Chapter 4: The Forbidden Offer
1115 Words
Darkness enveloped the dungeon, thick and suffocating. Willow's head pounded with dryness, her body too exhausted to move. But the moment the whisper tickled her ear, her senses jolted back to life.
"I can release you. But for a cost."
Her gasp hitched.
The man settled down next to her, pale moonlight falling across his worn face. Tall and lean, with gray eyes that seemed to see into the very heart of her and revealed things she wasn't sure she'd care to know.
"Who are you?" she rasped, her dry throat protesting for water.
The man grinned. "Alpha Justin. I believe we share a common enemy."
Willow bristled. The name alone was enough to make warning bells sound in her mind. She'd heard stories of Justin—the enemy Alpha whose pack had fought with Kaiden's for centuries.
"What do you want from me?" she growled, her voice thick with distrust.
"Freedom," he said brusquely. "For both of us."
She frowned. "You're already free."
Justin grinned. "Not the way that matters." He leaned toward her, speaking softly. "You are bound to Kaiden, but no worse a binding than chains bind my own folk in s*****y. I have need of control over him. And you, darling, are the perfect control."
Willow swallowed hard. She did not wish to be anyone's marionette, but she stood no chance at all of staying alive a few more days in this cell.
"If I do," she gasped,
Justin smiled even wider. "You will be coming with me to my pack, and for that, you will offer me your obeisance. I will ensure that Kaiden never sees your face again."
She paused. Obeisance to another Alpha? One master for another?
"I don't trust humans," she admitted.
Justin stepped further into the room. "Then trust yourself, Willow. Do you ever expect Kaiden to let you go? He already owns you. I'm giving you a choice."
A choice.
A choice one Kaiden never gave her.
She hadn't even had time to think before booted feet pounded down the hallway.
"Consider it," Justin's voice was interrupted before he vanished into the shadows.
The cell door groaned as two guards yanked her up.
"The Alpha requires you groomed and dressed," they informed her. "You're going to the great mating ritual."
Willow did not have a chance to attempt to catch on before being pulled out.
Perfume made of honey and lavender swept around her while maids stripped off the mire from her flesh. She bathed under steaming hot water, having foam wash away the pain, yet her mind was not pacified.
She thought of Justin's offer.
She remembered Kaiden.
She considered fleeing.
"Stand still," one of the maids grumbled as they swept a silk dress across her shoulders. Deep red, the dress was embroidered in gold. It fit her body like a glove, riding the hills and valleys of her body, leaving her bare in a way she despised.
"She's beautiful," another maid breathed.
Willow glared at herself in the mirror. She was a trophy. Something to be put on display.
The door opened and one person she knew walked in.
Kaiden.
Her chest constricted as he approached, his golden eyes darkening as they raked over her.
"Leave us," he growled.
The maids fled in a flurry, and Willow stood there alone with him.
Kaiden advanced, his face unyielding. "You look pretty."
"Bugger off to hell," she snarled.
A sneer contorted his lips. "Not quite the reaction I had in mind, considering all the effort that was put into dressing you up like a queen tonight."
"I am not something to be dressed up," she snapped in return.
Kaiden's jaw clenched. "And yet here standing in front of me all dressed out in my colors." Attributed to: Jami Nordlich
She fumed that he'd been correct. Fumed that a large part of her had responded to the manner in which he'd looked at her—like she was his.
"You will attend the ceremony this evening," he continued, voice bland but unyielding. "And you will be on your best behavior."
"And if I'm not?"
His smile flared out once more, slow and threatening. "Then I will make you."
She would not be afraid. "I will never be your willing captive."
Kaiden took a breath, coming again. He leaned in, fingers tracing the path of her wrist. "We'll see about that."
The hallway was overwhelming, light all around and vibrating with the din of people's voices. Wolves from far and wide had descended, all decked out, to witness the wedding of powerful Alphas and Lunas.
Willow hung around the edges of the hallway, watching couples spin, laughing, drinking. She was sick.
"Drink?"
A servant extended a goblet of wine.
She paused, then took it. If she was going to get through this night, she needed something to block the crushing despair.
One goblet had been succeeded by two. And then three.
The room began to shimmer a little, the ache within her chest uncoiling.
And then there was the blinding heat searing across her skin.
She spun about and found Kaiden's eyes on hers.
He was looking at her. Looking at her constantly.
"Having a good time?" he asked, stepping to stand beside her.
She snorted. "As good as it gets for a prisoner."
He smiled. "And yet drinking my wine, wearing my colors, at my side like a Luna."
She spat at him. "I hate you."
Kaiden chuckled, as though the words counted for nothing. "I know."
She swallowed hard, her thoughts reeling. The drink had loosened her tongue, and she spoke something she normally would have kept bottled up.
"I don't know why my heart is a traitor whenever I'm staring at you," she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.
Kaiden's body stiffened.
His golden eyes burned with something primal. Something possessive.
He bent his fingers around her wrist, holding her in a hard but not brutal grip.
"What did you say?"
Willow blinked, reading what had escaped off her lips.
She parted her lips to pull it back, to make it vanish—
But before she could, a firm hand wrapped around her waist and yanked her back.
She gasped, turning to see Justin standing behind her, a smug smile on his face.
"Hope I'm not interrupting," Justin drawled.
Kaiden's entire body stiffened, his golden eyes flashing with rage.
"Let her go," he growled.
Justin gripped his hand tighter around Willow. "She doesn't seem too enthusiastic about remaining by your side, Kaiden."
Willow's heart pounding between them.
The two Alphas glared at one another, both of them lethal, both of them unwilling to give an inch.
And she was stuck in the middle.
- Writer
