Cursed to Marry the Alpha

Elira Vane's hands wouldn't stop shaking. She pressed them flat against her thighs, hidden beneath the table, so no one would see. So he wouldn't see. The council hall smelled like old wood and older blood. Generations of pack leaders had sat in this room and decided who lived, who died, who married who. Tonight, it was her turn to be decided. Candlelight flickered against stone walls carved with names of Alphas long dead. Elira used to think this room was beautiful. Tonight it just felt like a cage with better lighting. "The Ashwood pack has agreed to the terms," her father said, his voice too calm, too practiced. "Elira will marry Alpha Damon Voss within the month." Silence. Elira lifted her eyes. He was already looking at her. Damon Voss sat across the long table like he owned the air around him. Which, in a way, he did. Broad shoulders. Dark, unreadable eyes. A jaw that looked like it hadn't smiled in years. He didn't look at her like a bride. He looked at her like a problem someone had dropped on his desk. "She's the price for peace?" Damon's voice was low. Bored, almost. "A girl who's never held a blade, sealing a truce between two packs that have hated each other for a decade?" "Careful, Alpha," her father warned. "I'm not insulting her." Damon's gaze didn't move from Elira's face. "I'm insulting the idea that this will work." Elira's throat tightened. She wanted to disappear into the chair, into the floor, into anywhere that wasn't this room. But she didn't look away. "I'm not asking you to want this," she said, surprising herself with how steady her voice came out. "I'm asking you to sign it. That's all this is. A signature." Something shifted behind Damon's eyes. Just a flicker. Gone before she could name it. "A signature," he repeated slowly, like he was tasting the word and finding it bitter. "That's all," she said again, softer this time. Please. Let that be all. Because if it was more than a signature — if the bond between mates was real, if it completed — then the thing living in her blood, the thing her mother made her swear never to speak of, would wake up. And Damon Voss would be the one to pay for it. Around them, the council murmured. Elira caught fragments — Voss pack won't like this, her mother's line was always trouble, three weeks isn't enough time — but none of it mattered more than the man across the table, watching her like she was a puzzle he hadn't decided to solve yet. Her father cleared his throat. "The wedding will take place at the Voss estate. Full moon after next." "Convenient," Damon said. "Barely enough time to plan a funeral, let alone a wedding." "No one's dying, Alpha Voss." "That remains to be seen." He said it lightly. Almost like a joke. Elira's stomach dropped anyway. If only he knew how close to the truth he'd landed. The meeting stretched another hour. Terms exchanged. Borders discussed. A treaty that would stop two packs from tearing each other apart, written in the careful, bloodless language of men who would never have to bleed for it themselves. Elira sat through all of it with her spine straight and her hands hidden, memorizing the shape of the man she was about to marry. The way his jaw ticked when someone spoke too long. The way his eyes kept finding her, again and again, like he couldn't help it. By the time the council rose, her legs felt unsteady beneath her. She was almost at the door when a hand caught her wrist. Not rough. Not gentle either. Just certain. She turned, and Damon was closer than she expected. Close enough that she had to tilt her head up to meet his eyes. Close enough to smell cedar and rain on his skin. "You flinched," he said quietly. "In there. When your father said my name." "I didn't." "You did." His grip loosened, but he didn't let go. "Why?" Because I know what happens to Alphas who bond with me. Because my mother died screaming a name I never got to ask about. Because I have spent my whole life being told love is the one thing I'm not allowed to survive. "I don't know you," Elira said instead. "Strangers make me nervous. That's all." Damon studied her for a long moment. Too long. Like he was trying to read something written in a language he almost understood. "You're lying," he said. Not angry. Just certain, the way he said everything. "I'm marrying you in three weeks," Elira shot back. "Not confessing to you." A ghost of something crossed his face. Not quite a smile. "Fair enough, little wolf." He let go of her wrist. His fingers trailed against her skin as he did, and something in Elira's chest tightened at the loss of contact — which made no sense, which she refused to think about. "You don't have to be afraid of me," Damon added, quieter now. Almost like he hadn't meant to say it out loud. "I'm not afraid of you." "Then what are you afraid of?" Myself. What's inside me. What I'll do to you the moment this bond decides to finish what it started. "Nothing," Elira said. "Goodnight, Alpha Voss." She turned to leave — and that's when it happened. A pulse. Low in her chest, spreading fast, like a second heartbeat waking up beneath her own. Her skin prickled. Her breath caught somewhere between her ribs and her throat. The corridor around her blurred at the edges, like the world itself had leaned in to watch. She stopped walking. Behind her, she heard Damon go completely still. Slowly, she turned back. He was staring at her like she'd just set the room on fire. His hand had risen to his own chest, fingers curling against his shirt like he could physically hold something in. "You felt that," he said. It wasn't a question. Elira's pulse roared in her ears. "Felt what?" But she knew. Goddess help her, she knew exactly what that pulse was. The bond didn't wait for weddings. It didn't care about signatures or council terms or three-week grace periods. It had just recognized its match. Damon took a step toward her, something raw and disbelieving breaking through the ice in his expression for the very first time. Up close, she could see the fine tremor in his jaw, the way his eyes had darkened, gone almost gold at the edges. "Tell me you didn't feel that," he said, voice rough now, stripped of its earlier boredom. "Tell me, and I'll let it go." Elira opened her mouth to lie. Nothing came out. Because right then, watching the color drain from Damon Voss's face as the bond settled deeper into both of them, one word finally broke through the fear roaring in her mind. Too late.