THE ALPHA'S CRUELEST DECREE
"I, Darius Nightshade, do take you, Ravenna Frost, to be my mate."
No words could hurt Ravenna worse than the way that one did, and Ravenna gasped for breath for a moment.
300 wolves gathered in the silver glow of the Nightshade Pack to witness their Alpha's shattering of the bond that held them together on the night of their first meeting. As the moonlight illuminated the glistening ground, she gazed down at the man she loved and the icy stare that held him.
Ravenna clenched the small velvet bag tucked into her dress. The pregnancy test rested inside along with the healer's statement which she had repeated to herself twelve times since dawn.
This had been the reason she traveled here, to inform Darius he would be a father.
And yet he had turned her into the most humiliated woman in the kingdom.
"Darius," she whispered, voice trembling. "Just see me before you do this for good."
His silver eyes met hers without warmth.
"You have no standing to question my ruling."
A murmur passed through the crowd. Ravenna inhaled and felt each eye burning into her countenance, hoping for tears, anger, or a weakness to give her pitying humiliation an added edge.
She refused to give them the satisfaction.
"Just tell me what I did," she said. "What I do to make you hate me so much?
His jaw tightened.
"Do not pretend you are innocent."
"I am not pretending anything."
Yesterday, your meetings with the Blackthorn representatives were discovered. You brought information from my private council into enemy territory, and you expect me to believe you did it for no reason?
Ravenna looked at him in shock. "I never met with the Blackthorn agents."
"The evidence says otherwise."
Then the evidence is wrong
"Enough!"
The command crashed through the grounds and a few of the wolves bowed their heads. Ravenna flinched before she could stop herself, and he appeared satisfied with the smallest gesture.
Selene, the one-time lover of Darius, was standing beside his ceremonial throne in a silver silk gown. Her fingertips were barely touching the Alpha's arm, but that whisper of contact shattered Ravenna's insides anew.
Selene looked down, and masterfully put on her innocent "I feel bad" face.
"I asked him to give you another chance," she whispered. "But the pack does not survive on blind faith."
Ravenna looked at her. "You have no clue what happened."
"Maybe," Selene said softly. "But the Alpha has spoken."
Darius withdrew his hand from her arm and moved toward Ravenna.
"Your bond breaks tonight. You'll be out of the Nightshade territory by sunrise, and you will never stand next to me again."
Ravenna's fingers gripped the bag so hard that the edge cut into her palm.
She wanted to tell him about the baby. She wanted to make him realise that by doing this he would not only be destroying their relationship but another father would be tearing himself away from a child that had done nothing wrong.
But she looked into his face and saw no room for the truth.
And if she told him now, he would perhaps be able to use the pregnancy as yet another excuse for insisting she remain his slave, or the council might take the child away from her immediately it was born.
So she swallowed the words.
"You will regret this," she whispered.
And all at once a faint flicker of something went through Darius's face, but then was gone before she could guess at it.
Remove her
Two guards came closer and Ravenna moved aside as a matter of instinct. She didn't want their hands all over her when the bond inside her chest had started to unravel in the worst pain she'd experienced as the world around her dissolved into a haze.
Then the moon vanished behind a black wall of clouds.
"Whomp!" A loud vibration pulsed under the ritual fields. The stone split beneath Ravenna's foot with a horrific snap, and all the wolves in attendance fell to their knees as a primordial force rumbled through the pack.
Darius staggered.
Suddenly, the wolf beneath him, which was normally very obedient, started to struggle violently.
RAVENNA: (subtly reacts to the cold, shallow breath that blows from her lips). Ravenna-(she places a hand on her chest, gasping as some sort of strange silver light moved out along her hand, shining beneath her palm). The velvet pouch falls from her hand between her legs with a dull thud to hit the ground.
Then a voice more ancient than the kingdom itself roared in each of our brains.
"THE ALPHA HAS REJECTED THE MOTHER OF HIS KING."
Nobody moved.
Ravenna looked down at the pouch on the stone, thinking that now her secret suddenly seemed more threatening than the loss.
The voice returned, louder this time.
"LET THE CROWN BE WARNED: THE HEIR WILL NOT BE OF THE WOLF WHO BREAKS THE LEASH."
Darius turned toward Ravenna.
He looked vastly different. The expression had completely left his face. There was no remaining cold certainty, only the shock of this news and, just maybe, a touch of fear.
"What does that mean?" he demanded.
He was almost drowned out by the frantic beating of her heart.
The silver light beneath her palm flickered once.
Then twice.
Two heartbeats answered the ancient voice.
One was hers.
Another was with the child she had not told him about.
Selene's face drained of color.
As the pack sat frozen beneath the half-dead moon, the councils oldest adviser slowly tipped his head toward Ravenna.
"Your Majesty," he whispered.
Ravenna looked at him in horror.
On the shattered altar field, Darius stepped toward her.
"Ravenna," he said abruptly. "What have you got there?"
STEPBACK: She drew back, one hand covering her stomach.
It was the first time that night she realized that she might have to forsake the pack to save her child.
Now that the rejected Alpha wasn't the only one who was interested in her.
Somewhere in the dark, something old had already stirred to take it.
