Kael's POV
Pain woke me.
Not the dull ache of old wounds, but the sharp, burning agony of flesh rebuilding itself. I gasped, my eyes flying open to see silver light dancing across my chest—across the Omega Mark that should have been a permanent scar.
The mark was... fading?
No. Not fading. Being consumed by something else.
Thin tendrils of darkness seeped from the ancient runes carved into the stone floor beneath me, wrapping around the brand like living shadows. Where they touched, the burning subsided, replaced by a cold that sank deeper than skin, deeper than bone.
"Don't fight it," Raven's voice echoed through the chamber. "Unless you want that mark to kill you. Omega brands aren't just symbols, little Alpha. They're poison. They rewrite your wolf's hierarchy, force you to submit to anyone of higher rank. Give it three days, and you'd be groveling at the feet of a Beta."
I tried to sit up, but my body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. "What... what are you doing to me?"
"Saving your life." She appeared in my field of vision, those golden eyes gleaming in the dim light. "The runes are feeding on the brand's energy, using it to heal your other injuries. Clever, really. Your father's cruelty just gave you the fuel to survive."
"My father." The words tasted like ash. "He knew. They all knew, and they—"
"Betrayed you. Yes, I got that part." Raven waved a dismissive hand. "Very tragic. Very predictable. Alphas always eat their young when they smell weakness."
Rage flared in my chest. "You don't understand—"
"Don't I?" In a blur of motion, she was crouching beside me, her face inches from mine. This close, I could see the madness lurking behind her beauty—the kind of madness born from centuries of pain. "Let me tell you what I understand, Kael Blackclaw."
She grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at her.
"Thirty years ago, your father led Silverfang in a war against my clan. The Eclipse Clan had guarded the old magics for millennia, keeping them sealed, preventing things like what you're lying on from being abused." She gestured to the runes. "Daemon wanted that power for himself. So he slaughtered my family. My mother. My sisters. My—"
Her voice cracked, just for a moment, before hardening again.
"He killed everyone except me. And do you know why he kept me alive?" She leaned closer, her breath cold against my skin. "Because he needed someone who could read these runes. Someone who could teach him to harness the Primordial magic sealed in this tomb."
My blood ran cold. "The curse... the Blood Moon curse your clan cast..."
"Was real." Raven released my chin and stood, pacing like a caged predator. "My mother's dying spell was meant to ensure Daemon's bloodline would destroy itself. Any child born under the Blood Moon would be... fractured. Unable to access their full potential."
"Then I'm exactly what they said. Broken. Cursed."
"No." She spun to face me, and for the first time, I saw something other than madness in her eyes. Excitement. "You're the opposite. You're not broken, Kael. You're sealed."
"What?"
"The curse didn't make you weak. It recognized what you were and tried to suppress it." Raven knelt beside me again, placing her palm flat against my chest—right over where the Omega Mark had been. "Tell me, have you ever felt something inside you? Something that felt too big, too violent, too hungry to be a normal wolf?"
I had.
God help me, I had.
Every full moon since my first shift, I'd felt something clawing at the inside of my chest, trying to tear its way out. Something that made me want to rip, to hunt, to dominate. I'd thought it was just frustration at my failed transformations.
But what if...
"What am I?" I whispered.
Raven's smile was sharp as a blade. "You're a Primordial."
The word hung in the air like a death sentence.
"That's impossible," I said. "Primordials are extinct. They were the first wolves, the original children of the Moon Goddess, and they died out thousands of—"
"Their bloodline didn't die. It just got diluted, mixed with weaker strains, until it was almost undetectable." She stood and began pacing again. "But every few generations, a throwback appears. A child born with the old blood running strong enough to manifest. Your father recognized what you were the moment you were born under that Blood Moon."
"Why didn't he tell me?"
"Because Primordials can't be controlled." Raven's laugh was bitter. "They don't submit. They don't bow. They rule, absolutely and without mercy. Daemon wanted an heir he could manipulate, not a monster that would eventually challenge him."
"So he had my mother's clan curse me." The pieces were falling into place now, each one more horrifying than the last. "He used your mother's spell to seal my wolf before it could fully manifest."
"Close." Raven stopped pacing and fixed me with those unsettling golden eyes. "He had me reinforce the curse. For the past thirty years, I've been his prisoner, his pet witch, strengthening the seal on your wolf every time it tried to break free."
