Four

Hayden's POV

The thing with power was that it made you drunk, over and over and then one day, it loses that kick and becomes useless.

I had power. I was born with it flowing through my veins. My mother had labored for three days straight and then the pack doctor gave up trying and decided he'd rather poison her womb and get me out by force.

Whatever he used hadn't been strong enough.

I came out a healthy child with my mother's heart in my hands.

The sickening part of it all was that I could remember it. I could remember staring up at the doctor's horrified face, clutching my mother's heart between my hands, crying my eyes out.

And for years, that memory would haunt me every single time I closed my eyes. And then more haunting memories joined.

"Alpha sir," The guards saluted when I approached my chambers. I had told Elena to give me the room farthest from everyone.

She had propped me on the highest floor with a handful of guards I didn't need.

I merely walked past their wide eyes, aware that I was naked as hell.

A vein popped in my neck at the memory of what happened at the lake.

Who was that doxy? White hair that shimmered like silver in the moonlight. Those blue sultry eyes. They looked icy, like daggers ready to pierce through my soul.

I had seen her when she arrived with the Snowcap Alpha. A mere pup. I wondered how he had managed to rule and protect his pack.

And then I wondered how he had managed to snag a gorgeous she-wolf as his harlot.

My wolf snarled in anger when I recalled the way he had held on to her at the square this morning. She was daring, she was bold. She smelled of lemons and roses and drove me mad with hunger.

I grew hard just thinking about her.

She deserved a better owner.

Me?

Hell yes. I could show her a real man. Bounce her on my thighs while she screamed in pleasure. Everything about her screamed exotic. Her sweet golden skin. Her lips. Full and crowned with a seductive bow.

I recalled her sticking out her small pink tongue to lick my precum off her fingers and my cock lurched shamelessly.

I had my fair share of women over the years. But no one had my wolf raging with need. Except her.

We should have her, he growled in my head while I climbed into the bathtub. Someone, a maid perhaps, had left a hot bath running.

Except it wasn't just a bath.

It was poisoned.

I sighed, sinking deeper into the burning water, feeling it try to eat at my flesh but failing terribly.

"Step out," I ordered. I had sniffed him out the minute I walked into my chambers.

My assassin stepped out from behind the drapes, dressed in a black outfit and a mask over his face. His body trembled as he faced me.

"That was the grim poison," He stuttered. "It should eat deep into your skin! You should be dead!"

I gave him a bored look.

"You should be more creative when it comes to killing the one who commands death, no?"

I tipped my head at the door. "Get out,"

He blinked and I could smell his nervousness. "You're letting me go? I just tried to kill you!"

"And it didn't work," I growled at him. "You had just one job to do and you failed at it. Get out of my sight, pup!"

He glanced at the door, then back at me before whipping out a dagger.

Silver. I could smell it.

"It's a trap," He whispered, "You're going to kill me the minute I turn away!"

I sighed and closed my eyes, leaning deeper into his bath.

Well, I tried. It wasn't the first time someone tried to assassinate me. Probably would not be the last time. But these fools still had learned nothing.

Nothing could hurt me.

The pup lunged at me with a knife, sticking it in my arm. The silver only burned against my skin for a minute before it cracked in half, not even managing to bruise me.

The assassin gasped in horror and then stepped away, eyes wide in fear.

"You should run, kid," I scowled.

He took one last look at the bath before running out of the room. The guards outside did not have as much mercy. I could hear the sound of their swords cutting through him.

It was sad. A part of me, a growing part, wished desperately that he had succeeded. At least then he could put an end to the noise in my head.

The blood-curling screams, the blood, the pleas for mercy. I clutched my head groaning in pain.

An arrow crashed through the window, hitting the bathtub and breaking me out of the madness in my head. There was a simple note attached to it.

"Tavern,"

Crap. If poison did not work, then this one just might.