The Mad Dog's Obsession

In the iron cage of an underground fighting pit, my heat cycle hit without any warning.

Up on the high platform, my so-called fated mate the uncrowned king of the Night Faction, Maximilian Cross covered his nose in disgust and pulled his beloved Tiffany into his arms.

A defective little runt who can't even shift, and she thinks she has the right to smell like that? Let the beasts tear her apart in that cage.

The whole crowd burst out laughing. The half-shifted beasts, eyes blazing red, drooled as they lunged toward me.

Just when I'd given up all hope, a pair of blood-soaked combat boots came crashing through the iron bars.

Jax Maximilian Cross's illegitimate brother, the one they called the Mad Dog stepped in front of me, putting himself between me and those half-shifted beasts.

He wrapped his oversized coat tight around my naked, trembling body. His burning breath spilled against the curve of my neck.

"Why are you shaking? If he doesn't want you I do."

Inside the underground fighting pit, my hands were bound behind my back. They'd thrown me into the center of an iron cage caked in mud and dried blood.

Riiip

The wire mesh tore through the back of my shirt, leaving a wide strip of bare skin exposed to the freezing air.

I was shaking from the cold but deep inside my body, a strange, feverish heat was running wild.

So hot.

It felt like ten thousand ants were crawling through my bones.

This was the scent of a mate bond awakening.

In the world of the Night Shifters, every adult female released her own unique pheromones on the night of her awakening a signal meant to draw in her fated mate.

I tilted my head back, my vision blurring as I looked up at the VIP platform ten meters above me.

That was where Maximilian Cross sat.

The new ruler of the Night Alliance. The black wolf alpha with the purest bloodline. The man my family had promised me to since before I was born.

Right now, he was staring down at me from above. He held a glass of deep crimson liquor in his hand, his eyes as cold as if he were looking at a pile of garbage.

My pheromones drifted upward through the ventilation system.

It was an unbearably sweet scent intoxicating, almost sinful.

I watched Maximilian's brow snap into a hard frown. Even the guards standing beside him had their breathing go ragged from the smell.

"Maximilian" I forced his name out of my throat, my fingernails digging hard into the mud. "Save me"

Maximilian didn't move.

But the woman beside him Tiffany let out a coy little laugh and pressed her hand over her nose, using the moment to melt against Maximilian's chest.

"Max, that smell is disgusting. Has Serena lost her mind? She's a half-blood who can't even shift, and she's seriously trying to force her pheromones out in a place like this? Is she trying to seduce those filthy pit beasts?"

Maximilian let out a cold laugh and slowly tipped his glass.

The red liquid poured down and splashed into the mud right in front of me.

"Serena. You make me sick."

Maximilian's voice came through the speakers and filled every corner of the underground arena. "Did you really think pulling a cheap stunt like this throwing your scent around would force me to claim you as my mate? A defective reject like you isn't even worth the dirt on my shoes."

A sharp, ugly wave of laughter exploded through the crowd.

Maximilian's younger brother Dante was standing just outside the cage. He smashed an iron rod against the bars with a cocky grin, the clanging ringing straight through my skull.

"You hear that, you worthless little freak?! My brother thinks you're filthy! Stay in that cage and let those wild beasts have their fun with you!"

Dante hit the switch. The gate at the far end of the cage began to grind open.

Three half-beasts crawled out eyes burning red, minds long gone from months of rage-serum injections. Ropes of foul-smelling drool hung from their jaws as they locked onto me.

To them, my pheromones were the most potent aphrodisiac in existence.

I stumbled backward in desperation until my back hit the cold iron mesh.

Nowhere left to go.

"Maximilian!" I screamed until my throat tore. "You felt it! I am your fated mate!"

Rejecting a fated mate bond had consequences the bloodline would turn on itself, punishing the one who refused.

I saw the tendons in Maximilian's hand go taut against his glass. For just one second, the color drained from his face.

But he held it back.

He would rather endure the agony of the bond's backlash than take a single step down from that platform for me.

"Open the gate." Maximilian's voice was ice.

All three half-beasts roared and charged.

A rough hand clamped around my ankle and yanked hard. I screamed as my whole body was dragged through the mud. Another hand clawed at what was left of my shredded clothes.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I gave up.

And then

BOOM!!

A deafening blast.

Every light in the underground fighting pit went dark at once. Only the emergency lights remained, blazing red and strobing wildly through the black.

From ten meters up, a dark figure dropped from the stands like a phantom a crushing, devastating force that slammed straight down onto the top of the iron cage.

The cage was built from reinforced steel. He caved it in with a single stomp.

The man landed in front of me like a true predator.

I hadn't even gotten a clear look at his face before I heard it a sickening crack of shattering bone.

