THE ALPHA’S GHOST

3

KAYE'S POV

The servant quarters are in the basement.

That feels deliberate.

Stone walls. Low ceiling. A narrow room barely wide enough for a twin bed and a battered dresser. A single window sits near the ceiling, cracked open just enough to let in cold air and a thin strip of light. I can see grass. Part of a fence post. Nothing else.

The lean enforcer unlocks the silver cuffs from my wrists. Relief hits so fast it makes me dizzy. I cradle my hands to my chest, not looking at the burns. They are raw and angry, skin split and weeping. They will heal. Eventually. Right now they hurt enough to make my stomach turn.

“Sit,” he says.

I sit on the edge of the bed.

He pulls out another cuff, this one attached to a small black box blinking red. He kneels and fastens it around my left ankle. It is snug but not burning. My wolf recoils anyway.

“Boundary line is marked with white stones,” he says. “Cross it and this injects wolfsbane. You drop in ten seconds. Die in five minutes if no one helps you. Do not test it.”

“I won’t,” I whisper.

He hesitates. Looks at me more closely this time. There is something like pity in his eyes.

“For what it is worth,” he says, “I am sorry about the mate bond. That is a cruel twist.”

“Does everyone know?” I ask.

“Not yet. But they will.” He straightens. “My name is Scottie. Senior enforcer. If you need something essential, ask for me. I will be fair.”

“Why?”

“Because you are still the Alpha’s mate,” he says quietly. “Whether he wants that or not.”

He leaves. The door does not lock.

I sit there for a long time, staring at the wall. The mate bond hums faintly, like a second pulse under my skin. I can feel Ethan somewhere above me. His anger. His restraint. His refusal to look too closely at what he has done.

My wrists ache. My ankle feels heavy. My throat still hurts where his hand was.

I should be planning an escape.

Instead, I lie back and close my eyes. Six years of running crashes down on me all at once. For the first time in years, I am not moving. Not hiding. Not watching exits.

That should feel dangerous.

It feels like exhaustion.

I do not sleep.

The door slams open when the light outside the window turns gray.

I jerk upright.

A woman stands there, older, her hair pulled into a severe bun. She wears an apron dusted with flour. Her face is set hard, carved by grief that has never softened.

“Up,” she says. “You work in the kitchen.”

I stand too slowly. My body protests.

She grabs my arm and yanks me upright. “Do not move like you have time. You start at six. You work until midnight.”

“Yes,” I say.

“You do not speak unless spoken to. You do not look anyone in the eye. You do not touch food.” Her eyes bore into mine. “My name is Miriam. I lost three sons in the fire your father set. You do not get mercy from me.”

“I didn’t—”

Her hand snaps across my face. Pain flashes white.

“You do not speak,” she repeats.

I follow her upstairs.

The kitchen is huge. Steel counters. Industrial stoves. The smell of bread and old coffee beans. Two younger women work silently. Their faces change when they see me.

“This is the Muani girl,” Miriam says. “She cleans.”

One of the women snorts. “Poison duty, huh?”

“I was dragged here,” I say before I can stop myself. “I didn’t come willingly.”

Miriam hits me across the shoulders with a wooden spoon. Hard.

I bite back a cry. Somewhere deep inside, my wolf snarls. Through the mate bond, I feel a flicker of Ethan’s attention sharpen. Then it pulls away.

Of course it does.

“Get to work,” Miriam says, handing me a mop. “If the floors are not done by six thirty, you do not eat.”

The hours smear together.

I scrub. I haul trash. I clean spills that appear the moment I finish. My wrists burn every time I grip the mop. The ankle cuff rubs raw. I drink water from the sink when no one is looking.

Some wolves ignore me. Others do not.

A bowl of soup tips over onto a clean floor. A trash bag splits at my feet. A young male corners me long enough to whisper threats that make my skin crawl. No one intervenes. No one needs to.

By the time midnight comes, my body feels hollowed out.

Miriam waves me off without looking at me. I stumble back downstairs and collapse on the bed fully clothed.

In the dark, the mate bond stirs again.

Ethan is awake.

I feel his tension. His awareness of me. He knows what today was like. I am certain of it. And still, he stays where he is.

Do not come, I think at him. Do not make this worse.

The bond quiets. His attention pulls back.

I stare at the ceiling, listening to my own breathing. Tomorrow will be the same. And the day after that.

I survived six years on the run only to end up here. A prisoner. A servant. Bound to a man who hates me and to a pack that wants me broken.

My father did not order those fires.

I know it. But knowing is useless without proof.

I turn onto my side and curl in on myself, pain and exhaustion pressing down until I can barely think.

Something will break eventually.

I am afraid it will be me.