The Alpha Who Broke Our Bond

I refused to accept the arrangement, so Elder Aldric Langford immediately had my younger brother Rowan expelled from the warrior training academy. My parents called in tears, their voices shaking as they described how they had narrowly escaped a rogue attack on the forest road—just one step away from death. I had no choice but to yield and agree to the mating bond. At that time, I already had a steady companion—Kael Frostmere, a Beta from a neutral allied packline. We had been together for ten years. Kael knew the truth of my forced arrangement. He waited for me all this time, never giving up. Elder Aldric let out a heavy sigh, the weight of age and authority in his breath. "I have heard the whispers carried through the howl-network these past few days. Since a forced bond yields only bitterness, I will release you from the pack." "However, your body is still weak from the birthing. I have summoned a team of skilled healers to tend to you. Once your recovery cycle is complete, you may leave." Raven Langford's shrieking pulled me back to the present moment. I assessed her condition with the clinical eye of a trained healer. The damage to her lower body was severe—torn flesh accompanied by a vicious infection. The tissue had already begun to blacken and die, the situation far worse than anyone had anticipated. She writhed in agony, her whole body shuddering with spasms, yet she continued to spit curses through gritted teeth. "Useless! All of you are useless! You cannot even handle a simple wound? Do you want me to have this infirmary shut down by tomorrow?" "Those filthy males are all the same! They take their pleasure and run, leaving me here to suffer! When I get out of here, I will flay every last one of them!" I kept my expression blank as I pulled on sterile gloves. "Miss Raven, based on my examination, the tearing to your lower body is extensive. Multiple infections have taken hold. You require immediate surgical cleansing." The moment she heard the word surgery, she ignored her wounds and kept screaming. "Surgery? Who gave you permission to cut into me? I am warning you—if you leave a single scar on my body, I will make sure you all pay!" "I am supposed to wear a ceremonial mating gown! I am going to become the Luna of a powerful pack! Can you afford to ruin that for me?" Her eyes burned with hatred as she glared at me. "Are you doing this on purpose? Trying to destroy me? Let me tell you something—my intended mate is the wealthiest Alpha in all the territories! One word from him and every single one of you will be banished!" I cut her off. "It is too early to worry about such things. If we do not operate immediately, the infection will spread. Forget about a mating ceremony—your ability to bear pups could be permanently damaged. Your life itself may be at risk." I was simply stating facts. For patients like her, sympathy was the most worthless thing I could offer. The healer-assistant beside me handed over the consent scroll for the procedure. Raven snatched it and tore it to shreds without hesitation. She screamed like a creature gone feral. "Sign what? I refuse to sign! You incompetent healers are trying to harm me! I will report all of you! I will destroy your reputations!" Then something seemed to occur to her. Her gaze turned venomous as she fixed her eyes on me. "What are you supposed to be? You think you are worthy of performing surgery on me? Go fetch the head of this infirmary at once! Otherwise, I will have my intended mate tear this pathetic healing den to the ground!" If her condition had not been so critical, I would have gladly walked away. But my duty as a healer would not let me abandon her, no matter how much I wanted to. I had no patience for her ranting. "Besides me, there is likely no other healer in this infirmary capable of performing this procedure. Where is your kin? Someone needs to sign." At the mention of family, Raven's composure cracked for just a moment. "Kin? I do not need kin. I make my own decisions." "Just hurry up and do the surgery! If you delay my affairs, you will face consequences you cannot imagine!" I reminded her once more. "According to pack law and infirmary protocol, surgery requires a family member's signature. Or perhaps your intended mate could come?" I pressed the question, my tone still flat, as though this were merely routine. Raven's face twisted with something between rage and fear. "You had all better keep your mouths shut. If even a whisper of this reaches the howl-network, I will make sure none of you have a proper pyre when you die!" I raised an eyebrow but did not push further. This kind of situation was nothing new in the infirmary. I had seen it many times before.