Betrayal upon betrayal. My father hadn't just stolen my birthright—he'd spent my entire life actively crippling me.
"Why?" The word came out raw. "Why are you telling me this? Why help me now?"
"Because," Raven said, "Daemon made a mistake. He assumed I'd stay broken, stay obedient, stay his tool forever." Her smile turned vicious. "But he underestimated how long I can hold a grudge. Thirty years, Kael. Thirty years of waiting, planning, reinforcing your seal just enough to keep Daemon satisfied while leaving myself a backdoor."
She gestured to the runes on the floor.
"This chamber? It's not a prison. It's a failsafe. I've been slowly siphoning power from the seal I put on you, storing it in these runes, waiting for the perfect moment." She looked at me like a starving wolf eyeing fresh meat. "And then you fell right into my lap, already marked as Omega, already exiled, already broken enough that no one will look for you."
Understanding crashed over me. "You're going to use me."
"I'm going to unleash you." Raven crouched again, her face level with mine. "I'm going to teach you to break that seal, piece by piece, until the Primordial inside you tears free. And then, together, we're going to make everyone who hurt us scream."
"What's the catch?" I asked, because there was always a catch.
"Smart boy." She traced a finger along my jawline. "The catch is that Primordial power comes with a price. Every time you tap into it, every time you let that ancient wolf loose, you lose a piece of your humanity. Use it too much, too fast, and you'll stop being Kael entirely. You'll become nothing but instinct, rage, and hunger."
"How much time do I have?"
"Depends on how careful you are. How disciplined." She shrugged. "Could be years. Could be months. Could be that you lose yourself completely during your first transformation and I have to put you down like a rabid dog."
"Those are terrible odds."
"Better than dying in this pit." Raven stood and extended her hand. "So what's it going to be, little Alpha? Do you want to die as Kael the Weak, the Broken, the Exiled? Or do you want to live long enough to watch your father and brother burn?"
I stared at her hand. Pale. Scarred. Offering damnation wrapped in the promise of revenge.
Every rational part of my brain screamed at me to refuse. To find another way. To—
Elena's face flashed through my mind. Her disgusted sneer. Did you really think I would bond with a defect?
Marcus, grinning as he revealed six months of betrayal. She prefers someone who knows how to make her scream.
My father's cold eyes. You are nothing.
Fuck rationality.
I grabbed Raven's hand.
The moment our skin touched, power exploded through the chamber. The runes on the floor blazed to life, silver-blue light searing across every surface. I felt Raven's magic slam into me like a battering ram, tearing at the seal inside my chest.
And for the first time in my life, I felt my wolf—my real wolf—stir.
It wasn't the incomplete, fractured thing I'd struggled with for a decade. This was something vast, primal, ancient. It opened one massive eye inside my soul and looked at me with recognition.
Finally, it seemed to say. You're ready.
Then the pain began.
I screamed as my body began to change. Not a normal shift—this was violent, uncontrolled, like my bones were being shattered and rebuilt all at once. My spine arched. My skin rippled. Fur erupted across my arms in patches of midnight black.
"Don't fight it!" Raven's voice cut through the agony. "Let it happen! Let the seal break!"
I couldn't have fought it if I tried. The Primordial was clawing its way to the surface, and my human flesh was too small, too weak to contain it.
My jaw dislocated with a wet crack. Fangs tore through my gums. My hands twisted into something between human and wolf, claws like daggers extending from fingers that were too long, too sharp.
And my eyes—I could feel them change, feel them burn as the irises shifted from brown to something else entirely.
When the transformation finally stopped, I collapsed onto the stone floor, panting, my body a grotesque hybrid of man and beast.
"Well," Raven said, circling me slowly. "That's... interesting."
I tried to speak, but my restructured jaw only produced a guttural growl.
"Relax. This is just the first stage." She knelt beside me, unafraid despite the claws I could now easily use to gut her. "You're stuck between forms because the seal is only partially broken. It'll take time—and training—before you can achieve a full Primordial transformation."
She grabbed my malformed jaw, forcing me to look at her.
"But even like this, you're already stronger than any Alpha in Silverfang. Your father would piss himself if he saw you right now." Her smile was sharp and terrible. "So here's the deal. I'm going to train you. Seven days of absolute hell. Seven days where you're going to wish I'd let you die on that cliff. And at the end..."
She leaned in close.
