The Best Blood Provider

I was Celine Mercer. My blood possessed the sweetest scent. It carried a taste meant to save kings. They called me the she-wolf with the purest veins in centuries. I was the greatest honor my family had ever produced.

The reason was simple. The Alpha needed my blood to survive.

Our home, the Ironhold pack, ruled as the most formidable force across the land. Our leaders from Clan Thorne wielded magic that rivaled ancient witches. They could peer into the past. They could map out the future. They shaped the history and commanded the fate of our people. Blessed by the Moon Goddess, the Thorne men stood as living gods among us.

But their immense power carried a devastating curse. The stronger their abilities grew, the shorter their lifespans became. The magic inside them fought a constant war against their inner wolves. Without an anchor, they would lose their minds, trapped forever between human and beast, unable to shift.

The blood of Mercer she-wolves served as their only salvation.

To prevent the Thorne Alphas from slaughtering our kind out of sheer greed, an ancient pact bound our families. A male of Clan Thorne must take a Mercer she-wolf as his destined mate. She would serve as his Luna. She would stand as his exclusive blood provider.

Every Mercer girl who reached her twelfth birthday faced the mandatory trials at the annual games. The elders tested our limits, evaluated our potential, and graded our worth. Those who scored the highest secured futures with the most elite Thorne males.

I stepped into the arena when I turned twelve. I claimed the highest tier. I secured first place.

My flawless grades sealed my destiny. I was assigned to be Alpha Darius’s exclusive blood provider. The elders decreed that the moment I turned eighteen, I would stand beside him as his Luna. Pride swelled in my chest. I felt an overwhelming sense of honor to serve my destined Alpha and uplift my pack.

The very next morning, a heavy knock echoed through my family home. A squad of formidable guards stood waiting for me.

"You are called to the Alpha's lair," one of them barked. He did not bother using my name.

I barely noticed their rigid postures or the harsh lines of their faces. Excitement bubbled in my veins. I let them escort me away from my family, too thrilled to question why they moved with such grim urgency.

"Did Alpha Darius send for me himself?" I asked, looking up at the towering men.

The guards remained silent. I brushed off their coldness. I convinced myself this marked the greatest day of my life. Winning the trials and proving my blood’s worth was just the prologue. Today, Alpha Darius would look upon me. He wanted to meet his future Luna.

I had spent my childhood catching fleeting glimpses of him from afar. I had spent countless nights dreaming of the moment he would realize my blood was his perfect cure. I imagined learning his secrets, standing by his side, and claiming my place as his equal.

We arrived at the Alpha's stronghold. It was a massive cavern integrated with a sprawling stone castle, stretching the length of ten towering houses. Warm, golden light spilled from the upper windows. I caught glimpses of silhouetted figures moving gracefully within those rooms.

The guards marched me through the grand entrance. My eyes tracked the sweeping staircase leading upward. Sunlight cascaded down the steps, illuminating luxurious tapestries and intricate furniture that looked as though it belonged in the realm of the gods. My breath hitched. My heart hammered against my ribs. Soon, I would smell Darius’s intoxicating power. I would look into his eyes. I imagined spending the next six years talking with him, building our bond before our mating ceremony.

I placed my foot on the first marble step.

A rough, calloused hand clamped around my bicep. The grip bruised my flesh in an instant.

"No. This way," a guard growled.

Another set of hands seized my other arm. They jerked me backward with a force that knocked the breath from my lungs. Before I could process the sudden shift, they began dragging me down a dark, narrow corridor leading away from the sunlight.

Shock paralyzed my limbs. I did not fight them at first. Confusion clouded my mind. Perhaps they needed me to bathe and change into ceremonial garments before presenting me to the Alpha. But the air grew colder with every step. The light vanished, replaced by the damp, metallic stench of the underground.

"Where are you taking me?" I demanded, planting my feet against the rough stone floor.

We descended deep into the dark stone bowels of the lair. The shadows swallowed us whole. Panic clawed up my throat.

"Let me out!" I yelled.

Deep within my soul, my inner wolf Rheana let out a deafening roar. She sensed the danger.

"Don't use that tone with us, girl," the guard spat.

I ignored his warning. I forced the change. Bones cracked and fur sprouted as I shifted into my wolf form, desperate to rip myself from their grasp. But I was only twelve. My wolf was small, inexperienced, and frail compared to these hardened warriors.

The two guards shifted in the blink of an eye. Massive jaws clamped down on the scruff of my neck. They dragged my thrashing body further into the freezing basement. I clawed at the stone, shredding my nails, but their hold was unbreakable.

One of the guards shifted back to human form. He ripped a pouch from his belt and shoved a handful of potent wolfsbane powder directly up my snout.

The burning agony shot through my skull. My lungs seized. I choked on the toxic dust. The sheer pain forced Rheana to retreat into the darkest corner of my mind. My bones snapped back into place. I reverted to my human form, coughing hard.