I simply pushed the consent form in front of her: "Think it over carefully and make a decision as soon as possible. Time is of the essence. After treating your injuries, I need to rush back to complete the bond-forming ceremony..." My words were interrupted by a man's voice suddenly sounding behind me: "Bond-forming? Who are you going to form a partnership with?" "We only broke our blood pact three months ago, and you're already forming a new alliance?!" Fenris Langford, accompanied by four enforcers dressed in black, sealed off the entrance to the treatment room. His meticulously tailored dark robe accentuated his tall and slender figure, and the Alpha aura emanating from him was almost suffocating. "Selene, I'm talking to you, did you hear me?" "What? Only three months after the blood pact was broken, you already don't recognize your former partner?" His gaze swept past me, and before I could respond, his expression instantly changed when he saw Raven on the treatment table. Raven was connected to an oxygen tube, her face ashen. Fenris's eyes immediately showed heartache, but the chill in his voice pierced me directly. "Selene, what did you do to her?" "She was perfectly fine when she left the territory this morning! What have you been up to behind my back?!" Raven weakly raised her hand, reaching towards Fenris: "Brother Zhou! She wants my life!" Her voice was hoarse and broken, "She was churning inside me with a healing scalpel! She even said, 'If I cut you like this, you'll never be able to bear children again!' I kept begging her, but she made me suffer unbearably..." Before she could finish speaking, she suddenly coughed violently, her chest heaving, and the monitoring equipment emitted a piercing alarm. She gasped for breath, screaming with all her might, "So you're Zhou-gege's ex-partner!" "Zhou-gege, she's just jealous! Jealous that I can bear your child, jealous that I'm about to become the official mistress of the Langford territory!" I tossed the blood-stained gauze into the medical waste bin, then slowly waved the medical record in front of Fenris. "Chief Langford, her abscess ruptured, causing a blood infection. If your prospective partner had arrived forty minutes later, she'd be lying in the morgue by now." Before Fenris could even take the record, Raven preemptively... "Brother Zhou, she's talking nonsense! She's deliberately framing me!" "Because she knows you broke your blood pact with her for my sake, so she wants to use her position as a healer to get revenge on me." Raven forcefully pulled the IV needle from the back of her hand. "Brother Zhou, look! She deliberately misplaced the needle, and now I'm covered in bruises, even my neck!" "She even threatened me! She said she'd spread my medical records throughout the Howling Network, letting all the werewolves know that Brother Zhou married a woman inferior to her!" I turned to look at Raven. Her body was indeed covered in bruises. But these marks were already there when she was brought into the treatment room. Clearly, they were marks left from lovemaking. Fenris pulled her into his arms, stomping on the medical records on the ground. "Selene, you used the old patriarch's life-saving herb to blackmail me into a blood pact back then, and when you failed, you tried to destroy Yingying now?" He sneered, "The Evergreen Territory Healing Center? You think you're worthy to work here?" "It seems I was too lenient with you when we broke the blood pact, allowing you to dare lay a hand on my woman now." "Selene, perhaps you haven't tasted the consequences of angering me, Fenris Langford." As he finished speaking, two enforcers swiftly stepped forward and immediately twisted my arms behind my back. I was forced to kneel before Fenris and Raven. I looked up at him, my voice mocking, "Fenris, aren't you curious why she'd rather die than accept treatment?" The enforcers tightened the restraints on my wrists, the leather digging deep into my flesh, a stinging pain spreading throughout my body. I lost a lot of blood during my difficult childbirth and am still breastfeeding. My body has not recovered at all, and the forced bending over made my abdominal pain start to intensify.

Cold sweat seeped from every pore as I forced each word through gritted teeth. "Her den-crystal holds the scent-marks of seventeen different males she's been intimate with. Just last week, she shared heat-chambers with three different wolves at the same time. Call your personal healer right now and ask him how dangerous that kind of reckless mating behavior truly is!" "You're lying! This is nothing but slander and false accusations!" After Raven Langford spat those words, tears began streaming down her face as she burrowed into Fenris Langford's embrace, seeking shelter like a wounded creature. She sobbed against his chest. "Fenris, she's gone too far. She's using her position as a healer in this infirmary to forge false blood-scent assays and smear my name." "You know the truth! I've been with you this entire time. How could I possibly have been with other males? There's no way I could be tainted with any blood-sickness!" "Fenris, are you really going to let her torment me like this? You have to make her pay for what she's done..." With each word of her accusation, Fenris's expression grew darker and more thunderous. His Alpha command rang through the corridor. "Drag her to the underground cold-stone holding cellar! Without my direct order, no one releases her!" The enforcers seized my arms and hauled me toward the service passage. I