to rise-twice. Failed once. Made it on the second go. Her breath hitched. Eyes flicked over the velvet-dark jet interior.

"Where... where am I?"

"Thirty-five thousand feet above your last mistake," Isaac answered, unmoving from the side wall. "Give or take."

Her tongue swept over a cracked lip. Blood bloomed.

"That's not an answer. What is this place? Where are you taking me?"

"To the north."

She stilled like a triggered trap.

"I was free. I had a plan. I was getting out. I was finally going to-"

"You wouldn't have made it far."

Her eyes snapped toward me. "I would've if you hadn't shown up."

"You had a plan to die."

She chuckled. Hollow sound. One that belonged in the mouth of someone already half-dead.

"Death would've been better than being stuck in another cage. This one just flies higher, doesn't it?"

Isaac took a step forward. "Show some respect, omega. The Alpha rescued you."

She turned toward him-not fast, not startled. Slow. Measured. Like someone who'd been bitten enough times to stop flinching.

"I'd be grateful if your Alpha had left me where I was."

Then her eyes cut to me. And stayed there.

"But he didn't. Which means he wants something. They always do."

My jaw ticked. "You're that sure I want anything?"

"You don't deny it."

She was baiting me. Smart girl.

I didn't answer. Didn't shift. Silence is a weapon. And I had enough to make her bleed.

She cocked her head, mouth tilting with something that might've been humor in another life.

"Tell me... what would a royal hybrid possibly want from someone like me?"

That caught my attention.

"You know what I am?"

"Oh, please. Your reputation got here before you did. You're the bedtime story they use to make the monsters behave. The Boogeyman with a crown. Apex predator. Death in a tailored coat. Honestly?" She gave a tired shrug. "I expected better."

I didn't flinch. Let her spit her poison. Let her watch it slide right off me.

"Your name."

She didn't move.

Didn't even blink.

Just met my gaze with a chin tilted too high for someone covered in bruises.

I didn't raise my voice. I pressed.

"Your. Name."

A twitch in her jaw. The flicker of restraint. She bit down-hard. Copper tinted the air.

"Keira."

The name landed like a confession.

I waited.

"Keira, what?"

Nothing.

Mouth shut. Eyes defiant.

I leaned in. "Keira. What."

She jerked like the name struck her across the face. Turned her head away, one cut reopening along her cheek. She sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth.

"Quit using your Alpha tone. You want answers? Ask like a person. Not a goddamn incantation."

"If you answered, I wouldn't have to use it."

Her smile was jagged. Bitter. "Orphans don't have last names."

A lie.

Too neat. Too rehearsed.

I let it hang. Didn't call her out. If she were rootless, she was mine to anchor. If she was lying-good. I liked the broken ones better.

Less repair. More control.

She was going to speak again-I asked first.

"Why run if you had nowhere to go?"

Her answer came with a tremor in her fingers. Not fear. Rage trying to keep quiet.

"Because dying on my feet is freer than living on my knees. And you-" she dragged her eyes over me, slow, calculated- "you reek of leash."

"How long were you caged?"

That hit.

The shield cracked.

Her breath stilled.

"Long enough to stop counting. Long enough to stop begging. That's what you're really asking, right? When did I stop believing? About a hundred men ago. You want a number? Fine. Hundred and one. Add yourself."

Isaac growled, but I cut in before the words spilled.

"Leave us."

He hesitated.

I didn't repeat myself.

The hiss of the door sealed the quiet.

She was shaking now. Not from fear. From the sheer effort of holding herself upright.

She looked at me like I'd already chosen her verdict. Like the noose was knotted, and she just wanted to know the date.

"You're going to touch me now, aren't you?"

"Is that what you think I came for?"

Her silence answered.

Her mouth parted. She didn't speak. She just looked at me like she was choosing which version of me she could survive-because she knew she wouldn't survive all of them.

