Alpha Salvatore (by Crystal L) novel Chapter 3

Dominic:

Her scent wouldn’t leave me.

It clung to my skin, my throat, my sanity.

No matter how many times I tried to ignore it, it was there, soft, defiant, dangerous. And fucking hell did I find myself wanting nothing more than to claim her.

Aria Wren.

The girl who refused to kneel. The slave who should’ve been invisible. The one person who dared to openly challenge me, and lived to tell the tale.

And yet, since the moment she walked into my hall, I hadn’t gone a single hour without feeling the burn of her scent in my lungs.

Katherine noticed.

Of course she did.

“Your little debt payment is causing quite the stir,” Katherine murmured beside me, her hand looping through my arm as we stood at the edge of the training grounds. “The pack is starting to wonder why you’re keeping her alive. I, for one, find myself being curious.”

Her tone was sweet, but her grip wasn’t. I could feel her nails pressing lightly against my sleeve. And the tension of her posture was not one that I could miss.

“She’s here to serve,” I said flatly. “Just like every other slave.”

“Then perhaps she should perform for us,” Katherine replied with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “A test. To show her obedience. She should show us what it is to be a slave.”

I didn’t like where this was going, but saying no would make it worse. For me. And for her… Aria.

“You can make the arrangement, I’ll be watching.” I said, knowing that this was a challenge that was going to press on my own wolf.

Minutes later, Aria stood in the middle of the ring, surrounded by half a dozen trained wolves. Her wrists were bare, her expression calm. Too calm.

I folded my arms. “Don’t kill her,” I said to the captain.

Katherine’s laugh was soft and poisonous. “That depends on how well she behaves. You know, more slaves have died on these grounds than others.”

The whistle blew.

The first warrior lunged. Aria moved like lightning, ducked under his arm, twisted his wrist, and drove her elbow into his ribs hard enough to make him stagger. Another charged. She spun, kicked low, caught him in the knee.

The crowd went silent. She was trained for this.

When the last one tried to grab her hair, she slammed her knee into his face and dropped him flat on the ground. Dust rose around her, and she stood in the center of it, chest heaving, eyes locked on me.

And I… couldn’t look away.

She wasn’t trembling. She wasn’t broken. She was alive.

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