Claimed By The Enemy Alpha

Chapter Two

Faye

The wedding hall was full, every face turned toward me as the musicians played a melody I could not hear over the rushing of blood in my ears. Torches flickered along the stone walls, casting dancing shadows across the crowded benches, and the scent of incense and winter flowers hung heavy in the air. I had dreamed of this moment for five years, but nothing could have prepared me for the weight of all those eyes watching me walk down the aisle alone.

People were whispering, their words floating toward me like poisoned arrows.

"I am glad she is the one the Alpha chose. I was not willing to sacrifice my own daughter for a dying pack."

"Poor thing. She will not survive this marriage. The Crescent Moon pack will eat her alive."

"She will die like her miserable mother. Weakness runs in the blood, and that girl has never been anything but weak."

I flinched at the word die, at the casual way they spoke of my mother's death like it was a punchline from a joke. My hands were shaking inside my white gloves, but I kept them clasped in front of me.

The aisle seemed endless, of cold stones stretching between rows of wolves who had never believed in me and never would. But I kept walking, one foot in front of the other, because at the end of this path stood the altar where Damon should be waiting.

I reached the altar, and the pack priest smiled at me with yellowed teeth and empty eyes. He was old, older than anyone else in the hall, and his hands trembled as he tied the mating rope around my pinkie finger. The silver cord pulsed with warm magic against my skin, waiting to bind me to my future husband.

Then we waited for Damon to arrive.

Five minutes passed, and the whispers grew louder. People shifted in their seats, exchanging glances, checking the doors. Ten minutes, and the priest cleared his throat nervously. Fifteen minutes, and the musicians stopped playing, unsure whether to continue.

Twenty minutes.

The priest dabbed his forehead with a cloth. "Perhaps there has been a delay," he said, his voice thin and uncertain.

"No," I said, and I forced my voice to stay steady even though my heart was crumbling inside my chest. "He will come. He promised."

But he had not promised. Not really. The marriage had been arranged through letters and envoys, and Damon had never spoken to me directly. He had never looked into my eyes and told me he wanted me.

Still, I believed.Because if he did not come, then the last five years of my life had been nothing but a fantasy, and I was not ready to face that truth.

An hour passed. Two hours.

The hall emptied slowly. People stood up from their benches and walked out without looking back, their whispers fading into the cold air.

By the time the priest finally announced that the groom had not shown up, that the wedding was null and void, and that everyone should return to their homes, there were only a handful of people left.

My knees buckled. I hit the floor hard, the turquoise gown spreading around me like a pool of blue water, and I could not breathe. The cold from the stone seeped through the fabric and into my skin, but I barely felt it.

Damon did not want me. The man I had loved for five years, the man I had dreamed about every single night, the man who had looked at me like I mattered, did not want me.

Stephen grabbed my veil and tore it off my head, the pins ripping through my hair. My stepbrother crouched in front of me, his breath sour with wine, and he grabbed my chin hard enough to leave bruises.

"Even your husband could not bother to show up," he said, his voice dripping with mockery. "That says everything, does it not? You are useless through and through."

"No," I whispered, but the word was barely a breath.

"No?" Scarlet stepped forward, her heels clicking against the stone floor. "Damon did not even show up for the vows. I told you this would happen, Mathias. This one is useless to us. She always has been."

My father walked toward me slowly, his boots echoing in the empty hall. For one stupid hopeful moment I thought he was going to help me, to pull me to my feet, to tell Stephen and Scarlet to leave me alone. Instead, he looked down at me with cold eyes and said words I would carry with me forever.

"Damon did not show up because he knew you were not worth showing up for."

Stephen laughed and shoved me backward. I fell hard, my elbows scraping against the cold tile floor as tears burned down my cheeks. My father pushed me back down with his boot, not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to keep me there.

"It would have been better," he said slowly, savoring each word like a poison he had been waiting years to deliver, "if you had died that day with your mother."

Then he walked away, his footsteps fading into silence. Scarlet followed, and Stephen followed, and the few remaining people drifted out until I was completely alone in the vast, empty hall.

I choked on a sob and fisted my gown in both hands. "You are useless, Faye. You are useless."

Something glistened on the floor a few feet away, catching the light from the dying torches. I crawled toward it, my fingers closing around a small circle of gold. My mother's ring. Stephen must have wrenched it off my veil when he tore it from my hair.

I turned it over in my palm and read the inscription, tracing the words with my thumb.

DON'T STOP FIGHTING.

My mother had whispered those exact words to me while she died in my arms, her blood soaking through my dress while the healers tried their best. She had slipped this ring into my bloody fingers and told me to keep going, to never give up, to be the fighter she knew I could be. She had believed in me when no one else did.

I kissed the ring, held it in my palm and rose to my feet. My legs shook but I stood up anyway.

"I will not stop fighting, Mom," I said to the empty hall.

I walked out of the empty wedding hall with my head held high, and I did not look back.