"At the end, I'm going to point you at the man who imprisoned me for thirty years. The man who stole your birthright. The man who turned your brother into a monster and your mate into a whore." Her golden eyes gleamed with unholy light. "And you're going to destroy him."
Through my warped throat, I managed a single word: "Who?"
"Daemon Blackclaw." Raven's smile widened. "Your dear father is the one who's kept me chained in this tomb for three decades. He's the one who ordered the Eclipse Clan's extinction. He's the reason your wolf was sealed."
The revelation hit me like a physical blow. Everything—everything—traced back to him.
"But here's the beautiful part," Raven continued. "Daemon thinks I'm still his loyal prisoner. He thinks you're dead at the bottom of that cliff. He has no idea that the two people he's wronged the most are about to team up and tear his world apart."
She released my jaw and stood.
"So, Kael Blackclaw—or should I say, Kael the Primordial—are you ready to learn what you really are? Are you ready to become the monster your father always feared?"
I looked down at my twisted hands, at the claws that could rend steel, at the power thrumming through muscles that shouldn't exist.
Then I looked up at Raven and growled my answer.
She laughed—a sound like breaking glass and distant thunder.
"Good. Then let's begin."
She raised her hands, and the runes on the floor began to shift, rearranging themselves into new patterns. The chamber trembled. The air grew thick with magic.
"Lesson one," Raven said, her voice echoing with power that made my Primordial wolf snarl in recognition. "Pain is the key that unlocks transformation. And boy, are you about to learn the meaning of pain."
The runes flared.
And I started screaming again.
Seven Days Later
I stood in the center of the chamber, my body drenched in sweat and blood—most of it my own. Seven days of agony. Seven days of Raven pushing me beyond every limit I thought I had.
Seven days of breaking the seal, piece by piece.
I was still stuck in the hybrid form—half-man, half-wolf, all predator. But I could control it now. Move with it. Fight with it.
And god, could I fight.
"Again," Raven commanded from the shadows.
I lunged at the stone pillar she'd marked as my target, my claws singing through the air. The pillar, reinforced with her magic to withstand a normal Alpha's full strength, shattered like glass under my strike.
"Better," she acknowledged. "Now hit the next one faster."
I spun and struck, pulverizing another pillar in a spray of dust and debris.
"Faster."
Another pillar.
"Faster."
I moved like lightning, destroying three more pillars in rapid succession, each strike more devastating than the last. When I finally stopped, panting, eight pillars lay in ruins around me.
Raven emerged from the shadows, her expression unreadable. Then, slowly, she smiled.
"You're ready."
Those two words should have brought relief. Instead, they filled me with dark anticipation.
"Ready for what?" My voice was still distorted by my hybrid form, but at least I could speak now.
"To leave this tomb. To enter the world again." She walked toward me, her eyes gleaming. "But before you go, there's something you need to know about dear old Daemon."
Here it comes. The final revelation. I could feel it in the air.
"Tell me."
Raven stopped in front of me, her beautiful face suddenly ancient with grief and rage.
"Thirty years ago, when Daemon attacked the Eclipse Clan, he didn't just want our magic. He wanted our blood." She took a breath. "My mother was pregnant when he killed her. Pregnant with twins."
My hybrid heart stuttered. "Twins?"
"He cut them from her dying body. Two boys, born under the Blood Moon, carrying both Eclipse and Silverfang blood—the perfect vessels for Primordial power." Her voice was hollow. "He took those babies and raised them as his own sons."
No.
No.
"You and Marcus," Raven said, confirming my worst fear. "You're not Daemon's sons. You're my brothers."
The chamber spun.
"That's impossible. We look like—"
"Like your real father, who was Silverfang before he mated into Eclipse." Raven's laugh was broken. "Daemon chose well. No one would question the resemblance. And by marking you as cursed, by sealing your Primordial nature, he ensured you'd never be strong enough to challenge him."
I staggered backward, my mind reeling. Everything I knew about my identity, my history, my family—all lies.
"Marcus," I whispered. "Does he know?"
"No. Daemon only told me because he needed my cooperation in maintaining your seal. He wanted me to understand that my own blood was being used against me." Her eyes blazed with fury. "For thirty years, I've watched my brothers from this prison, unable to reach you, unable to tell you the truth."
She grabbed my shoulders, her grip surprisingly strong.
