He Was Sent to Tame the Alphas, Then Made Them His novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Birthday Hearing
On his 23rd birthday the herald calls Lucas before the Moon Court, where his stepsister Melinda files for wardship. He refuses to sign, gets seven nights, and Troy catches his wrist in the corridor.
The herald read Lucas's full name to four hundred wolves, and it took Lucas three tries to understand it was his.
"Lucas of Moorhaven, Supreme Omega of Atalis, twenty-three years old this day."
He was sitting on a carved silver chair at the King's left hand.
A minute ago he had been asleep on his couch with a tablet on his chest, three chapters from the end of a werewolf novel.
Now there was a crown of cold metal on his head and the whole hall staring at him.
He knew this scene.
It was chapter two of "The Alpha Crown of Atalis." It was the scene where the villain loses everything.
The villain's name was Lucas.
"Don't look so grave, brother," said a gentle voice at his elbow. It was Melinda.
His stepsister stood beside the dais in a blue gown, her honey-gold hair pinned up with pearls.
In the book she was the heroine. She was kind, and clever, and everyone loved her.
She had brought him a cup of honeyed water in the antechamber that morning and fixed his collar with her own hands.
She fixed it again now, and a small iron key on a ribbon swung out of her neckline.
Lucas looked at it. "What does that open?"
"Oh, that." She tucked it away and smiled. "A storeroom at the end of the Omega Hall, the door with the cradle carved on it. Nothing worth your time. Let me worry about the dull things."
That sounded kind, so he nodded.
The herald unrolled a long scroll.
"Moon Law, Article Nine. An omega unbonded at the Blood Moon Court after his twenty-third birthday becomes the ward of his nearest kin. The ward's seat, estate and person pass to that kin."
A murmur went around the benches.
"Melinda of Moorhaven, stepsister of the Supreme Omega, files for wardship."
Melinda bowed to the King, who was old and half asleep, and then she turned to Lucas with a paper and a pen.
"I only want to carry the weight for you," she said softly. "You've been so tired lately. Sign, and you can rest at Ash Lodge, where the air is clean."
Lucas knew Ash Lodge.
It was a stone hut on the northern border, and in the novel the villain froze to death there in his first winter.
She held out the pen.
Everyone was watching.
In the first row of the benches sat three men in the colours of their packs, and every one of them was looking at Lucas.
The one in the left seat had close-cropped black hair, a golden-brown stare and shoulders that took up two places. That was Troy, Prime of Genesis.
The one beside him was lean and pale, with silver-blond hair tied at his neck. That was Felix, Prime of Optimus.
The third had a scar through his left brow and a hard, set jaw. That was Julius, Prime of Apocalypse.
In the book they were the heroine's three suitors, and the villain's tormentors.
Lucas took the pen.
Then a block of glowing text opened in the air in front of his eyes, and nobody else flinched.
The text said:
SYSTEM ONLINE. Welcome, Host. Mission: Tame the alphas.
Lucas stared at it.
REWARD ONE. After any night you spend with an alpha, all pain and marks of that night move to the alpha at dawn. You wake clean.
REWARD TWO. Alphas who spend a night with you will carry your children.
REWARD THREE. No alpha can mark you. You may mark any alpha you choose.
REWARD FOUR. Your pheromone control is raised one hundredfold. Every night you spend with an alpha lowers his rut and raises your hold on him.
Lucas read it twice, because the second line had to be a mistake.
It wasn't.
He was sweating scent. He could feel it pouring off his skin, cold honey, strong enough to bend the candle flames toward him.
Four hundred wolves had noses, and every one of them had noticed.
"Brother?" Melinda tilted her head. "The pen?"
The old Lucas would have signed and cried.
The new Lucas had spent his whole last life trying to do as little as possible, and he had just worked out that a stone hut in the snow was a lot of effort to freeze in.
He set the pen on the paper, and then he pushed the paper back across the dais.
"No," he said.
The hall went very quiet.
He thought, hard, about being quiet himself, and the scent stopped pouring off him at once.
That was a hundred times more control than the villain had ever had.
"Article Nine gives the ward seven nights until the Blood Moon Court," Lucas said. "I'll take all seven. You can have my answer then."
Melinda's smile did not move at all.
"Of course," she said. "Take all the rest you need."
The King yawned. "So recorded."
The Court rose, and Lucas walked out through the side door with his legs shaking.
He made it to the end of the corridor before a hand closed around his wrist.
It was a big hand, hot and rough, and it turned him around and pressed his back to the wall.
Troy stood over him, breathing hard.
Up close he smelled of cedar smoke. His pupils were wide, and his thumb sat right on the pulse in Lucas's wrist.
"You were never this loud," Troy said. "You were never this anything."
"Let go of me, Prime."
"No." The thumb moved, once. "Everyone in that hall wanted you, and I'm the one who caught you. Seven nights is a long time to leave a wolf like you unclaimed."
The system chimed softly behind Lucas's eyes.
ALPHA IN RANGE. TROY, PRIME OF GENESIS. REWARDS READY.
Troy leaned down until his mouth was beside Lucas's ear.
"I'm coming to your door tonight," he said. "And I am going to bite you."
Lucas looked up at him, and thought about stone huts, and Melinda's pen.
Then he smiled for the first time in two lives.
"Knock first," he said.
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