The half-beast that had been gripping my ankle never got the chance to scream. He stomped its skull into nothing. Blood and brain matter splattered across my body.

The other two half-beasts froze, instinct screaming at them to run.

He didn't give them the chance.

His black combat knife swept through the air in a single fluid arc. Two heads hit the ground at the same time.

Silence.

The entire arena went dead quiet.

Through the thick stench of blood, a scent hit me aggressive, sharp, like cold pine and gunpowder smoke. His pheromones wrapped around me like a wave crashing over everything.

The burning fever raging inside me stilled for just a moment the instant I caught that scent. Then it shifted into something deeper. Something that made my legs go weak.

He turned around.

The dark red lights caught the sharp angles of his face. His narrow eyes burned with something raw and unrestrained madness and possession, all at once.

Jax.

Maximilian's unspeakable half-brotherthe most dreaded and bloodthirsty mad dog in the entire Alliance.

He shrugged off his blood-soaked black coat and wrapped it around my naked, trembling body.

His rough fingertips brushed across my cheek. I shivered.

"Why are you shaking?"

Jax scooped me up out of the mud with one arm and pulled me tight against his chest. He lowered his head, his lips almost grazing my ear, his voice low and rough.

"They don't want you. I do."

Up in the stands, Maximilian finally snapped back to reality. He shot to his feet, his face pale with fury.

"Jax! Put her down! Who the hell said you could touch her!"

Jax didn't even look back.

He carried me through the arena floor, his combat boots stepping over bodies and blood without breaking stride.

Dante came charging down with a dozen heavily armed guards, guns trained on Jax's head.

"You crazy bastard! You got a death wish?! Put that trash down!"

Jax stopped.

He slowly raised his eyes. The look in them was pure, crystallized murder.

"Dante." Jax's voice was quiet, but every person in that room felt it crawl up their spine. "Which hand did you use to flip that switch?"

Dante blinked. He took half a step back without thinking, then forced his voice loud to cover it. "The hell does it matter which hand?! Shoot him! Kill him!"

The guards never got to pull their triggers.

Jax vanished.

The world spun. He had me locked against his chest, shielding me completely. A second later, a scream tore through the air.

"AAAGH!!"

Dante dropped to his knees. His right wrist was bent at a grotesque angle, the bone punching clean through the skin, blood spraying in pulses.

Jax stepped back into place, his black knife dripping.

He glanced up at Maximilian with cold, flat eyes, and let a slow, cruel smile cross his lips.

"Maximilian. Your dog got loose. I handled it for you."

Maximilian was shaking with rage. He pressed a hand hard against his chest the searing pain of a rejected mate bond tearing through him.

"Jax You're going to start a war with the entire Alliance over a defective omega?!"

Jax looked down at me.

I was curled inside his coat, the drug and his pheromones overwhelming me. I couldn't stop myself I pressed closer against him and let out a soft, desperate sound.

Jax's throat moved. The hunger in his eyes was almost violent.

He tightened his arms and pulled me fully against him.

"So what if I do?"

He laughed, cold and sharp. "She's mine. Even if she were worthless especially then none of you pieces of trash get to put your hands on her."

He turned and walked out of the arena, carrying me with him.

Behind us: Maximilian's furious roar, and Dante's screaming.

The black SUV tore through the storm.

The privacy partition rose between the front seat and the back, sealing us off completely.

In that small, closed space just me and Jax.

The fever inside me surged back with a vengeance.

This was what happened when a mate bond awakened with nowhere to go. My skin was burning. Every nerve in my body was screaming for something I couldn't name out loud.

"Hot"

Without thinking, I pulled the coat open, baring stretches of pale skin. Mud and blood still clung to me, but somehow it only made everything feel more raw, more exposed.

Jax slammed the brakes.

The SUV let out a sharp screech on the empty mountain road and skidded to a stop in the pouring rain.

He spun around and grabbed my wrist, pinning me hard against the leather seat.

"Serena, look at me. Really look at me!"

Jax's voice was rough and ragged. His eyes were bloodshot, barely holding back something wild that was about to break loose.

I stared up at him through a haze, my gaze drifting to the bob of his throat and the hard lines of muscle beneath his collar.

I couldn't make out a word he was saying. All I knew was that the cool, clean scent coming off him was the only thing easing my pain.

I was like a dying fish, instinctively clawing toward water.

I pulled free from his grip, threw my arms around his neck, and pressed my body against his burning chest.

"Please I need"

I was crying, searching blindly for his lips, kissing and biting at his jaw and the side of his neck without any sense of what I was doing.

Crack.

The last thread of Jax's self-control snapped clean.

"You asked for this."

