The Road in the Dark

Valerie POV.

His deep, profound question hangs in the heavy silence of the bedroom, a lingering echo that makes my heart violently skip a beat. I stare at his rugged features in the golden glow of the bedside lamp, unable to formulate a response to his unshakeable certainty. Seeing my overwhelming exhaustion, Kravos merely releases the loose strand of my hair, shifting his massive weight as he turns over onto his stomach. He reaches over, clicking off the lamp and plunging the massive room back into darkness, giving me a much-needed semblance of breathing room.

As he settles into the mattress, the thick clouds outside part, and the pale moonlight spills directly through the large bedroom window. The silver glow washes over the bed, completely illuminating the broad, mountainous expanse of Kravos’s muscular back. My breath hitches in my throat. I am entirely mesmerized by the canvas of jagged, angry scars littering his skin. They weave across his flesh like violent, chaotic stories carved in raised tissue. He wasn't lying when he said he carries many scars, just none on his face.

Slowly, almost involuntarily, my hand reaches out from beneath the heavy, expensive comforter. My fingertips flutter gently, tentatively hovering before making contact with a particularly vicious, teeth-like gash near his left shoulder blade. It looks as though a massive chunk of flesh was brutally ripped away by a monstrous jaw. The very moment my feather-light touch graces his hot skin, a thrill shoots up my arm, but his massive frame violently startles. His muscles twitch and ripple as if struck by a live wire. He whips his head around, glancing over his broad shoulder. For a fleeting, breathless second, a flicker of raw vulnerability briefly crosses his hardened, lethal features.

“Do they gross you out?” he asks, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, laced with a surprising, quiet edge of insecurity that catches me completely off guard.

I pull my hand back slightly, shame instantly flushing my cheeks for staring and overstepping my boundaries. I shake my head, looking directly into his emerald eyes. “Of course not,” I tell him firmly, my voice steady despite the erratic thumping against my ribs.

Eager to shift the heavy, incredibly intimate mood that has suddenly blanketed us, I quickly clear my throat and change the subject. “When exactly are we scheduled to leave for your pack?” I ask, watching as he sits up, his back muscles flexing beautifully in the moonlight.

My desperation to escape the suffocating walls of this territory must bleed heavily into my tone. Kravos pauses, looking at me over his broad shoulder, his eyes narrowing slightly as he reads the sheer eagerness in my expression.

“Are you eager to leave?” he asks, his gaze piercing through the dark.

“Yes,” I admit softly, unable to hide the absolute truth.

“Then we will leave now,” he declares, his tone brooking absolutely no argument. He reaches for a dark shirt, tugging it effortlessly over his head. “All your meager belongings were already packed and placed in the vehicle late last night.”

“But... it’s two in the morning,” I stammer, my mouth falling slightly open in shock. I glance toward the digital clock glowing on the nightstand. A sudden, sharp pang of finality hits my chest. Leaving right this second means I won't get to say a final goodbye to Jace. He is a rejected mate, yes, but for so many years, he was the only bright, forgiving light in my thoroughly miserable existence.

“I just want to be home with my Luna,” Kravos insists smoothly, levelling me with a heavy stare that makes me audibly gulp. “The pack is incredibly eager to finally meet you.”

I slip out of the bed, moving toward the adjacent bathroom to quickly change out of his oversized shirt and into the simple, dark clothes I had set aside. As I pull on my jeans, a thick, suffocating sludge of shame creeps right back into my mind, poisoning my thoughts. I stare at my pale reflection in the bathroom mirror, seeing only a weak, pathetic excuse for a werewolf staring back. His pack is going to hate me the second they sense my nonexistent aura. Will I just be a running joke in his territory, too?

I convince myself that I am merely a convenient political pawn placed on his grand chessboard. It makes complete sense. He needs a Luna to solidify his reach, and I am the perfect, docile candidate. I am weak, pliable, and incredibly easy to manipulate. I lack the family backing and the social standing to ever question him if he eventually takes a stronger, preferred mistress to warm his bed and provide him with powerful heirs. I am just a means to an end. Yet, the very thought of Kravos touching another woman, holding her the way he held me just moments ago, makes my chest burn with a sudden, sickening ache that completely catches me off guard. It feels like a physical blow to my ribs. I force myself to swallow down the nausea, gripping the edge of the sink until my knuckles turn white.

