Knots of the Hybrid Queen: Claimed by Four Alphas

Fae training started at dawn the next morning which was approximately six hours after I’d sworn the fealty oath, and apparently rest wasn’t a concept the Seelie Court understood because Eirlys was waiting in the training yard when I stumbled out still half-asleep.

"Hybrid Queen." Their voice carried command weight that made the oath bindings flare. "We begin."

We begin. Right. No good morning, no warm-up, just immediate brutal training.

"What exactly—" I started but Eirlys cut me off with a gesture.

"Freeze time. Hold it for five minutes."

Five minutes. I’d barely managed thirty seconds before my nose started bleeding and they wanted five minutes?

"I can’t—" The words stuck in my throat because the oath wouldn’t let me refuse a direct command.

Oh. Oh no.

I tried again. "That will kill me."

"Then do not die." Eirlys’s smile was sharp. "The Root will not care about your limitations. Neither do we. Freeze time. Now."

Now. The command carried oath weight and my body moved before my brain could protest, reaching for the temporal magic and pushing.

Time stopped. The leaves on nearby trees frozen mid-fall. The air itself still.

I held it. Thirty seconds. One minute. My nose started bleeding.

Two minutes. My vision tunneled.

Three minutes. My heart was doing that thing where it forgot rhythm was important.

Four minutes. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore and my brain was screaming that this was how I died, holding time frozen because the Fae commanded it and the oath wouldn’t let me stop.

"Enough." Eirlys’s voice cut through and I dropped the freeze immediately, collapsing to my knees while my heart tried to remember how to beat properly.

"Four minutes seventeen seconds." They made notes on something I couldn’t see through the blood pouring from my nose. "Adequate. We will reach ten minutes by week’s end."

Ten minutes. They wanted me to hold time frozen for ten minutes when four had nearly killed me.

"That’s impossible." I managed to get the words out between gasping breaths.

"Nothing is impossible for the Hybrid Queen." Eirlys moved closer. "You simply have not been pushed hard enough. The wolves coddle you. The vampires fear breaking you. We will do neither. You will become what you must be or you will die trying."

Die trying. Right. Because the Fae cared about results not survival.

"Again." The command flared through the oath. "Five minutes this time."

"She needs to recover—" Kael’s voice cut across the training yard and I turned to see all four of my mates standing at the edge looking absolutely murderous.

"The Hybrid Queen belongs to the Seelie Court now." Eirlys didn’t even look at them. "Her recovery time is ours to determine. And we determine she is ready. Again, Hybrid Queen. Five minutes."

The oath compelled and I reached for the temporal magic even though my hands were shaking and my nose was still bleeding and every cell in my body was screaming that this was too much too fast.

Time stopped. I held it. One minute. Two. Three.

At four minutes my heart actually stopped. Just completely stopped beating because apparently that was my body’s limit and the temporal magic didn’t care.

I felt myself dying—that same sensation from the ritual, that space between heartbeats stretching into forever—and through the bonds all four mates were screaming my name but I couldn’t respond because I was caught in temporal stasis dying while the Fae watched.

Five minutes.

"Release it." Eirlys’s voice was calm. Clinical.

I dropped the freeze and my heart kicked back into rhythm with a lurch that made my entire chest seize, and this time when I collapsed Thorne caught me before I hit the ground.

"This stops." His voice was more growl than words. "Now."

"This continues until she is ready to face The Root." Eirlys finally looked at him. "Or would you prefer she die in actual combat because we coddled her in training?"

"Training that kills her is not training." Draven’s voice was ice. "It’s torture."

"It is necessity." Eirlys’s expression didn’t change. "The Root will push her past death. We are simply preparing her to survive it. The fealty oath ensures she cannot refuse. The mate bonds ensure she will recover. The combination makes her unbreakable."

Unbreakable. I didn’t feel unbreakable. I felt broken. Shattered. Used.

"One hour rest." Eirlys made more notes. "Then we train temporal reversal. She will learn to rewind her own death. Master it. Or die permanently when The Root forces the issue."

Rewind my own death. They wanted me to die and bring myself back. Repeatedly. Until I mastered it.

Through the bonds Kael’s rage crashed into Riven’s horror crashed into Thorne’s feral need to rip the Fae apart, and Draven’s clinical assessment that the Fae were right—this was the only way to survive The Root but it might kill me before we got there.

"I didn’t agree to this." The words came out broken. "I agreed to training. Not—" Not torture. Not dying repeatedly. Not becoming a weapon through destruction.

"You agreed to fealty." Eirlys’s voice was matter-of-fact. "Which means you agreed to whatever we deem necessary. The oath is absolute. You cannot refuse. You cannot resist. You are ours until death releases you."

Until death releases me. Right. Except they were teaching me to reverse death so maybe not even that was an escape.

I tried to stand and my legs wouldn’t cooperate. Tried to push through the mate bonds for comfort and found them frayed at the edges from the strain of feeling me die twice in fifteen minutes.

"This is wrong." Kael’s Alpha command filled the space. "Release her from the oath. Now."

"No." Simple. Final. "She swore of her own free will. The binding cannot be undone except by her death or our release. And we will not release her until The Root is destroyed. These are the terms she accepted."

The terms I accepted. Right. Except I hadn’t known accepting meant having no autonomy, no choice, no escape from commands that killed me repeatedly.

"One hour." Eirlys gestured to my mates. "Use it wisely. The next session will be harder."

Harder. How could dying repeatedly get harder?

Except I had a feeling I was about to find out.

And through the oath bindings I felt the Fae’s satisfaction that I was learning exactly what fealty meant.

Absolute obedience. No refusal. No escape.

I was theirs. Completely. Until death.

And death might not even be enough anymore.

The hour rest Eirlys had granted turned into forty minutes of healers checking vitals and my mates trying to figure out if there was any way to stop this, and then the Fae was back.

"Temporal reversal." They pulled me to my feet even though my legs were still shaking. "You will practice bringing yourself back from death. Die. Reverse it. Repeatedly. Until resurrection is instinct."

Resurrection is instinct. They wanted dying and coming back to be as automatic as breathing.

"I can’t just—" I started but the oath flared and the words died.

"You can." Eirlys’s smile was sharp. "You already have. Twice today. Now you will master it. Freeze your own heart. Hold death for sixty seconds. Reverse it. Begin."

The command compelled and I reached for the temporal magic with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking, focused inward on my own heartbeat, and pushed.

Freeze.

My heart stopped. That terrible suspension between beats stretching into forever. Sixty seconds of clinical death while the Fae watched with clinical detachment.

Reverse.

My heart kicked back and I was gasping, and through the bonds I felt all four mates absolutely shattering.

"Again." Eirlys didn’t even wait for me to recover. "Faster. Thirty seconds death. Instant reversal."

Again.

And again.

And again.

Five times I died and brought myself back in twenty minutes, and by the end of it the mate bonds were so fractured I could barely feel them anymore.

I was becoming the Fae’s weapon. One death at a time.