He let out a low growl, took control, and slammed his palm against the back of my head, crushing his mouth down onto mine.

It was a kiss built on hunger and force.

He pried my lips open and pushed in deep, greedily sweeping through every inch of my mouth. His tongue was aggressive, relentless like he wanted to consume me whole.

"Mmph"

I couldn't breathe, but my body melted completely.

His large hand slid down along my waist, rough with calluses, leaving trails of fire everywhere it touched.

His touch was possessive rough, yet carrying a tenderness so faint it was almost invisible.

Rip.

The last scrap of fabric on my body tore away.

He lowered his head, his hot mouth trailing down my neck, pressing deep red marks into my collarbone and chest.

The marks of a beast claiming what was his.

"It hurts" I couldn't take the intensity. Tears spilled down my face one after another.

Jax went completely still.

He lifted his head and looked at my tear-streaked face. The wildness in his eyes slowly faded, replaced by something raw and aching.

He drew in a long breath, forced the fire inside him back down, and pulled his coat tightly around me again.

"Hold on a little longer." His voice was so hoarse it was barely audible. "Not yet. Your body's too weak it can't survive a full bonding mark."

He pulled me into his arms, slipping one hand inside my clothes, his warm palm pressing flat against the back of my neck.

A steady flow of pure, soothing energy poured into me.

The primal force of a top-tier Alpha.

He was using his own power to forcibly suppress the heat burning through my body.

It was an incredibly dangerous thing to do. One wrong move and the energy could turn on him.

But he didn't even flinch.

I didn't know how much time passed. Eventually, the fire inside me died down. I leaned against his chest and let my eyes fall shut.

In the blur between waking and sleep, I felt his lips press softly against my forehead.

"Rest. I'm here. No one's touching you."

When I woke up, I was lying in a large, soft bed.

The sharp smell of antiseptic hung in the air.

"You're awake. Stop playing dead."

A sarcastic voice cut through the silence beside the bed.

I opened my eyes to find a scrawny old man in a white coat, his hair a wild mess, drawing blood from my arm with a syringe.

This was the most notorious doctor in the underground black market known simply as "the Ghost Doctor."

Jax was leaning against the doorframe, an unlit cigarette between his fingers, watching me with a heavy, unreadable gaze.

"How is she?"

The Ghost Doctor dropped the blood sample into a set of strange-looking vials and watched the liquid change color. A cold smirk crossed his face.

"How is she? It's a miracle she's still breathing."

He turned and fixed his eyes on me. "Girl did you drink some kind of bitter black medicine every single day when you were little? Did your family tell you it was good for your health?"

I froze. I nodded without thinking. "Yes my foster mother said I was born weak. She said it would help regulate my blood."

"Bullshit!"

The Ghost Doctor slammed the vial down on the table. "That was Soullock Herb a poison specifically designed to suppress high-grade shifter bloodlines! You've been taking it for fifteen years. Fifteen years, and it ground what should have been an extraordinary bloodline down to nothing!"

The words hit me like a lightning strike. My whole body went cold.

"What did you just say?"

Jax stepped forward, his expression dark and dangerous.

"Explain. All of it."

The Ghost Doctor pointed to the deep gold color swirling inside the vial, his voice trembling. "She's not some defective. She never was. She's a Blood Healer a gift that comes along maybe once in a century. Her blood, her pheromones they can purify the feral rage in any shifter."

I sat on the bed, completely hollow. My mind had gone blank.

Fifteen years.

Fifteen years of cold stares and cruelty from my own family. Fifteen years of being called worthless. I had always thought I was just unlucky that I'd been born without the ability to shift.

So it was true someone had deliberately destroyed me.

"There's more." The Ghost Doctor pulled out a specialized scalpel and walked over to me. "Girl, give me your left hand."

I reached out my left hand, trembling.

He pressed the tip of the blade gently against the inside of my wrist, drawing a shallow cut, then dripped a blue liquid into it.

In an instant, a strange black inscription surfaced beneath my skin like a venomous snake coiling around my veins.

"A Mate Interference Curse."

The Ghost Doctor stared at the inscription and drew a sharp breath.

"This is one of the most vile forbidden spells in existence. Someone forcibly twisted your fated mate bond. The reason you caught Maximilian's scent during your awakening that was this curse at work."

My head snapped up. I stared at Jax, disbelief written all over my face.

"Then my true mate is"

The Ghost Doctor let out a cold laugh. "Still don't get it? That bastard Maximilian didn't just steal the throne that rightfully belonged to Jax he used this filthy trick to try and steal Jax's fated mate too."

The cigarette in Jax's hand crumbled to ash.

A wave of murderous energy exploded from him, and every pane of glass in the room began to rattle violently.

It all made sense now.

