Running From My Alpha Mate

Pup?

The flickering torchlight cast ominous shadows across the cavernous hollow as Darius stalked through the sprawling den of the Blood Moon pack. His piercing crimson gaze cut through the gloom like a smoldering blade, exuding an aura of menace and dominance that caused his pack to avert their eyes instinctively.

Darius relished their fear, savored the hint of dread that permeated the dank air around him. It fortified his alpha supremacy, ensured their steadfast obedience to his every whim and decree. Only fools or adversaries too idiotic to realize their inevitable demise would dare defy him.

His lip curled into a contemptuous sneer as he passed the pathetic unmated omegas huddled in a distant alcove. The unmistakable stench of their submission and terror wafted towards him in thick, cloying waves. Darius sneered inwardly at their weakness - they were hardly more than sniveling dogs, a disposable commodity to be traded during the next lunar cycle's rituals if they didn't prove their worth beforehand.

Eventually, his predatory strides led him towards an isolated, torch-lit antechamber where two of his most elite Hunter sentries stood guard outside a pair of ornately carved ebony doors. Their broad frames tensed with menace the moment he approached, their nostrils flaring at the scent of the purebred alpha appearing from the gloom.

"Open it," Darius growled without preamble, his tone dripping with thinly-veiled disdain. He despised the necessity of issuing direct orders - his underlings should have anticipated his desires and moved with obedience to fulfill them before he even uttered a syllable.

Undeterred by his obvious displeasure, the two seasoned Hunters exchanged a silent look before one reached forward to heave open the towering doors, revealing a lavish interior bedecked with furs, weaponry, and the grisly spoils of past hunts adorning the intricately carved walls.

Darius brushed past them without a second glance, their presences already forgotten and dismissed like fading echoes in the vast subterranean cavern. He prowled towards the glowing embers of the central brazier, inhaling deeply of the charred, musky scents that always managed to pacify the primal beast thirsting for violence that lurked within his very marrow.

A low, feral rumble issued from deep within his chest as the stray wisps of smoke curled and caressed his alpha features, sparking memories of countless previous offerings surrendered to those crackling flames. Seared flesh and bone charred to smoldering ash - a cleansing, sacrificial rite that allowed him to exert his dominion over the weak and unworthy.

The harsh metallic scrape of talons against stone heralded the arrival of another, sharper snarl reverberating from the shadows on the far side of the chamber. Darius whirled with blazing eyes, his fangs bared in a challenge of pure bestial aggression that caused his brutish lieutenants to instinctively recoil.

Only when the towering, primordial figure of his father emerged into the flickering torchlight did Darius temper his menacing growls into a grudging rumble of acknowledgment. The once-imposing alpha, Kegan, stared at him with hooded disdain through eyes that had long-since clouded over into an unseeing, milky opalescence. His face was a twisted, craggy relief of scar tissue and jagged striae accumulated from over a century spent battling adversaries too countless to quantify.

"I received word the message was delivered to the rogue's sanctuary," Kegan's gravelly timbre resonated with the weight of ages past. Despite his ruined visage and withered state, his bearing still commanded an instinctive seed of awe and obedience from all who fell under his judgmental stare. "And from your unmistakable stench of bloodlust clinging to these halls, I can only assume your response will be anything but civil."

Darius' eyes narrowed dangerously at the impertinent remark, but he knew better than to bluntly challenge the ancient, grizzled progenitor of their entire pack lineage. Instead, he bared his fangs in a contemptuous snarl. "This mere trifling matter with the rogue pup long ago spiraled beyond the realm of civility."

He raked a set of razor-sharp talons down the length of his muscular forearm, reopening a trio of jagged scars that instantly welled with crimson. "She is a cancer upon the pure nobility of our bloodline," he spat vehemently. "A stain of disgrace that will be carved out with fang and talon if required."

Kegan shook his head slowly in grave disapproval, but there was a hint of lupine cunning glinting behind those milky, dispassionate eyes. "You risk waging war on the other packs by pursuing this...vendetta." He enunciated the final word with clear distaste, as if the very notion of Darius harboring such a petty obsession was beneath the stature of an alpha as accomplished as him.

"The rogue has been far too corrupted by coddling from the Moonlight pack to ever rejoin our superior pack" he added derisively.

"Make no mistake," Darius seethed, his words a menacing, guttural rasp. "This matter transcends mere 'corruption.' The whore that birthed that pup should have been killed long ago, that pup is no alpha"

He stalked towards his father in a series of sinuous, leonine strides; circling the ancient warrior in an instinctual display of goading challenge. "Perhaps the time has come to cull the weak from our ranks, once and for all." A malicious smirk curled across his lips. "Starting with your ancient carcass."

In an eyeblink's span, a razor-edged dagger appeared in Darius' hand, the steel shimmering balefully in the smoldering firelight. He whipped the blade forward, scoring a deep laceration down his father's withered cheek in a blur of motion...and then pivoted away with a mocking chuckle escaping his lips.

Kegan remained utterly immobile, the rivers of his own blood trickling down his weathered jaw. His sightless gaze stared off into the abyss of the room.