The Wolf King's Captive Bride

BANG!!! The loud noise of the steel door slamming shut jolted me awake. I froze, body tensed for the fight, but the footsteps were fading into the distance, down the long hallway outside my dungeon. I wrinkled my nose in disgust as the sour, musty smell of unwashed clothing wafted towards me, overpowering the wholesome scent of the porridge on the table by the door. Ignoring the washing, I jumped out of bed and grabbed the bowl, heading to the furthest part of the room away from the laundry to devour my breakfast. Through the cracked and barred window at the top of the damp stone wall, I could see the almost full moon peering through. I sighed as I ate, wishing that the Moon Goddess would send me some brown sugar on my porridge tomorrow. Tomorrow was my 18th birthday, not that anyone knew or cared, I thought morosely to myself. I supposed I would spend it here, in the dungeon, washing everyone’s dirty socks. Just like the last 8 years of my life, day in and day out, trapped here to do the laundry. I had been stuck here as a prisoner and the Black Forest pack’s laundry slave, ever since I was ten years old. As the daughter of a traitor, who tried to kill the King himself, I was lucky they let me live at all. Although it wasn’t much of a life; ever since that day I had been imprisoned in this underground dungeon, made to wash the pack’s clothes ‘to earn my keep.’ And, what was worse, bored completely senseless and without any human company, unless one of the younger pack members was bored and needed someone to torment. I was an outcast, forsaken and forgotten, not even allowed upstairs to wash dishes. A fit of anger washed over me, and I whirled around and threw the empty bowl at the locked steel door. ‘It’s just so unfair!’ my wolf, Sahara, growled as I paced the large room, lined with washing machines and clothes driers on one side, a wobbly wooden stool, and my small iron bed pushed up against the other. ‘I just want to feel the sun on my fur again.’ I tried to calm myself down, if I let Sahara take over they would bring the chains and beat me again. I shuddered at the thought, rubbing the thick scars on my wrists as I remembered the agony of the burning silver. ‘Jas, I am trying to be patient, but it has been ten years! We’re 18 tomorrow, how will we get out of here? How will we find our mate?’ I rolled my eyes. Mates were the last thing I was dreaming of. In spite of being so fiery, my wolf was such a hopeless romantic it made me sick sometimes. Sahara whined again, trying to get me to agree with her. ‘What if our mate is Bryden? What would you give to run alongside him in the forest?’ I paused for a moment, indulging my wolf. ‘Bryden is very tempting…and I know you have a soft spot for Kade.’