That was why Maximilian suffered such a violent backlash when he rejected me in the arena. He was never my mate to begin with. He had forced himself into that place, and fate was making him pay for it.

And that was why, in my darkest moments, catching Jax's scent had made me feel safe.

Because he was where I truly belonged.

"Can it be broken?" Jax's eyes were locked on the Ghost Doctor, his voice cold as ice.

The Ghost Doctor wiped the sweat from his forehead. "It can. But it requires the blood of the true mate, combined with a dual-cultivation ritual to fully shatter the Soullock Herb's seal. The process will be extremely painful. And"

"And what?"

"And the moment the seal breaks, her presence will be exposed instantly. The entire Night Alliance will know she exists. Maximilian's half-beast soldiers the ones already on the edge of madness will come for her like sharks smelling blood."

Jax crossed to the bed and stood over me, looking down.

His gaze was deep and dangerous, like an abyss ready to swallow its prey whole.

"Serena." His long fingers tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet his eyes. "Are you scared?"

I looked at him. The weakness and tears in my eyes faded away, replaced by a hatred carved straight to the bone.

Fifteen years of lies. The humiliation in that arena.

Maximilian. Tiffany. And the woman who called herself my foster mother.

I grabbed Jax's hand and dug my nails into his skin.

"I'm not scared. I want the seal broken. I want every single one of them to pay in blood."

Jax smiled.

"Good. I'll help you."

Maximilian's retaliation came faster than I expected.

The preparations to break the seal would take three days.

In those three days, the entire Night Alliance descended into chaos.

Because Maximilian had forcibly rejected his fated mate even if the bond had been a fake one his bloodline began showing severe signs of rejection. The elite guard he controlled through the dominance of his bloodline started breaking down en masse, erupting into fits of uncontrollable rage.

Every day, half-beasts were losing control and attacking people in the streets.

Maximilian was losing his grip.

And Tiffany, that fool, decided to deflect the blame by spreading rumors through the Alliance claiming that I, the so-called "cursed one," had stolen a sacred relic from the Cross family and brought this disaster down on them all.

She even showed up with a squad of fully armed mercenaries and surrounded the Ghost Doctor's underground clinic.

"Serena! Get your ass out here, you little bitch!"

Tiffany stood in the pouring rain, a megaphone in her hand, her voice sharp enough to cut glass.

"You throw yourself at some other man, betray Max, and now you want to destroy the whole Alliance? Get out here and face what's coming to you!"

I stood in front of the clinic's security monitors, staring coldly at Tiffany's twisted face.

Jax was on the couch behind me, calmly running a cloth along the blade of his combat knife.

"Want me to go out there and twist her head off?" he said, his tone as casual as if he were commenting on the weather.

"No."

I stood up. A cold flash crossed my eyes.

"My enemies. My revenge."

I shoved open the clinic's iron door and walked out.

The rain was pouring down in sheets.

Tiffany spotted me and stumbled back two steps, jabbing her finger in my direction. "You actually came out! Grab her! Dead or alive, I don't care!"

More than a dozen mercenaries raised their weapons and closed in on me.

I didn't move.

I stood in the rain and slowly closed my eyes.

Over these past three days of treatment, the Soullock Herb's toxins had been nearly purged from my system.

The power of the Blood Spirit Healer was awakening inside my veins.

My eyes snapped open. My pupils bled into a deep, unnatural crimson.

An invisible wave of psychic force absolute, crushing, unstoppable exploded outward from my body.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The mercenaries at the front of the charge dropped like they'd been hit by a sledgehammer. Blood poured from their eyes, their ears, their noses. They were dead before they hit the ground.

Tiffany screamed and stumbled backward, landing hard in the mud.

"You what did you do?! You're supposed to be useless!"

I walked toward her, slow and steady, and looked down at her from where she sat in the dirt.

"You're pathetic, Tiffany. Maximilian would rather suffer the backlash than touch you, and you still crawl around protecting him like a dog."

"Shut up!" she shrieked, her voice cracking.

I crouched down and grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back.

"Go tell Maximilian to say his prayers. Everything he owes me everything he owes Jax I'm coming to collect. Every last bit of it, with interest."

I slapped her across the face. Hard. The force sent her skidding across the ground.

Tiffany spat out a bloody tooth, then scrambled on her hands and knees back to the car.

I hadn't noticed Jax move, but he was standing behind me now.

He was holding a black umbrella, angled so that I was sheltered beneath it.

"Does your hand hurt?" He lifted the hand I'd hit her with and pressed his lips gently against my knuckles.

My heart skipped.

"No," I said.

"Then let's go home." Jax's eyes darkened. His voice carried a quiet authority that left no room for argument. "Tonight, we break the last seal."