Broken Chains

"Smile. We have company coming." That was all my brother said before he walked away. I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the hallway floor when he said it. He did not stop walking. He did not look down at me. I was furniture. Furniture that needed to be warned to behave. I sat back on my heels and pressed my fist against the ache in my ribs. Yesterday's reminder from Beta Harv that I had forgotten to polish the dining chairs. He had not used his hand. He had used his boot. I did not make a sound then. I was not going to make one now. The hallway smelled like soap and old wood. I had been cleaning since four in the morning. The Ashford packhouse was not large — nothing like the packs you heard stories about — but Caden liked it spotless for visitors. Especially important ones. I had heard the name twice this week already, floating between pack members when they thought I was not in earshot. Alpha Kael Drayven. The name meant something to everyone here. I watched grown wolves go quiet when it was said. Harv had nearly knocked over his coffee when Caden announced the visit at dinner. I had been standing against the wall, invisible as always, and I noticed his hands shake. That told me everything. I carried the bucket toward the kitchen and kept my head down as two pack members walked past. They did not look at me. No one did. I had learned a long time ago that invisibility was not the worst thing in the world. The worst thing was when they did look at you. "Mira." I stopped. Lena, my brother's mate, was standing in the kitchen doorway in a silk robe with her blonde hair loose and her green eyes narrow. She had the kind of face people called beautiful until they got close enough to see what lived behind it. "The office still smells like last week's coffee. Fix it." "I cleaned the office this morning," I said quietly. Her eyes went flat. "I did not ask what you did this morning. I told you what to do." I picked up the cleaning basket and moved toward the office. There was no point in anything else. I had tried point once, years ago. It cost me a week in the basement with nothing but water. I had not tried since. The office was already clean. Every surface, every corner. I stood inside the doorway and looked at it and felt the familiar quiet anger move through me and then settle, like it always did, into nothing. I set the basket down and leaned against the wall. I used to cry in here. Alone, when no one would hear. I had stopped that too, somewhere around year three. Crying felt like spending something I did not have. "You look like you are having a very loud argument with yourself." I spun around. There was a man sitting in the chair beside the window. He was so still that I had not seen him. One leg crossed over the other, a glass balanced on his knee, silver-grey eyes watching me with something that was not quite amusement but was not nothing either. My heart slammed into my ribs. He was large. Not in the way Harv was large — all puffed up and aggressive. This man's size was quiet. Like a mountain does not announce itself. Dark hair, sharp jaw, plain black shirt. No ceremony. No decoration. But the power came off him in waves even across the room. I felt it even without my wolf. Whatever I had left of her stirred in me like something waking up slow and confused. "I..." My voice came out thin. "I apologize. I did not know anyone was in here." "Clearly," he said. His voice was low and even. "You have been standing there for almost two minutes." I felt heat in my face. Not embarrassment. Fear. Alpha Caden was going to find out I had walked in here and stood like a statue in front of his guest. "I will go," I said quickly. "I did not say go." I stopped. He set his glass on the table beside him and studied me. Not the way men usually studied me — looking for something to criticize or punish. He studied me the way someone looks at something they cannot quite figure out. "Come forward," he said. Every part of me resisted. But the authority in his voice was not loud. It did not need to be. It just landed in the air and expected to be obeyed. I stepped forward. I kept my eyes low. "Look at me." I lifted my eyes slowly. Just enough. "Why do you smell like that?" he asked. My stomach dropped. Not because it was cruel — he said it plainly, like a question with an answer. But I hated the question. I hated what the answer meant. "I..." I swallowed. "My wolf abilities are bound." He was quiet for a moment. "Why?" "It was a punishment." His expression did not change but something shifted in his eyes. "For what?" Before I could answer, the office door swung open hard enough to hit the wall. Caden. In his grey Alpha shirt, jaw tight, eyes already cutting to me like a blade. "Mira, what the—" He stopped. Reset. Turned to the man in the chair with a smile that did not reach anything above his mouth. "Alpha Drayven. I apologize. My sister wanders." "She was directed here," Alpha Drayven said. He did not stand. Did not adjust. "I requested someone show me to the office since you were not at the door when I arrived, as agreed." Caden's jaw flexed. He looked at me. I stared at the floor. "Thank you, Mira. You can go." I moved fast. Grabbed the cleaning basket. Did not look at either of them. Made it into the hallway and pressed my back against the wall outside the closed door, breathing. He had lied for me. Alpha Kael Drayven had looked my brother in the eye and lied for me. I did not understand it. I pressed my hand flat against my sternum and tried to make my heartbeat slow down. No one lied for me. No one even noticed me enough to try. I pushed off the wall and walked toward the kitchen, telling myself it meant nothing. It was a power move. An Alpha thing. Some kind of game between men that I had accidentally stepped into the middle of. It had nothing to do with me. I almost believed it.