Owned by the Alphas: Owned by the Winterborn

“This ritual will be different from the others, Nikolai. Can you feel it?” Tabby asked, her wide, wise eyes smiling from her rocking chair on the deck. She faced the swamp, and I sat on the steps leading down into the grimy water.

The night air was cold, a warning on my skin that raised the hair on my body.

I nodded. “I can feel it.” I threw a chunk of meat from the bucket next to me into the water for Ruby, the alligator. She snapped it up, thrashing happily.

“Different, how?” Derik frowned, his arms folded as he leaned against the wall of Tabby’s home.

She smiled softly, adjusting her knitted blankets over her legs. “Time will tell,” she said. I didn’t have to reach into the link to know that answer would royally piss Derik off.

Sure enough, the taint of his frustration filtered through.

I eyed Brax, who was glaring from the treeline. He stood there by the carriage, scowling, refusing to come closer.

Tabby didn’t hold it against him, but I couldn’t help how much it annoyed me. What happened in his past needed to stay there. But he still punished Tabby for it.

I didn’t. I sensed her. I knew her heart better than most—my wolf gave me a keener understanding of emotions. Her heart was pure. If it wasn’t, she wouldn’t have been able to carry a child like she had. No witch could. And yet, Cain was born.

That told me all I needed to know.

“I don’t like different,” Derik murmured. “Different means trouble. We can’t afford trouble when it comes to the border.”

“A bit of trouble never scared me,” I smirked, winding Derik up. “I’m bored with fighting rogues every now and then or scaring the humans for fun. Give me a virgin who knows how to suck my cock better than the females in our pack. That’ll mean trouble.”

Tabby smacked the back of my head lightly, and I grimaced, chucking Ruby another chunk of meat.

“Cute becomes crass in a sentence, Nikolai. However, I do warn you, be careful what you wish for.” She eyed me, her brow raising.

I smirked and shrugged. “When am I ever careful, Tab?”

She chuckled, her eyes wrinkling as she looked out over her swamp with a sigh. “That is true. Now you three better get going, hmm? You have a ritual to prepare for.”

Derik came away from the house and took our teacups in as I stood up and dumped the last of the meat for Ruby into the swamp.

Tabby stood slowly and wrapped her blanket around her shoulders like a shawl. “Nikolai,” she said softly as I grabbed her arm and helped her hobble inside. “Trust your instincts this ritual, you hear me? They’ll guide you on your path.”

“My path? You think this blood moon will be some kind of defining moment?” I said with a hint of sarcasm. Her fate talk usually didn’t alter whatever I planned to do.

She smiled like she knew exactly what I was thinking and patted my arm. “Yes. You don’t have to believe it for it to be true. But you’ll feel it. The difference will hit you and you’ll know. Once it does, listen—as hard as that is for you to do. Your instincts are the most honed and they will help you and the other Alphas follow the right path.”

I nodded, half brushing off what she was saying, half hoping she was right because I was sick of this ritual.

Humans were a boring lay—especially virgins.

All they did was lie there. Some cried, and I had to pretend that it affected me—soothe them. Putting on a face wasn’t my strong suit.

Brax had it easy. When we left here, he could plaster on a smile, and the humans thought he was friendly. It was a pretty lie he told. He could be just as savage as the rest of us.

Derik was all business. He told them the rules—that we were doing it for them—and made them feel like they had a choice. But they didn’t. And neither did we.

We needed to sleep with the virgins to keep the magic in the border alive. It was the only thing keeping the vampires from us and locked in their territory. The humans didn’t appreciate that, but we still did it—for them.

Derik would do anything for them, even at his own expense. Brax didn’t care what we did—he was just along for the ride. But me? I would opt out if I could.

Sleeping with females was a fun pastime and something I enjoyed on the regular—with wolves. Humans—virgins—not so much. Especially humans who were not experienced and just wanted a cock to fill them so they could say they had sacrificed for their village and then marry their own kind.

Wasn’t really my style, but I did my duty as an Alpha.

And if what Tabby said was true and this ritual was going to be different, then as much as it went against my nature, I was inclined to listen.

I took Tabby inside and put her in her worn armchair, placing her blanket back over her. Derik brought over a fresh brew of tea for her, then straightened. “Thanks for having us, Tabitha. We’ll take our leave.”

Tabby nodded. “Of course. Go,” she said, shooing us. I bent to kiss her on the cheek, then left the small cabin with Derik.

We moved down the ramp, a few steps through the shallow part of the swamp, then climbed into the carriage that Brax had already gotten into.

He sat in the far left corner, arms crossed, hood up as he glared out the window.

“Wrong window, you’re glaring at the forest. If you’re aiming for Tabby’s, you’ll want the other side of the seats,” I taunted.

Brax turned his scowl to me. “I told you to leave me behind.”

Derik sighed as he sat down, closing the door behind us. “And I told you, it would be disrespectful. We all go. Those are Tabby’s rules for now.”