Outside, the night air is incredibly crisp and biting. I walk out the front door, pulling my thin jacket tighter around my small frame. A massive, heavily armored black SUV is idling quietly in the circular driveway. Vance, the redheaded lycan whom I quickly learn is currently training to be Kravos’s gamma, stands by the driver's side with an excited, welcoming grin on his face. He quickly opens the heavy rear door for me.

I hesitate right at the threshold of the vehicle, my anxiety suddenly spiking. I look up at Kravos, who stands tall and imposing beside me in the shadows of the night. “Is it not a grave sign of disrespect to leave the territory like this without formally informing Alpha Barrett?” I ask nervously, my voice trembling slightly in the cool breeze.

Kravos merely chuckles, a dark, rumbling sound that vibrates deep within his massive chest. He steps closer, his towering presence entirely swallowing my smaller one. “Is it not a sign of disrespect to be physically accosted by the Alpha’s daughter when you are a Luna?” he counters smoothly, effortlessly shutting down my ingrained anxieties. He gestures toward the open door. “If Barrett takes issue with our sudden departure, he can reach out, and I will gladly remind him of his daughter’s slights.”

Feeling a strange spark of vindication at his protective words, I climb into the spacious backseat. Kravos slides in right next to me, his massive frame taking up far more space than a normal person ever could. Vance hops into the driver's seat, putting the heavy vehicle into gear, and we slip away in the dead of night.

We cross the pack borders long before anyone in the territory even stirs awake. In the dark cabin of the SUV, Kravos's thigh presses warmly against mine. I lean my head against the cool glass of the window, silently watching the dark, jagged silhouettes of the pine trees blur past in a continuous, endless stream. The moonlight dusts the landscape in a hauntingly beautiful silver glow. Deep down, as the miles rapidly stretch between me and my former home, I know with absolute, undeniable certainty that I will never miss this place. I will never miss the pack that made it their life’s singular mission to belittle, break, and torment me at every waking opportunity.

The cool night air seeping through the vehicle's vents causes an involuntary shiver to wrack my body. Sensing my slight trembling, Kravos shifts closer on the premium leather seat. Without a word of warning, he casually lifts his heavy arm, wrapping it securely around my shoulders. He gently but firmly eases my smaller, freezing body directly into the intense, soothing warmth of his broad chest. My eyes flutter shut for a brief moment as the sheer heat radiating from him envelops me completely. The physical contact is incredibly grounding, anchoring me to the present and chasing away the bitter chill of my past.

“What do you like to do, Valerie?” he asks, his deep voice a soft, comforting rumble against my ear. His large thumb begins lazily rubbing soothing circles into the fabric covering my upper arm.

A flush of deep embarrassment instantly heats my cheeks. I tilt my head slightly, staring down at my lap. “I’m not sure what you are hoping for, Alpha, but I have absolutely no talents,” I admit, my voice tinged with a lifetime of forced humility.

“Kravos. To you I am just Kravos,” he suddenly whispers, his breath fanning across my hairline. The quiet correction instantly bridges the emotional distance I keep trying to put between us.

I swallow hard. “Yes... Kravos.” I explain my bleak reality to him. “As a maid, I had no extra materials to draw with. I didn't have a single plot of land or the time required to garden. And my singing voice could probably kill a grown man.”

Kravos lets out a rich, genuine laugh that fills the quiet cabin. “I highly doubt that,” he muses sweetly. “You will need to think of some fun things you wish to do. In my pack, you will be busy as a Luna, but I promise you will have the free time to enjoy absolutely whatever you wish.”

I bite my lower lip, thinking for a moment. “Well, I do love to read. Whenever I could sneak a moment, I would read.”

His emerald eyes soften beautifully in the dim light of the dashboard. “Then you should make full use of our massive, ancient library. It spans three floors.”