"Now do you understand? This isn't just about revenge for what they did to you at that ceremony. This isn't just about taking back what was stolen." Her voice dropped to a deadly whisper. "This is about destroying the man who murdered our mother, who built his entire kingdom on Eclipse blood and bones."
"And Marcus?" I had to know. "When this is over, what happens to him?"
Raven's expression softened, just slightly. "That's up to you. He's as much a victim of Daemon's lies as you are. But if he stands with our father..." She left the threat unfinished.
I pulled away from her grip, my mind racing. A week ago, I was preparing to become Silverfang's Alpha, to bond with Elena, to live the life I'd been groomed for.
Now I was a Primordial hybrid hiding in an ancient tomb, plotting to destroy my own father—who wasn't actually my father at all.
And my brother, who'd betrayed me, was actually my real brother, one of the last survivors of the Eclipse Clan.
"When do we move?" I asked.
"Impatient." Raven smiled approvingly. "But we can't just charge in. Daemon is still an Alpha, surrounded by loyal warriors. We need to be smart. Strategic."
"I'm listening."
"There's a pack three territories from here. Bloodfang. They're holding a Death Match tournament in two days—challengers from across the region competing for the right to challenge their Alpha." She began pacing. "You're going to enter that tournament. And you're going to win."
"Why Bloodfang?"
"Because their Alpha is old, weak, and desperate. He'll accept any challenger, even a 'rogue' with an Omega Mark." Her smile turned sharp. "And once you kill him and take control of his pack, you'll have the army you need to march on Silverfang."
It was a good plan. Brutal, but good.
"And you?" I asked. "What will you be doing?"
"Gathering intelligence. Daemon still thinks I'm his prisoner, so I can still access his mind through the binding spell he placed on me." She tapped her temple. "I'll feed you information about Silverfang's defenses, about Marcus's movements, about—"
She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes going distant.
"Raven?"
"Quiet." Her voice was sharp. "Someone's coming. Multiple someones."
I heard it then—the sound of boots on stone, echoing down from somewhere above us.
"We need to move. Now." Raven grabbed my arm. "The entrance you fell through has been discovered. Daemon must have sent scouts to search for your body."
"Let them come," I growled, flexing my claws. "I'll—"
"You'll get yourself killed, you idiot." She dragged me toward a tunnel I hadn't noticed before, hidden behind a collapsed section of wall. "You're strong, but you're not invincible. Not yet. And Daemon will have sent his best hunters."
We plunged into the darkness of the tunnel, Raven's magic lighting our way with pale blue flames. Behind us, I heard voices echoing in the chamber.
"Blood here! Fresh!"
"And claw marks. Something big."
"Could be a rogue denning down here."
"Or something worse."
Their voices faded as we ran deeper into the tunnels, Raven navigating the maze-like passages with practiced ease.
"How far does this go?" I asked.
"Miles. The entire region is honeycombed with Eclipse tunnels. Daemon never found them all." She glanced back at me. "We'll surface near the neutral zone, close enough to Bloodfang territory that you can reach the tournament by nightfall tomorrow."
We ran in silence for what felt like hours, climbing through passages that grew narrower and steeper. Finally, we emerged into moonlight, somewhere deep in a forest I didn't recognize.
Raven stopped at the entrance, her hand on my chest, preventing me from going further.
"This is where we part ways. For now."
"What? You're not coming?"
"I can't. Not yet. Daemon's binding spell means he can track me if I stay away too long." She pulled something from her tattered robes—a small obsidian stone carved with runes. "Take this. It's a communication stone. When you've won at Bloodfang, when you've built your army, activate it. I'll find you."
I took the stone, its surface warm against my hybrid palm.
"Raven..."
"Don't." She cut me off. "Don't thank me. Don't make promises. Just win. Become strong enough to stand against Daemon. Strong enough to make him pay for everything he's done."
She started to turn away, then paused.
"Oh, and Kael? One more thing."
"What?"
Her golden eyes met mine one last time, and in them, I saw the broken girl who'd spent thirty years in a tomb, waiting for her chance at revenge.
"Make them hurt."
Then she was gone, vanishing back into the tunnels like a ghost.
I stood there in the moonlight, looking down at my hybrid form—at the power I'd gained, at the monster I'd become.
Seven days ago, I was Kael Blackclaw, rejected heir of Silverfang.
Now I was something else. Something ancient and terrible.
And I had a tournament to win.