The Alpha's Silent Vow

Chapter 4

The car ride the next morning is silent except for two men up front who keep sneaking glances back at me like I might disappear completely if they blink for too long. I sit pressed against the far door, my small bag hugged tight against my chest, watching Ashwood's gates shrink smaller and smaller in the side mirror until they finally disappear behind a bend in the road.

"She is not like the others," Silas says to them, low and firm, before we even pull fully away from Ashwood's gates. "Do not stare at her. Do not speak to her unless she speaks to you first."

I do not know what he means by the others, and I am too afraid to ask him about it. The word sits heavy in my chest the rest of the drive. I wonder how many women have sat in this exact seat before me, and whether any of them are still around to warn me about what waits at the other end of this road.

The countryside changes slowly outside my window. Ashwood's territory is all grey stone and bare trees, everything scraped down to the bone the way I have always known it. The land past the border looks nothing like that. Green hills roll out for miles, thick forests line the roads, and everything looks fed, cared for, alive in a way I am not used to seeing.

We pull up outside a house three times the size of my brother's, all glass and pale stone and quiet, sprawling grounds. A fountain sits in the middle of the circular drive, water catching the morning light. I have never seen anything like it outside of the magazine pages Selene used to leave lying around the kitchen, the ones with houses she said she deserved and I never would. I clutch my one small bag of belongings tight to my chest and follow him inside on legs that feel like they belong to someone else entirely.

"This is the dining hall," he says, walking me through room after enormous room. "This is the kitchen. Anything you need at all, you simply write it on that board over there, and it gets ordered for you."

I do not answer him. I am not even sure my voice would work properly right now if I tried to use it.

"You have said nothing since we left," he says, stopping in front of me at last. "Do you need something? Because there is absolutely no way you are living here with only what fits inside that small bag."

"I do not need anything," I whisper.

He sighs, grabs a pen off the kitchen counter, and starts writing anyway, ignoring what I just told him completely. Underwear. Real clothes that fit properly. Shoes that will not fall apart within a week. Things I have never once in my whole life been asked if I actually wanted.

Then his hands close around my waist to measure my size properly, his thumbs meeting just above my belly button, and I feel him go completely still.

"How are you even standing upright," he mutters, more to himself than to me really. His fingers have already found my ribs without even trying very hard.

I say nothing at all. What is there left for me to say to that. I have heard variations of that same question my whole life, usually followed by a laugh, or a shrug, or the closing of a door. I brace myself for whichever version is coming next, but it never arrives. He simply lets his hands fall away and finishes writing on the list instead, his jaw tight the entire time, like the question has cost him something to ask out loud.

The kitchen smells faintly of fresh bread, and somewhere down the hall I can hear someone laughing, an easy, careless sound that does not belong to fear at all. I have never heard laughter like that inside a house before, not one I have lived in. It makes my chest ache in a way I do not have words for.

"I know you have things you want to say," he says, quieter now, softer. "I am not interested in whatever nonsense Torin taught you about staying silent all the time. You are allowed to speak freely here, Rhea. Are you hurt anywhere on your body right now?"

"No."

It is a lie, plain and simple, and I know without a doubt that he can feel it the very second it leaves my mouth.

"I will mark you," he says instead of pushing that particular lie any further right now. "Soon. So that I can feel exactly what you are feeling instead of constantly having to guess at it."

"Mark me?" My mind goes completely blank for a moment. "You brought me all the way here just so you could mark me?"

He studies my face for a long moment, and whatever he finds there makes something behind his grey eyes soften just slightly. "You truly did not know." It is not really a question at all. Something shifts behind his grey eyes, something like sudden realization, and maybe even a small flicker of guilt underneath it. "You are going to be my bride, Rhea. Not my slave, never my slave. If your brother had simply bothered reading the contract properly, he would have known that from the very start."

"I am a murderer," I whisper, my voice cracking slightly. "Why would someone like you want someone like me for a bride?"

His eyes drop down to my dress before I can even finish that thought, and I watch his entire face change in an instant.

"What is that," his voice drops low and suddenly dangerous.

I look down at myself. A dark stain has already spread wide across the fabric, right where his hands had just been resting moments ago.

"It is nothing," I say quickly, covering the spot with my palm on instinct. "Just a small cut. It keeps reopening on its own somehow. I honestly forget it is even there most days."

"Forget," he repeats slowly, like the word itself tastes wrong sitting in his mouth. "Show me right now."

"It is fine, really..."

"That is not an answer I will accept from you twice." His voice does not rise at all, but it does not need to rise to make its point clear. "Show me, or I will find some way to see for myself regardless."