The drive to my mansion was quiet but my mind was anything but that.

The sun was slowly coming out on the horizon. I drove all night from Silva’s pack to my home and I watched the sun bathe the early morning sky in hues of lavender and orange.

“I’m surprised you’re back so soon, I half expected you to run away instead of listening to the council members,” Kai said with a small chuckle as he watched me open the car door and slide out minutes after driving into the giant gated compound.

I ignored his attempt at making a joke and walked past him, there were so many thoughts trying to claw their way out of the darkest recess of my mind.

I hid the black band tattoo with the sleeve of my shirt as I walked briskly down the tarred car lot. I knew its origin, but I needed to figure out what it meant before I spoke to anyone about it.

“There’s an injured girl in my back seat. Take her to the healers,” I called out to Kai, who stood puzzled behind me, his brow furrowing in the dim glow of the early sunlight.

“Injured girl? What are you talking about—oh,” he stopped in his tracks, eyes widening as he spotted Silva slumped in the back of my car, her blood-streaked face pale against the leather.

“What happened? Who is she? How did she get these injuries?” Kai’s voice chased after me, sharp with concern, but I pressed forward, my boots striking the cobblestones with purpose, ignoring his barrage of questions. “At least tell me where you’re going!” he shouted, his voice echoing off the stone walls of the keep.

I paused, pulling down my sleeve a little further as memories of the past threatened to overwhelm me.

“To get answers.” I growled.

I turned from the courtyard, veering onto a forsaken path that wound away from the mansion’s bustling heart. The trail had been long deserted, shunned by all, its stones cracked and choked with weeds that crunched underfoot.

Twisted branches of ancient oak trees arched overhead, their gnarled limbs knitting a canopy that blocked out the sunlight, casting the path into an oppressive darkness.

The path led to a rusted iron gate, half-ajar, creaking on hinges that hadn’t been oiled in decades.

A little further from the gate, stone steps led down a dark descent into an underground chamber. A dark, cold prison.

It was home to only one person.

“It’s been so long since I’ve had a guest,” a voice rasped from the darkness, the words sounded more hissed than spoken. “What could I have done to warrant a visit from the Alpha King himself?”

I rolled the sleeves of my shirt back and showed off the black band etched in a loop around my hand.

“Tell me what this means and I might consider not ripping your tongue out of your head this instant,” I snarled into the darkness.

I heard the chains holding her, before I saw her haggard frame. She unfurled from a corner like a phantom, each hand had a bulky chain that extended into the darkness behind her, giving her room to move, but not enough to roam freely.

“Temper, temper,” she tsked almost mockingly. “You know it’s harder for me to keep my hands to myself when you’re all riled up.”

Bile rose up from my throat at her attempt to flirt with me. I was utterly disgusted by her, and it wasn’t because she was haggard, dressed in rags and covered by years of dirt and grime.

It had been almost two decades since her capture, yet she barely aged a day.

Zyra was an immortal seductress. She was a vile witch that made a pact with a devil to keep her beauty forever, and so even as she starved in this darkness, and she got thinner and more haggard, her beauty still managed to gleam through.

She made me sick to my stomach, just like all the other witches I have met.

All except one. Silva.

“I know you can’t die, but if you get on my nerves, Witch, I will find a way to bring you to death’s doorstep,” I said with a tone that conveyed my intentions clearly.

She let out a laugh that echoed around the room.

“Only a fool fears death, Your Grace.” She said, taking soft steps towards me till the chains tugged her on her hands from being stretched out, but still, she strained against the chain till her shoulder made a sickening crack, just so her face was mere inches away from mine.

Her unnaturally colored purple eyes blinked at me. “And we both know, I am no fool," she finished.

“It would be foolish of you to call my bluff,” I snarled and took a step closer to her, eliminating all space between us. “Tell me what this mark means.”

There was a long pause, the tension in the air felt thick enough to suffocate in.

“Ugh, you’re no fun,” she scoffed and took a few steps away from me. “I’m so borrrrred, no one ever comes to visit.”

“Well, you’re a murderous witch that has killed more than a hundred wolves, even children. You can see why you’re not exactly a popular tourist attraction.”

She giggled softly and bit her fingers like a timid teenager. “I’m just a girl.”

I closed the gap between us in one long stride and I grip her shoulder, letting my claws slip out and dig into her skin, tearing through her flesh in one move. Blood slowly coated my hands as I held her firmly, my clawed fingertips still lodged in her. . “I do not have time for your games, Zyra. Speak.”

She grunted through the pain, “What’s the magic word?”

“I will rip your arm off this instant,” I growled and applied more pressure.

“Incorrect,” she taunted.

“Speak!”

