within. To the alpha below him, he spoke. “If she had turned. If she had stopped. If I had not reached out and seized that thread, perhaps she would have acknowledged you. It is just, you are unworthy.” His voice was guttural, and the sound was pleasant but to hear it, you would feel a stabbing pain in your head and mind followed by a heart-gripping pain in your chest. Depending on his mood, you would feel agonizing pain from his aura to the depths of your soul buried deep within your domain psyche. This is how it feels to be in the presence of god of pain.

A red mist drifted from his mouth, writhing, disappearing in the yawning darkness. His lower eyes looked down on the beast struggling with his words and the will to survive. While his primary two stared up into the darkness subconsciously searching for his beloved.

His entire body thrummed with the need to have her. Finished with his speech, Dron parted his lips, releasing a slow breath.

He wished to part the veil separating his ever-shifting domain from their realm and snatch her into his arms. If he had not on a whim decided to spy on his woman after organizing all of his pawns, Dron would have not had the opportunity to prevent his female from having the male she first claimed to be a wolf.

This wolf had been so close!

A step too late and he would have tethered himself to her.

He was unworthy, to become her first mate. Yet he could not kill him. What Dron could do, is have him taste the ecstasy of pain and despair.

So close to having but forever out of reach. Already, the taste of his pain fed him wonderfully.

He had plotted too long.

Tongue slipping from the prison of his mouth, it ran the length of both the upper and lower lip slowly before returning within.

Kristian, on the other hand, felt his world collapse. His mind tethering on the brink of madness. The god of pain he had heard of. One of the ancient gods, a god of darkness, he had been known by several names. Death, pain, horrors, agony, despair and others he had forgotten. Even though he is known by those other titles, pain is his official title.

For so long, the wolves had asked the main gods for assistance and this one appeared only to punish him because of his fated mate?

His Selene-alpha?

He was not willing to give up on his fated, even if one of the most powerful gods was before him. Parting his Jaws, Kristian growled the words out with difficulty in the tongue commonly spoken in the main realm. “My Selene-alpha is my fated. How could she be—mine-”

Dron felt his brothers’ clamour to take over, but they were too weak. The emotions from the collective males skyrocketed, causing their voices to echo in fury. “Shut up! What do you know? Do you believe that my woman, my goddess, my wife! Mine! Ours!” For a split second, the face of the god of pain twisted, and a shadow of five or six males appeared before disappearing. Dron, unaware of this, calmed himself and continued with his speech. “Could a male so weak become one of her mates?!” Dron and his brothers had searched too long for her.

Struggled? Dron had been by her side when she had been at her lowest!

To have her be mated to a pathetic, lowly alpha wolf? Would he not be a burden? He refuses to have her suffer at the hands of another and because of another! The wolf beneath his foot parted its maw, gasping out a few words.

“Then I can become stronger!” Kristian howled. Because it added pressure to his internal organs still being crushed by this god, he coughed, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

Dron’s eyes narrowed as he continued to look down on the wolf. His lips twisted into a sneer, riddled with disgust.

Powerful?

A wolf?

A lowly wolf?

Known for biting the hand that feeds?

Known for-

“Why hate my kind so?” Kristian questioned, feeling the hostility whenever the god saw him fit to be looked down upon. “Hate?” Dron asked the wolf on the verge of death. The images of the woman he had spent over three thousand olden with. Watching her grow from a small bundle to a woman. The woman who loved others, and then her heartbreaking cries as she suffered.

What could he do? Trapped as a lowly bird?

Feeling her pain, her sorrow, the despair and agony!

He is the god of pain. His power was gained from the suffering of others, but her taste was disgusting. He felt the power, but rejected it.

His beloved woman should not feel pain.

His beloved should not feel agony, sorrow, despair, or any of those negative emotions. She should feel love, happiness, and joy. Yet he… he had been too weak. His brothers had been too weak. They had been too weak!

Those gods above, those gods of his realm who found that his beloved.

His woman!

Theirs!

They deemed her too powerful, to the point that they were unable to control her.

Yet, how do you expect someone to trust you when you refuse to acknowledge them?

He saw how they had tirelessly worshipped those gods, and what had they done?

Nothing.

These gods were all unworthy of her worship.

His goddess is fit to be worshipped, never to worship another.

This wolf, his form, his scent, his soul— his very existence!—is a stain.

‘Brother…’

What those wolves had done to his precious-

The thoughts were cut off by the stuttering coming from his chest. The hearts were trying to beat but his emotions were too strong.

Dron looked down at his hands, seeing the spiritual flesh separate for a moment before disappearing.

It is not enough that he has the flesh of body taken over from the god of pain in this world, alas he is too weak to house him.

Well, he can tweak the body later but first, his goal. Doing this will ensure that his woman is moulded the way he wishes her to be.

When he is ready— ‘brother’—when they were ready, she will be well prepared for the arrival of his dear niece and nephews along with their offspring. “Wait! In this life, I will only have this-“

Dron cut him off. He didn’t care. He only had one her. What made a lowly alpha and a wolf at that, above him? It felt good to bullshit him though.

“No, you will have another. The thread of fate can be manipulated-“

“No!” Kristian roared, he felt his once imprisoned power burst forth.

Wolves had brute force, their bones, flesh, claws and fangs reinforced naturally to rip into the gods. Dron knew this, learned from the mind of the previous god of pain he had destroyed before occupying his body so he could dwell within this realm where his beloved had entered after her fifth death. The wolf swelled beneath him both howling and roaring like a beast possessed.

Dron wondered if he had to kill him in self-defence. Would his beloved forgive him?