Blood and Grudges

Kaelen’s POV

The memory burns vividly in my mind, a jagged scar that refuses to fade no matter how much time passes. I can still smell the burning sage and damp earth from the day the pack seer cast the bones. When she first revealed that Gideon, Callum, and I shared the exact same fated mate, a wild, primal euphoria surged through the three of us. We were Valkin Alphas, commanders of immense primal strength, but a shared fated mate was an anomaly. It was a rare phenomenon, a sacred alignment of the stars. For us, this profound bond meant ascending to the peak of our magical power. It meant unlocking a tier of dominance that would ensure our survival in a brutal world. We envisioned a future ruled by an unbreakable brotherhood, anchored by a mate who would stand beside us as an equal.

But that profound joy turned to bitter, choking ashes the exact moment her name slipped past the seer's cracked lips.

Valeria Draganova.

We were bound to Viktor Draganov’s daughter. The blood in my veins turned to ice before boiling into a blinding, consuming rage. Disbelief clawed at my throat, suffocating the triumph we had felt just seconds prior. Why would fate curse us with the spawn of the very monster we had sworn our lives to destroy?

Viktor was no ordinary rival. He was the embodiment of pure cruelty, a monster who wore his sadism like a crown. Every single one of us carried festering wounds carved by his hands.

He had slaughtered my sister, her mate, and their innocent children. It was not a war. It was a massacre born from a petty, insignificant territorial grudge. Viktor did not just kill them; he orchestrated a masterpiece of agony. He cornered her mate, breaking the man down piece by piece, driving my sister into a suffocating despair until she took her own life right in front of his mocking eyes. Viktor left them to rot in their own living room. When I found them days later, the sickening copper stench of death clung to the walls. Resting on the blood-soaked rug was a pristine handkerchief, embroidered with his initials. It was a sick, boastful joke. A signature of his atrocity meant to taunt whoever found the bodies. The trauma of that discovery shattered my soul. I swore on their graves that I would rip his heart from his chest.

Gideon carried the same dark rot in his bones. Viktor’s endless greed had set its sights on Gideon’s cousin. Viktor robbed the man of his ancestral land and his pack. He stripped away every shred of dignity and power, driving the wolf into utter madness. He dismantled a proud Alpha until there was nothing left but a hollow, howling shell of a man.

Callum’s loss was just as visceral. Viktor coveted the rich territory of Meridia. To seize their domain, he murdered the reigning Valkin Alphas—Gideon and Callum’s only living relatives. He drowned their lineage in blood, leaving us all isolated, broken, and starving for vengeance.

Because of Viktor's insatiable bloodlust, we were all left scarred. We knew the brutal stakes of our existence. Accepting his daughter meant betraying our dead. It meant sleeping next to the enemy. Yet, rejecting her meant forever stunting the Alpha magic we were meant to wield. It was a twisted game designed to torture us.

Despite the hatred rotting in our chests, the mating bond demanded a choice. We eventually tried to look past our rage. We choked down our pride and arranged a formal meeting with Viktor, hoping to salvage our destiny. We prayed his daughter was nothing like the tyrant who sired her.

But Viktor was hostile. Decades ago, he had missed out on the supreme magic of a fated mate due to his own twisted, selfish choices. He despised us for having the chance he threw away. He was determined to deny us our gift. He paraded Valeria out for a brief, silent glimpse. We were not allowed to step close. We were not allowed to speak. He kept her under tight guard before dismissing us like stray dogs sniffing at his iron gates. He made it clear we were to stay away from his property.

His sheer arrogance enraged me. My claws lengthened, ready to tear his throat out right then and there, but Gideon and Callum convinced me to stand down. We needed intelligence before making a move. We left a spy hidden deep in Meridia to watch her every move.

Within a year, the spy's detailed reports disgusted us to our core.

The intelligence painted a vile, irredeemable picture. The reports claimed she was reckless, feral, and wild. They detailed how she took countless lovers, warming the beds of random men across the territory. The sickening thought that our supposed fated mate gave herself so freely made my stomach churn with bile. She lacked the basic decency and purity to wait for us. She was dragging our sacred, shared destiny through the mud.

The betrayal stung worse than a physical blade. We were saving ourselves for her, enduring the hollow ache of an empty bond, while she lived like a careless stray. Fueled by a new, searing fury, we collectively made a pact. Repulsed by her supposed actions, we decided to sever all emotional ties to Viktor's tainted bloodline. We worked to erase her from our minds, locking the seer’s prophecy in a dark, forgotten corner of our souls.

Years passed in cold, heavy silence. We built our strength, ignoring the dormant bond.

Then, a desperate call shattered our resolve.

Boris, Viktor’s sniveling Beta, reached out over a secured line. His voice shook with panic as he pleaded for our military protection against mounting threats. He was oblivious to our fated bond. He had no idea he was dangling our lost mate right in front of our jaws.

Boris laid out his treacherous, desperate scheme. He offered to send Valeria directly to us for a symbolic, forged marriage. In exchange for protecting their vulnerable people, we would rightfully rule Meridia. To seal the deal and prove his commitment, he provided a forged marriage certificate and drafted legal documents transferring her massive inheritance directly to our names.

Initially, the very thought of taking in a woman with a reputation as tarnished and filthy as her father’s repulsed me. Bringing her into our territory felt like inviting a venomous snake into our den.

But a dark, undeniable curiosity sparked within Gideon and Callum. I saw the dangerous shift in their posture, the hungry gleam in their eyes. The magnetic draw of the mate bond is a relentless tide, clawing at the thick walls we had spent years building. We hated her bloodline. We loathed the rumors of her promiscuity. Yet, the primal instincts humming beneath our skin refused to be silenced.

Reluctantly, I agreed to Boris's scheme. I signed the documents, sealing her fate. The bitter reluctance tasted like ash in my mouth, but the die was cast. Despite the intense bitterness we felt, perhaps it was time to meet her once again. It was time to drag her into our territory and see if there was any twisted path forward in this cursed fate.