"Isn't it always?" she whispered. "Men like you don't drag half their army through frostbitten mountains for a girl like me unless they want to chain her or fuck her. Or both."

I leaned forward.

Her shoulders twitched. Not a flinch. A preparation.

"If I wanted you... you'd be naked, not speaking."

Her throat worked, that little movement too loud in the stillness.

"But I don't fuck scraps. And I never take what doesn't offer itself. Especially when it looks like you."

Her eyes snapped up to mine like I'd cracked something open in her.

And maybe I had.

The talisman against my heart pulsed once-like the heartbeat I didn't need, reacting to her. To this.

"What else would a monster like you want from someone like me?" she asked, voice a whisper meant to cut.

I didn't hesitate. "Your blood."

Her chest rose, sharp and high. "Why?"

I let her rot in the silence. Let her spiral in it.

Because the truth spoken too early has no weight.

Her voice shook when it came again, trying to bite, trying to wound. "Of course. That's all I am to people like you. Blood. Bone. Obedience. So what is it this time, huh? You want a souvenir before I rot? Or maybe you think drinking me will fix whatever half-breed monster your parents stitched together?"

She was spiraling now. Shaking from fury.

"You know what's funny? They called me a stain. A mistake. Said I shouldn't have been born. But you-" She laughed once, the sound fractured, unhinged. "You were the real abomination, weren't you?"

Still, I didn't speak. Still, I watched.

"Half wolf. Half vampire. No soul. No tribe. Just a beast in a suit with better posture."

I stood.

The cabin narrowed. Every breath felt louder. Every second longer.

I took one step toward her.

She didn't cower.

She didn't run.

She watched.

Her fists clenched tighter around the blanket like it was the only armor left in the world.

I reached up, index finger curling as the claw unsheathed with a slow, metallic click. Then-clean, deliberate-I dragged it down her cheek. Not enough to scar. Just enough for a single drop to bloom, bright and defiant.

She gasped.

Didn't scream.

I crouched down, lowering until we shared air. Until there was nothing between us but heat and breath and hate.

"If you think this is suffering, then by all means-keep talking. I have vampire medics who make agony into art. You'd be their Sistine Chapel."

Her jaw twitched.

I let my knuckle graze her bleeding cheek-barely a touch, but she felt it like fire.

"They'll keep you alive while you die screaming. Every night. For years. So unless you want to learn pain from the inside out..."

I leaned closer.

"...open your mouth only to apologize."

Then-footsteps.

Isaac appeared at the cockpit's edge.

"We're landing in five, Alpha."

I didn't take my eyes off her.

"Good. The moment we touch down, call the Shaman. The girl gets tested before the moon rises."

Her pulse thundered. I heard it. Felt it.

"Test me?" Her voice cracked. Then louder, shriller-"Test me for what, you goddamn freaks?!"

Isaac hesitated. "Alpha, she's-"

"Sedate her."

He froze.

I turned my head, slow. One look was enough.

"Now."

She surged back against the seat, eyes wide, the panic blooming like wildfire.

"Don't touch me! Don't you fucking dare-!"

Isaac was trained. Fast. The needle sank into her arm with precision.

She stiffened. Shuddered.

"Bastards," she rasped. "You're all fucking bastards..."

Her lids fluttered, body slumping, breath hitching once-then twice.

I stood over her again, towering as she finally gave in to the drug.

This fragile, furious thing was mine now.

Not a lover. Not a partner.

A key.

A weapon.

The Convergence was coming. The talisman on my chest burned in agreement.

And her blood would be the first sacrifice.

I looked at Isaac. "Burn the clothes she came in. She doesn't leave that ritual chamber until the bond reveals what she is."

He nodded. "Yes, Alpha."

As the jet descended, I watched the omega collapse into sleep, fury still etched into her mouth.

She didn't know it yet.

But the real chains hadn't even been fastened.

Not yet.

And I was already holding the lock.