"What are you doing?" I cried out. Tears streamed down my face as they shoved me hard against the freezing stone floor. They pressed their heavy boots against my spine, flattening me. "No! You can't do this to me! I'm Celine Mercer! Alpha needs my blood!"

My screams bounced off the damp walls. They ignored every word.

The wolfsbane stripped away my strength. My muscles turned to jelly. Rough hands clamped iron cuffs around my wrists, chaining me to the wall of a freezing, pitch-black cell. It spanned barely fifty square feet. A dungeon. I was a prisoner.

The heavy iron door slammed shut. I dragged myself against the chains, screaming until my vocal cords tore.

"Alpha Darius!" I shrieked into the void. "Darius!"

He was in the castle right above me. He had to hear me. But the silence remained absolute.

By the time the next morning arrived, the effects of the initial wolfsbane dose began to fade. Rheana stirred weakly in my mind. I tried to push past the stone walls with my mind-link, reaching out for my family, my pack, anyone. The connection was dead. A thick barrier blocked me from the outside world.

The heavy cell door groaned open. The guards entered, bringing a man with them.

He wore a pristine white coat. His eyes were cold and calculating. He carried a surgical knife and a small golden bowl.

"Why are you doing this to me?" I snarled, pulling against the heavy iron chains.

"It's for the Alpha. You should serve willingly," the doctor stated. His voice lacked any trace of empathy.

"I'm Celine Mercer," I pleaded. My voice shook. My body felt frail against the damp wall. "I'm the future Luna."

He stared down at me. His expression twisted into a look of skeptical amusement, as if he were examining a mad dog. He ignored my claims. He grabbed my arm, testing the pulse at my wrist.

"This is very good blood," he murmured.

I knew my worth. But my worth demanded respect, a place of honor in the sunlit rooms above, not chains in a lightless pit.

The guards pinned my shoulders. The doctor pressed the cold steel blade against my tender wrist. He sliced through the flesh with cold precision.

"Ah!" I screamed. I thrashed against them, trying to rip my arm away. The chains dug into my raw skin. A guard clamped his heavy hand over my forearm, locking it in place.

The doctor angled my bleeding wrist over the golden bowl. He squeezed the wound. Bright crimson liquid flowed out, pooling against the gold. He drained far more than the elders ever took during the trials.

"It hurts," I sobbed. "Stop."

He did not blink. He waited until the bowl was full, bandaged my wrist, and walked out.

That became my existence. Days bled into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. Six agonizing years passed in a blur of endless torment.

Every single day, the heavy iron door opened. Every single day, the cold-eyed doctor arrived to harvest my life. When the cuts on my wrists scarred over, he sliced open my arms. When my arms ran out of smooth skin, he moved to my legs, my shoulders, my collarbone. He would press his fingers deep into the fresh cuts, squeezing the surrounding flesh to force every last drop into the golden bowl. The pain of having open wounds manipulated and drained became a burning nightmare.

To ensure the health of my blood, they dragged me out of the cell once a day. They clamped a thick leather collar around my neck and attached a heavy rope to it. The guards led me up a hidden stone staircase to a small courtyard. I saw the sun for fifteen minutes a day, leashed like a rabid dog.

They fed me flavorless slop meant only to replenish my red blood cells. When depression took hold and I clamped my mouth shut, refusing to eat, the guards showed no mercy. They grabbed my jaw, forced my mouth open, and shoved the gruel down my throat. When I choked and spat it out, open-handed slaps cracked across my face until I swallowed it down.

Every six hours, on the dot, the heavy boot steps approached. The guards would hold my head back and force bitter wolfsbane powder down my throat or into my nose. The potent poison ravaged my system. It caused dizzying nausea. The walls spun. My chest tightened until I felt my heart would burst. It suppressed Rheana so harshly that over the years, her roars faded into faint whispers. Eventually, the dread of that toxic burning broke my spirit. I stopped trying to shift. I stopped fighting the chains. I stopped hoping for a savior.

My body grew. The passing of time was only marked by the elongation of my limbs. But without mirrors, my mind stayed trapped. I still pictured myself as that eager twelve-year-old girl.

Looking down at the filthy, blood-stained rags clinging to my malnourished frame, I traced the raised, jagged lines on my skin. One hundred. Two hundred. Two hundred and twenty-four scars. My body was a ragged canvas of butchery.

All hope evaporated. My dignity was a forgotten concept. I just wanted the pain to stop. I wanted to die.

One evening, after the doctor finished bleeding me and carried the golden bowl away, an opportunity presented itself. Because I had been docile for weeks, staring blankly at the wall during the harvest, the guards skipped my six-hour wolfsbane dose.

The burning haze in my blood thinned. Deep in the void of my soul, Rheana twitched. I let her presence rise just enough to give me strength, not enough to trigger a shift.

I looked down at my thigh. The doctor had made a deep incision there today. White bandages wrapped tightly around the fresh wound.

