Fated To The Wrong Alpha

TESSA Kaz Ryker is going to kill me. Not today. Not dramatically. Just eventually. The Alpha of the strongest kingdom in the realm is in the next room deciding whether my heart keeps beating, and the worst part is that I already understand how this works. My brother killed one of theirs. It was an accident, a moment of chaos and bad timing and goddess knows what other unfortunate thing. But none of that matters when a body falls. Murder doesn’t care about intention, only consequence. Moonscar’s reply arrived within a day. No negotiation. No mercy dressed up as reason. Send us the killer’s head. Or we come for all of you. My father refused. Marcus is his only son, his heir, the thing he loves more than his own breath. There was never a world in which he would hand him over. So we chose war instead. *** Six hours ago, I was fastening armor onto a body that had no business being anywhere close to a battlefield, while the castle shook with chaos of preparation, the sound of steel and shouted orders bleeding into every corridor. “Women don’t fight.” Marcus stepped into my path outside the war room, his expression tight, his shoulders squared like he could physically hold me back if he had to. I didn’t slow. “Move.” “Tessa—” “You trained me.” I shoved past him, fingers trembling as I pulled the straps of my chest plate tight. “You don’t get to decide this now. Not when it really matters.” “This is different,” he said sharply, grabbing my arm. “You’re not dying for my mistake.” I turned on him then, anger cutting clean through fear. “Your life is on the line. I won’t stay behind and pray while everyone else bleeds for you.” Something fractured in his face. Guilt, maybe. Fear. Pride he didn’t want to acknowledge. His grip loosened. He opened his mouth like he had more to say, then closed it and stepped aside. I’ve always hated our laws. The way they dress cowardice up as protection. They expect the women to stay home. Cook. Give birth. Be safe. While the men go out there and die like it’s some kind of honor. I’ve always found it barbaric. Marcus also never believed in that. And so he trained me anyway, despite father’s objections. He showed me how to fight dirty. How to survive, because no one else is coming to save you. What he never taught me was balance, and that’s what sent me tumbling over the cliff. The explosion ripped through the front line, the ground vanishing beneath my feet before I could react. I remember falling and thinking, So this is how it ends. But it didn’t. I hit the gravel hard, rolled, came up gasping with blood in my mouth and pain screaming through my shoulder. The battlefield was chaos in its purest form—bodies everywhere, screams torn raw, the air thick with smoke and copper. My father was already dead. I’d seen him fall earlier, throat torn open before I could reach him, and there’d been no time to stop or scream or grieve. Only the animal instinct to survive. My sword dragged in my hand as I searched the c*****e for Marcus, my chest tight with the need to see his face, to know he was still alive. Then I heard it. A cough. Behind me. Every instinct I had screamed at me to run. I turned anyway. He stood there like the war had bent around him instead of touching him. Black armor. Broad shoulders. Blood everywhere, none of it slowing him down. The Moonscar sigil gleamed on his chest. Kaz Ryker. The stories don’t do him justice. They don’t mention the way he looks at you like he’s already decided what you are. Prey. I took a step back. Then another. He closed the distance in seconds. My back hit the ground. His hand locked around my shoulder, fingers biting deep enough to bruise. I kicked, clawed, swung wildly, panic making everything clumsy. “Get off me!” I screamed, my blade arcing uselessly through the air. He knocked it from my hand with humiliating ease. Cold steel pressed to my throat, sharp enough that I could feel my pulse against it. “Please,” I didn’t mean to say it, hated that it slipped out anyway. He didn’t answer. Instead, he tore my helmet off, and my hair spilled free, heavy with blood and dirt. I met his gaze with everything I had left, ready to die snarling. Then he stopped. His eyes locked onto mine, and the battlefield fell away. No screams. No movement. Just the unbearable weight of his attention. Something unreadable crossed his face. His sword lowered. Just enough to notice. I sucked in a shaky breath. “Do it,” I whispered. “Or let me go.” For a long moment, he only watched me. Then he sheathed his blade, bent down, and lifted me like I weighed nothing, throwing me over his shoulder without a word. “Put me down!” I beat my fists against his back, kicked, twisted, but he didn’t even slow. The fighting stilled as he carried me through it. My people stared in horror. His watched in confusion. No one stopped him. I didn’t understand it then. I still don’t. *** Now I’m standing outside the council chamber, two hours later, waiting to learn what he’s decided to do with me. The doors groan open. Marcus stumbles out first, his face pale, his eyes unfocused like he’s seen something he can’t unsee. “What happened?” I grab his arm. “Marcus, tell me what happened.” “The war is over,” he says. Relief should’ve hit me. But the look on his face tells me everything I need to know. Something is wrong. “How?” I ask quietly. “A treaty.” His voice sounds wrong, hollowed out. “They agreed to a treaty.” My stomach tightens. “A treaty about what?” He swallows, his grip tightening on my hand like he’s afraid to let go. “About you leaving with him.” The words don’t make sense at first. “Leaving with him? Marcus, what does that even—” A voice cuts in behind him, low and steady, threading through the room like a blade. “It means you’re coming home with me.” I look up. Kaz Ryker stands in the doorway, dark eyes fixed on me, and unflinching. The air feels too thin. Too tight. He steps forward. “Home,” he repeats. Then, his voice calm, final, inescapable— “As my wife.”