My eyes immediately light up with genuine, unrestrained excitement. I completely forget my anxieties, my status, and my fears. “We have a library?” I ask, turning my body fully on the leather seat to face him, a bright, eager smile breaking across my face.

I catch his gaze, expecting to see his usual amused smirk. Instead, Kravos's eyes suddenly go wide with sheer, unadulterated terror.

Before my brain can even begin to register his horrified expression, his massive arms violently yank me hard against his chest, crushing my face into his shoulder.

A deafening, metal-rending crash utterly shatters the quiet night air.

The sound is apocalyptic. The passenger side of the heavy armored SUV is violently T-boned with the force of a freight train. The impact is so catastrophic that the reinforced glass violently explodes inward, raining over us in a deadly, glittering shower of jagged shards. The sheer kinetic force lifts the multi-ton vehicle completely off the asphalt. The heavy SUV rolls brutally, metal screeching and tearing as the roof caves in. We are tossed around the violently spinning cabin like broken ragdolls. Kravos clings to me with a desperate, crushing grip, absorbing the brunt of the horrific impacts as we slam against the roof, the doors, and the seats.

The chaotic, dizzying spinning finally stops as the vehicle slams upside down into an embankment.

For a split second, there is nothing but the hiss of escaping steam and the ringing in my ears. But the silence is immediately broken by a brutal, sickening crunch echoing clearly through my right leg.

I inhale sharply, and a ragged, blood-curdling scream rips from my throat. The agony is absolute and blinding. I look down through the twisted, smoking wreckage and grow instantly lightheaded. Blood is rapidly pooling, soaking my jeans in a dark crimson tide. Protruding violently straight through the torn skin and denim of my thigh is a jagged, stark white piece of my own fractured femur. The gruesome sight of the compound fracture makes bile instantly rush up my throat.

Dizzy, hyperventilating, and utterly blinded by the white-hot agony radiating from my shattered bone, I reach desperately into the darkness, searching for the safety of Kravos's massive chest.

Instead of his warm, protective grip, a brutal, freezing hand suddenly clamps down like an iron vice directly over my ankle.

I shriek as I am violently dragged backward. The jagged metal edges of the ruined doorframe tear at my jacket as my unseen captor pulls me completely out of the smoking wreckage. The crude movement forces my shattered femur to grind against torn muscle, sending a fresh, suffocating wave of blinding, white-hot pain straight through my entire vision.

“Kravos!” I whimper pathetically, choking on my own tears as I scrape my fingernails against the rough, cold asphalt, desperately begging the unseen terror to stop pulling me. “Please...”

“Valerie!” Kravos screams back from inside the crushed cabin. His voice is thick with absolute panic and raw fury. Through my tear-blurred vision, I see his massive silhouette limping desperately in my direction, tearing through the twisted metal doors with his bare hands.

My mysterious captor abruptly stops, carelessly dropping my shattered leg directly onto the hard asphalt. The impact sends another sickening jolt of pain up my spine, forcing a breathless sob from my lips.

“You don’t need to be awake for this bit,” a deep, unnatural, and heavily distorted voice murmurs right above me.

I force my heavy eyes open, looking up at the towering figure standing over my bleeding body. He wears a dark, heavy hood that completely obscures his facial features, but piercing straight through the pitch-black shadows are a pair of violently glowing, blood-red eyes. They stare down at me with an empty, chilling malice.

Before I can even process the sheer terror radiating from the red-eyed man, his arm pulls back. A heavy, blunt blow strikes my cheekbone with terrifying, crushing force. The sickening thud echoes in my skull. The world rapidly spins, my vision instantly fracturing into dark, fuzzy pieces. As the agonizing pain in my leg and face rapidly fades to a cold, suffocating black, the very last thing I witness through the shrinking tunnel of my vision is Kravos bursting from the wreckage. His eyes are glowing a feral, lethal gold, and the furious, earth-shaking roar of his inner lycan beast roaring to life violently shakes the very ground beneath my bleeding body.