Claiming Emerald: Four Alphas At Her Feet

Darkness.

Then the pain.

It started as a dull throb beneath her skin, but the deeper she breathed, the more it clawed back into her bones. Emerald stirred with a groan, eyelids fluttering open to shadows shifting across a high ceiling.

She blinked. Everything was blurred. The scent in the air: earthy pine, herbs, and smoke from cedar was unfamiliar but hauntingly comforting.

"Viola?" she rasped weakly.

Silence.

Then, a sleepy murmur from deep within her: "We’re home."

The words rang like a bell in her mind. Emerald’s fingers twitched against soft linen sheets. Her pulse picked up. Home?

She sat up with a wince. The pain was bearable now, like a caged fire instead of wildfire. Her muscles ached, but the crippling agony from the wolfsbane had dulled.

Her vision cleared just enough to catch the shape of a silver wolf insignia, wrapped in shadow vines, mounted on the far wall, with clawed fangs over a crescent moon.

She knew that crest. She’d seen it her whole childhood, carved into shields, etched into floors, engraved into her father’s ring.