“Fine, fine,” she grunted as the pain became more than she could bear. “It’s a mark of subservience,” she rushed out.

I removed my claws from her shoulders and she stumbled backwards, no doubt light-headed from the blood loss. The holes my claws made in her skin slowly stitched up.

“A mark of what?” I asked

She heaved a sigh like she was bored of explaining to me already.

“Do you remember the day I was captured? I tried to place a spell on you in the midst of all the commotion,” she said.

“How could I forget? You pretended you were giving up the fight, grabbed my hands out of the blue and started chanting like a mad woman. I lost many good men because of you.”

“Let’s not get hung up on who did what,” she responded with an eyeroll. “Anyway, the spell I tried placing on you is called the mark of subservience. It is an ancient, powerful spell that gives a witch complete control over any creature, man or beast. That tattoo is a physical manifestation of the spell, which was why it appeared on you that day as I was chanting.”

I remembered that day clearly, the death of my men, the strange marking, everything.

“Your Beta ripped out my heart while I was in the middle of my spell, quite rude if you ask me, but because of that the spell was incomplete and the tattoo disappeared from your skin. You can imagine my disappointment when my plan to enslave the great and powerful Kane Grimclaw failed.”

“It couldn’t have been greater than my disappointment when I realized not even having your heart ripped out could kill you,” I said with a disgusted expression as I stared at her completely healed shoulder. “And as you can see, your mark is back, so what the fuck is happening?”

“You’re bound, Alpha Kane Grimclaw, and it has nothing to do with me. I don’t know how, but the strings of that spell I started have somehow been woven together by another witch, and if she could latch on to the remnants of a spell that’s been dormant for so many years, then she is a much more powerful witch than I am.”

I couldn’t imagine how Silva, a bullied girl from a shifter pack, could be more powerful than an immortal, undying, sorceress.

“You’re lying,” I growled at her. “This is what you do, you lie, you manipulate.”

“I have no reason to lie, Your Grace. I’m being a hundred percent truthful. I swear on your dead wife’s grave.”

Red clouded my vision almost instantly as hot rage ripped through me like a bullet. I grabbed her by the throat and yanked her off the floor. Her face turned a bright red from the sudden loss of air, and her chains rattled aggressively as she struggled to pry my hands away from her neck.

“You crossed a line, Zyra. Keep her out of your filthy mouth.”

“I-I—stop. I—please.” She choked on each word.

“I should rip off your head. You’ve told me all you know, I should just rip off your head now and see how you manage to heal from that.”

“D-diff—Diffrent!” she choked out. “Mark… something diffrent. Important.”

I released her from my grasp and she collapsed against the cold floor, coughing and fighting for air with ragged breaths.

“Speak, now.” I said with a cold voice.

“The spell,” she gasped out, still trying to get air back in her lungs. “It’s supposed to turn whoever has the mark into a robot, a zombie with no thoughts. You being self aware enough to choke me, which was hot by the way,” she paused, blowing a lock of waist length black hair out of her face. “Means something is wrong with the spell. It’s different somehow.”

“I don’t care if it’s old or brand new. Will the spell be broken if the witch that activated it dies?”

“If it’s anything like the original spell, the mark is wired in a way that you’ll be able to sense if the caster is in danger, locate them and fight till your last breath if that’s what is needed to save theirs. Any attempt to end the caster’s life right now will only succeed if you’re dead. And word of advice, you don’t want her dead either. Your life forces are entwined. The bearer of the mark of subservience will die a slow and painful death if the caster dies.”

“Another lie. You died and nothing happened.”

“My ‘death’ stopped the spell last time, that’s why it was incomplete and left dormant all these years, plus if you consider the fact that I’m immortal, you’ll realize that might be another reason the spell has lingered, I technically never died, but I mean, you don’t have to believe me. You can give it a gamble. Go kill your witch.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. This was too much information at once, but I needed an answer to my most important question.

“How do I get rid of it?” I asked

“I have no idea. My plan was to place the spell on you and have you murder your fellow wolves all across the kingdom and then, ride you like a breeding horse for a couple of years, I mean, look at you, who in their right mind wouldn’t want to fuck you? Anyway, ultimately, when I got bored, which is how these things usually go, I was simply going to ask you to kill yourself, which coincidentally, is another perk of being in a Caster/Zombie slave relationship. Break ups are so overrated.”

“You are sick,” I spat.

“Thank you, I try my best.”

“Come on, think. There has to be something,” I insisted, I had to break this curse.

I can’t rule my kingdom while under the whims of a witch.

“I’m afraid there isn’t. That is the way it goes, somehow, either willingly or unwillingly, that mark and the woman that placed it on you will be the death of you.”