I leaned forward, contorting my body as far as the chains allowed. I brought my face to my leg. I opened my mouth and clamped my teeth down on the bandage. I pulled, ripping the fabric away.

The fresh cut lay exposed. Without hesitating, I sank my own fangs into my flesh.

I tore the wound open wider. I bit down hard, severing the veins. Hot blood gushed from my leg, soaking the stone floor in seconds. I welcomed the dizziness. I embraced the fading light. I was bleeding out.

Heavy boots thundered down the hall.

"Hey!" a guard shouted.

My body froze in a brief spike of panic. Then, driven by pure desperation, I ripped my fangs harder into the wound, shredding my own muscle to accelerate the blood loss. The pain was blinding, but the prospect of death was sweeter.

Three guards crashed into the cell. They tackled me. Heavy knees slammed into my back and shoulders, pinning me against the blood-slicked stone.

"She's wasting her blood!" the lead guard roared.

A hand clamped the back of my neck. Another shoved a massive handful of raw wolfsbane powder directly into my face, forcing me to inhale the poison.

My throat closed. My lungs burned. Rheana whimpered and vanished.

"Doctor!" the guards screamed down the corridor. My vision swam. Darkness clawed at the edges of my sight.

They did not beat me with their fists. My frail body would have shattered. But my attempt to steal my own life demanded a brutal toll.

The doctor rushed in. Instead of needle and thread, a guard brought a thick iron rod pulled straight from the fortress forge. The tip glowed a blinding orange.

"Hold her down," the doctor ordered.

They pressed the searing hot iron directly against the torn flesh of my leg.

My scream tore my throat raw. The smell of my own burning flesh filled the tiny cell. They held the iron down for a torturous eternity, cauterizing the wound to ensure not a single drop of their precious resource escaped.

When the burning stopped, the true punishment began.

Two guards grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to a large wooden barrel of water sitting outside my cell. They shoved my face deep into the freezing liquid. I thrashed. My lungs screamed for oxygen. Water rushed up my nose and down my throat. Just as my vision faded to black, they yanked me up by my scalp.

I coughed up water, gasping for air. Before I could take a full breath, a heavy slap cracked across my jaw. They slammed my head back under the water. Over and over. My chest burned with the fire of a thousand suns.

When they threw me back onto the cold stone floor of my cell, my heart hammered erratically. My limbs shook.

But the six years of silence broke inside me. Rheana mustered a low, reverberating snarl deep within the cage of my ribs. I looked up at the towering guards through wet, stringy hair.

"I dare you," I wheezed between ragged breaths. "I dare you to kill me."

The lead guard's face twisted into an ugly snarl. He stepped forward and kicked my ribs.

"You want to die!" he roared, his spit flying onto my face. "You are a shame! You betray the pack!"

He signaled the others. One guard straddled my chest, pinning my arms down. Another grabbed my jaw, forcing a filthy rag deep into my mouth. He gripped the sides of my head with vise-like strength, locking my skull rigid.

The lead guard pulled a long, thick metal needle from a leather pouch. He held the tip over an open flame until it glowed white-hot.

My eyes widened in terror. I thrashed beneath the immense weight of the guards, but I was immobilized.

The guard leaned down. He pressed the white-hot needle against the soft skin of my left cheek.

I screamed against the gag. The sound was a muffled, animalistic shriek of pain. The metal seared through my skin, sizzling and smoking. He didn't just burn me. He dragged the needle in slow, purposeful motions, carving shapes into my flesh as if drawing on parchment. Down. Across. Around.

The pain blinded me. The stench of charred skin made me gag against the cloth.

He pulled the needle away. I lay there trembling, tears mixing with the blood and ash on my face.

The guard sneered down at me. "It says PIG. You look prettier with that scar on your face to match the rest of your sad body."

The guards stepped back, admiring their cruel handiwork.

Suddenly, a sound cut through the damp air of the dungeon. It was a laugh.

A cruel, mocking laugh echoed from the shadows behind my blood-stained bed.

I froze. I knew that voice. It was a sound from a lifetime ago.

Ignoring the throbbing of my branded cheek, I strained my agonizing neck to look toward the dark corner of the cell.

A figure stepped out from the shadows. The dim torchlight caught the shimmering fabric of a refined, flowing white dress. Intricate jewels were woven directly into the expensive silk, catching the light like stars.

It had been six long years. At first, my mind refused to comprehend the image. I hadn't seen a mirror in so long. I didn't know what my own face looked like anymore. But looking at her was like looking at a ghost of my stolen future. It was like seeing myself grown up, radiant, pure, and flawless.

Her long blonde hair cascaded in thick, perfect waves all the way to her waist. Her skin was smooth and glowing, free of the two hundred and twenty-four jagged scars that ruined mine.

She tilted her head. Her striking purple eyes narrowed at my wretched form with raw disgust.

It was my twin sister, Giselle.

How could she be here?