struggled against their grip, but they only tightened their hold until my bones ached. The pain was so intense that even the stone steps seemed to pitch and sway before my eyes. "Fenris Langford! If you refuse to believe me, you'll regret it sooner than you think!" Behind me, Raven's weeping only grew louder and more pitiful. "Fenris, make her disappear! I can't bear to look at her anymore. If she finds out we're about to complete our mating ceremony, she'll surely try to destroy everything!" Fenris's voice softened as he soothed her. "Hush now, little one. Trust me. I won't allow anything to disturb our bonding rite." "When the time comes, you'll be the most beautiful mate any wolf has ever seen." "..." The heavy cellar door groaned shut behind me. Inside the holding chamber, the temperature plunged well below freezing. The bitter cold pierced through my flesh like countless ice needles, burrowing deep into my bones and marrow. I curled up against the frost-covered storage units, pounding weakly against the door. "Fenris Langford, let me out!" "This is unlawful imprisonment! You're breaking pack law and human authority codes! Release me now!" The thin healer's garments I wore offered no protection against the bone-deep chill. My thoughts began to scatter and fade as the cold claimed more and more of my awareness. I lost track of time in that frozen darkness. Then Fenris's voice cut through the haze. "Have you learned your lesson yet? Will you dare try this again?" "Selene, don't think that bearing me a pup gives you any right to touch what belongs to me." "Today, I'm teaching you exactly what happens to anyone who threatens what's mine." Fenris stood just outside the cellar door, cradling Raven in his arms like a precious treasure. She was wrapped in his heavy coat, her face still deathly pale, but beneath her lashes, a calculating gleam flickered in her eyes. Raven pressed closer into his embrace. "Fenris, it's so cold here. Won't she freeze to death?" I had seen her blood-scent assay results. I knew exactly how severe her condition truly was. Rather than worrying about me, she ought to worry about herself—and how much time she had left among the living. "But she's been so cruel to me, making me suffer so much. A little freezing is exactly what she deserves."

Raven lifted her gaze to meet Fenris's eyes, her voice trembling with practiced fear. "I'm so afraid she'll come after me once she's released. Back in the healing chamber, the way she looked at me... it was terrifying, like she wanted to tear me apart with her bare fangs." Fenris held her tighter, sparing me a single cold glance. His voice was hard as winter stone. "As long as I'm here, she can't touch you." At those words, Raven's eyes reddened with fresh tears. "But what if she holds a grudge? What if she spreads rumors through the howl-network, claiming my heat-conduct is shameful?" "Everything she said just now was fabricated. She's jealous of me, that's all. She made it all up to destroy my reputation..." "If this damages you or the Langford Pack's standing, that would be terrible." "Fenris, please don't believe her poison words. You're the only one in my heart. She just wants to drive us apart so she can slither back to your side." My teeth chattered from the cold, my whole body felt like it was being pierced by ice needles, and my mind was almost blank. The chill seeped into my bones, and my wolfish instincts struggled wildly within me, powerless against the extreme cold. "Raven…do you dare show Ferris your communication stone…do you dare let him check your records at the border inn last week…?" "Shut up!" Raven Langford's voice suddenly rose, sharp enough to pierce my eardrums. "Brother Azhou, look! She's still talking nonsense! I didn't! She framed me!" She deliberately leaned into Ferris Langford's arms, pretending to accidentally pull on the bruise on her wrist, immediately letting out a cry of pain, "Ah…it hurts…Brother Azhou, I don't want to hear her voice anymore!" The coldness in Ferris's eyes deepened, like the coldest moonlight in a winter night. He ordered the enforcers guarding the door, "Turn the temperature down to the lowest setting, let's see if she dares to talk nonsense again." The enforcers immediately complied. The chill intensified abruptly, frost forming on the walls of the metal prison. My wolfish senses gradually numbed in the extreme cold, a metallic sweetness rising in my throat, my fingernails scraping harshly against the icy walls. My vision began to darken. I heard Ferris's final warning, "Selene, when you learn your lesson, I'll let you out." "Otherwise, you'll never get out." My consciousness began to fade, my body frozen stiff. A weak, mournful howl emanated from within me, but it was powerless to respond. With my last ounce of consciousness, I uttered, "Ferris... let me out..." But he turned and walked away, carrying Raven. Just before they were about to leave, the door to the passage was violently flung open. Chief Healer Elena Everwell stormed in, carrying a stack of blood test results, her voice filled with anxiety: "Raven Langford's blood disease test result is positive! All instruments in the operating room must be incinerated and purified immediately!" She slammed the test results onto the stone table beside her, shouting sharply, "You all just came into contact with her blood! Perform the containment purification ritual immediately, or it will be too late!" Ferris's hand froze in mid-air, his face drained of all color. "What did you say?! How is this possible?!"