The Blood Rites

The first night in the Rogue Kingdom wasn't a night at all.

It was a test.

A trial by fire and blood.

Lucian dragged me through the twisted halls of his broken castle — walls lined with the skulls of enemies, banners stitched from the hides of fallen Alphas.

The rogues prowled behind us, a snarling, restless mass.

They didn't want me.

They wanted to tear me apart.

Prove yourself, their growls said.

Or die where you stand.

Lucian threw open the doors to a vast, shattered throne room.

Torches burned with black flame.

Blood stained the marble floors in sprawling, ancient symbols.

In the center stood a dais — and on it, a stone basin filled to the brim with thick, dark blood.

Lucian turned to me, his eyes burning that terrifying black-gold.

"Drink," he ordered, voice like a lash across my skin.

I stared at the basin, bile rising in my throat.

"Drink," he said again, softer now. Almost broken.

"If you don't," he whispered against my ear, "they'll rip you to pieces before I can stop them."

I swallowed hard.

Lucian's hand closed around my wrist, guiding me forward.

The basin was ice cold.

The smell — metallic and ancient — made my stomach clench.

I dipped my hands into the blood. It clung to my skin like oil.

The rogues roared around us, shaking the very stones of the castle.

Now.

I lifted my trembling hands to my lips and drank.

The blood burned my throat, searing its way down, igniting a fire in my gut that sent me reeling.

Pain lanced through me, dragging a scream from my lungs.

I fell to my knees, clutching my sides as my body convulsed.

Lucian was there instantly, pressing my face against his chest, murmuring rough, vicious encouragements in a language older than time.

"You'll survive," he promised.

"You have to survive."

My veins felt like they were splitting open.

My wolf — the part that had been ripped from me — howled somewhere distant, lost to me forever.

But something else rose up in its place.

Not a wolf.

Something darker.

A creature born of blood and vengeance and pain.

I gasped, vision going white.

When I blinked, the world had changed.

The rogues were on their knees.

Lucian was watching me with something like terror in his eyes.

And my hands — slick with blood — crackled with a power I had never known.

"She is marked," one of the elder rogues rasped, bowing so low his forehead touched the floor.

Lucian smiled then — slow, feral, wicked.

He lifted me in his arms like a prize and carried me to the black throne at the end of the room.

He sat down heavily, dragging me into his lap, uncaring of the blood staining us both.

"You are mine," he whispered, pressing his forehead against mine.

"And you," I breathed, heart hammering, "are broken."

He laughed — a sound that sent shivers down my spine.

"So are you, little Queen."

The rogues howled once more, a sound of pure, savage loyalty.

I had passed the Blood Rites.

But as Lucian's hand slid possessively along my thigh, his teeth grazing the shell of my ear, I realized something cold and terrifying:

This kingdom would not just demand my loyalty.

It would devour my soul.

And if I wasn't careful…

Lucian would be the one to drown me in the darkness we had both unleashed.