Mark of Sin: Bound to the Cruel Alpha

Magnus’s fingers instinctively brushed the inside of his wrist, where a thin black line was etched beneath the skin.

The first warning. Two more of those, and they would put him down like a rabid dog, deeming him an irredeemable hazard to society.

And if even a fraction of what he had done during these five years without her ever came to light... they’d execute him on the spot. He had committed far more than two tattoos’ worth of atrocities.

He had hunted down every single person involved. Down to the very last bastard.

The guard who had stood outside her cell executing orders. The official who issued those commands. The mastermind behind the whole setup. Everyone who had laid so much as a finger on her path to death.

Right now, most of them were feeding the fish at the bottom of the ocean. The rest were still suffering—their every waking day turned into a custom-crafted hell.

Magnus exhaled a cloud of smoke and tilted his head back, closing his eyes. The surrounding roses bled a sickly sweet, suffocating aroma into the air, so thick and heavy it felt as though he were breathing blood.

Red roses. Hundreds of deep crimson blossoms cultivated across the entire garden, every single one bred and named in her honor. A custom hybrid... found nowhere else in the world but right here.

He came here every single week—sometimes every few days—sitting in silence for hours on end. Cigarette after cigarette burned down to his fingers while he stayed close to this cold, unyielding stone statue that would never answer him, never turn to look at him with eyes brimming with that fragile mix of terror and hope.

"Pharean refused again," he murmured aloud, addressing the stone. His voice sounded raspy, worn down to the bone. "One thousand, one hundred and twenty-eight letters. He probably doesn’t even bother opening them anymore. Just stamps them and sends them straight back: Denied."

A heavy silence settled over the pavilion, broken only by the dry rustle of rose leaves in the wind.

"I offered a hundred million this time," Magnus continued, a dark, humorless chuckle escaping his lips. "I thought greed might finally override his pride. Those bastards in the Lower District are always starving for resources. But no. He isn’t selling. Stubborn, arrogant prick.

What the hell did he want from you anyway? Shame your father took that secret to his grave... The pathetic worm died of pure terror the second he set eyes on me. Where did a little thing like you get all that courage?"

He opened his eyes and stared at the marble face, a suffocating wave of powerlessness tightening around his chest.

"I need you here. Right beside me. Do you understand?" His voice cracked, dropping to a raw, barely audible whisper. "Not in that filthy, overcrowded public burial ground. Here. In this garden. Where I can sit beside you, talk to you... where you’ll be safe."

Safe.

What a fucking mockery. She was dead, yet his mate instincts were still desperately trying to protect her—reacting to a failure that had already destroyed them both.

He stubbed out his cigarette against the dirt and immediately struck a flame to light another. His fingers trembled slightly; he squeezed the metal lighter until his knuckles turned white, forcing the tremor to stop.

Weakness. He had no right to display weakness. Not now. Not after everything he had done.

"If only I had believed you back then," he rasped, forcing each word out past a tight throat. He had replayed these thoughts a million times in his head, but speaking them aloud tore through him with devastating force.

"If I hadn’t been such a brutal bastard... if I hadn’t screamed at you, blamed you... you’d still be breathing. If I hadn’t dragged you to meet my family... hadn’t told Hugo... if I hadn’t lost my mind to the drugs they pumped into my system... we would be together. We might have had a child by now. You would be bearing my name. You’d be smiling at me in the morning instead of lying cold beneath six feet of dirt."

Silence answered him once more. The marble remained still.

Magnus dragged on his cigarette so hard the acrid smoke scorched his throat, triggering a ragged cough. He didn’t drop the filter. Physical pain was welcome; it provided a temporary anchor against the agony clawing at his insides.

"I regret it," he whispered, his voice fracturing completely. "I regret every single fucking second. And I don’t know how to go on. I don’t know how to live with this. Jane..."

A gust of wind swept through the open arches of the pavilion, stripping crimson petals from the surrounding bushes. They swirled through the air like a bloody deluge before settling onto the earth, dusting his shoulders and the white stone of her monument. Deep, vivid red. The exact shade of the blood that had smeared his hands when he bit her lifeless body in the morgue.

Every detail of that day remained branded into his mind with white-hot iron. He remembered forcing himself to turn his back and walk away from her in that filthy visitation room, terrified of the ravenous hunger her scent unleashed in his wolf. It had taken every ounce of his willpower to step out that door. His inner beast had roared in protest, thrashing against his ribs, refusing to let her go.

Then came the sudden, searing agony of his bond mark flaring to life on the drive home—and instantly, his mind was consumed by her. Only her.

Karina hadn’t even entered his thoughts for a fraction of a second... not that she ever had. Through every feverish day spent chained to a hospital bed, Jane was the only vision that haunted his delirium.

Every emotion—from murderous rage to pure, consuming obsession—had belonged entirely to her. He remembered the blur of speed as he tore back toward her, the desperate phone call to his lawyer... all of it etched forever into his soul.

How ice-cold her skin had felt beneath his lips. How violently his wolf had thrashed inside him, screaming at him to warm her... because an Alpha is supposed to protect and warm his mate. He had completely lost his mind, unable to process or accept that she was already gone.

He remembered how her scent no longer carried that delicate, intoxicating sweetness—lost entirely beneath the overwhelming stench of chemicals and death.

He remembered how his fangs tore into her cold flesh, forcing a bond mark into her neck that could never take root, because she was already dead.

But he hadn’t cared. He had to do it. He had to mark her—even in death—because she belonged to him. Only him. And not even death itself would take her away from him.

Then came the strike team. The flashbangs. The gas. Total darkness.

When he finally clawed his way back to consciousness, they had already taken her body away. Buried her without him. And Pharean had seized legal custody over her estate and remains. The bastard was playing a long game of revenge. Buying out a deceased convict’s rights from the state wasn’t an easy task, but Pharean had thrown millions at the bureaucrats to seal the deal.

Magnus clenched his fists until his short nails dug deep into his palms, piercing the flesh. Warm blood welled up and trickled down his fingers. Pain. Always pain. Yet it changed nothing. It brought her no closer.

"I’ll come back for you soon," he told the statue, pushing himself up off the dirt and brushing the debris from his jeans. "I promise. I’ll find a way to tear you out of that ground. Even if I have to put a bullet through Pharean’s head. Even if I have to burn the entire Lower District to ash. You will be here. With me."

He turned on his heel and strode back down the winding stone path without looking back. He knew if he allowed himself to turn around even once, he wouldn’t leave. He would stay collapsed against the marble until morning, until nightfall, until the next day—just as he had done so many times before.

The heavy door of the rose garden gave a long, metallic creak as it swung shut behind him. The sound echoed hollowly through the empty space in his chest where his heart used to beat.

There was nothing left inside him now. His heart was buried two meters beneath the dirt, permanently resting in her cold, fragile hands.

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