Brax said nothing but continued scowling out of the window. I relaxed back in my seat as the carriage started to move back toward the city.

The blood moon had already broken over the horizon, and I peered out of the carriage window to stare at it.

And I swore it was staring back. Whispering. A prickle ran over my skin.

“Tabby is right.” I swallowed. “There’s something different this time.”

“I’m not trusting anything that witch says,” Brax muttered. “If it’s different, it’s because she made it so.”

I rolled my eyes.

Derik pinched the bridge of his nose. “Get your mood in order. We have a duty to do tonight. We all know the border is at its weakest. It won’t get stronger if you both don’t treat this as the ritual it is meant to be.”

“You and your rules, D.” I smirked.

It was something I knew but still taunted him about. There weren’t many rules that I followed blindly, but the blood moon ritual was something none of us wanted to mess with.

Our parents had given everything to get the border up, to stop the vampires in the war. We had to honor that by completing the ritual to keep the magic in that border.

It wasn’t so bad anyway. Fucking all night had its advantages. Like not being on patrol.

That was about it.

Humans didn’t have what it took to satisfy us, but the night wasn’t about satisfaction. That’s why there were rules.

Ones I had never broken.

A tightness pulled in my chest at the thought, and I frowned. Is that what Tabby had meant by different? Was tonight the night I broke the rules?

As much as that thought excited me, I shoved it down. I wasn’t going to fuck this up. We couldn’t afford the consequences.

Every human virgin of age needed to sacrifice their purity. There were no exceptions.

We got back to the city and all of the wolves were on edge. The pack knew humans were coming, and that always tested their control.

Most of them were either fucking, staying in wolf form, or just staying out of sight.

The virgins were not to be touched by any wolf that wasn’t an alpha—or Galen, the oldest wolf in our city and the one who didn’t seem to have the same rules as the rest of us.

But he never came out of his hut during these times. He only stayed close instead of in the forest in case one of us decided to do more than fuck the humans.

And there was a slight chance of that.

Previous alphas had been known to let their wolves take over and kill the virgins. But Derik, Brax, and I were more in control of our wolves than our parents had been. We’d never had an accident like they had.

We went to the mansion to prepare, going straight to the human holding rooms. We had given them all the luxuries we could think of, as we did every year. It was easier if they were as relaxed as possible.

“Recite the rules,” Derik said as we checked that the punch was full and spiked. The oath goblets were ready. The bathing rooms were prepared.

“Do we have to do this every time?” I said, picking up a cup and taste-testing the punch. Derik spun from stoking the fire and glared at me.

That was a yes then.

“No kissing the sacrifices. No touching the sacrifices,” Brax started, knowing better than to start an argument with Derik about rules.

I smirked. “I don’t see why. It’d be more fun if we could give them the full experience.”

Derik did not find it funny.

Brax copied my smirk, though. “Imagine their faces. Showing them what a wolf can do and then sending them back to have mediocre human dick for the rest of their lives. The disappointment.” Brax laughed, shaking his head. He was back to normal now that we weren’t near Tabby.

I laughed and grabbed another cup of punch, leaning against the table. “They’d be back at our door the next day, begging for the orgasm their human lover couldn’t give.” The idea made me grin. A buzzing excitement started to build for the night.

“It’s against the rules, both for our ritual and their contract,” Derik sighed. “But I admit, the starfish fuck is rather dull.” He let a small smirk play on his lips as he stared into the fire. I grinned and put the punch down—it quenched my thirst but didn’t give me any of the drunken feelings a human would get from it.

“And the truth comes out,” I teased.

“I never said it wasn’t the truth or that I didn’t share your sentiments, only that it doesn’t matter what we want out of tonight. We take the humans’ purity, we give it back to the realm. Those are the rules. We follow them.”

Suddenly my skin started to buzz as if the punch had affected me. I frowned and turned to look at it like it would give me answers, then cleared my throat, putting my hands on my waist.

“Or we won’t. Tabby said tonight would be different.” As I said it, something really did feel different. I usually wanted more from the sex I had under the blood moon ritual, but something in my chest, tight and excited, hinted that I might just get it tonight.

“It can’t be. It’s a ritual. It must be—”

“I get it, D. I’ll follow the rules,” I interrupted him. I didn’t want to hear about our duty again.

“How about we get going before the humans think we have abandoned them, hmm?” Brax said, coming over to clap me and Derik on the back.

Derik nodded and headed for the door. “I sent our outfit choices to the villages earlier.”

I licked my lips. White—that was the only specification. Something about tradition and honoring the purity they were sacrificing.

I didn’t care what color they wore. I didn’t really care what they wore at all.

But the less, the better.

As cold as it was for them, it made it easier to get the job done quicker. Usually, they left their clothes on anyway.

“Thanks, D,” Brax said, heading out the door behind him. I left last and shut the door behind me. I wasn’t sure how tonight was going to go, but now more than ever, I was convinced Tabby was right. It was going to be different.

The question remained, though—was that difference going to be good or bad?