The Alpha King's Cursed Mate

Two

The rain had stopped sometime in the night, but Lyra never felt it.

She stayed on her knees in the mud long after the cold had sunk into her bones. At some point her body simply gave out. Her head tipped forward. Darkness took her while she was still upright, still kneeling the way Dain had left her.

The nightmare came the way it always did, sudden and sharp.

She was small again. Eight years old. The forest smelled of pine and wet earth. Her mother’s hand was warm around hers as they walked the narrow path back to the den. Her father walked ahead, quiet, listening the way he always did. Her little brother ran circles around them, laughing, until their mother shushed him with a soft smile.

Then the wind changed.

Her father’s head snapped up. He shoved her mother and the children behind him just as the first shapes broke from the trees. Wolves. Too many. Faces she would later learn belonged to Ashen Pack. Caden’s pack.

The fight was short and ugly.

Her father shifted mid leap and went down under three of them. Her mother shoved Lyra and her brother into the hollow of an old tree and turned to fight. Lyra pressed her face into the bark and tried not to hear the sounds. Wet. Tearing. Her mother’s last snarl cut off too quickly.

When the quiet came, rough hands dragged her out. Someone laughed. Someone else said the girl looked enough like the dead alpha’s mate to keep. A warning. A leftover. Cursed blood.

They killed her brother in front of her because he wouldn’t stop screaming.

Lyra’s grown body jerked in the mud.

A hard slap cracked across her cheek and dragged her out of the memory.

She gasped, eyes flying open. Dawn light cut through the thinning clouds. Dain stood over her, fist still raised, rainwater dripping from his hair onto her face.

“Get up. Alpha doesn’t want your carcass stinking up the yard.”

She pushed herself to her feet on shaking legs. Mud coated her from knees to chest. The cut on her palm had crusted over. Her cheek throbbed where he had hit her. Every muscle felt locked in place from the cold.

Dain jerked his chin toward the side of the pack house. “Bath house. Then you clean every floor from the kitchen to the alpha’s wing. Move.”

She walked. Her bare feet left dark prints on the wet ground. The bath house was little more than a wooden shed with a single cold water pump and a cracked basin. No one else was inside. She stripped the ruined dress off, pumped water until her arms shook, and scrubbed the mud and dried blood from her skin with a rough cloth. The water was icy. She didn’t care. She had stopped caring about cold a long time ago.

When she finished she found a clean shift hanging on a nail, thin, gray, the kind they gave the lowest servants. She pulled it on. It hung loose on her frame. Her wet hair clung to her neck.

She spent the next hours on her hands and knees.

Kitchen first. Then the long hall. Then the common room where the pack had left empty bottles and food scraps from the night before. She scrubbed until the boards shone dull in the morning light. Her wrists ached. The cut on her palm opened again and left faint red smears she had to clean twice. No one spoke to her. A few younger wolves stepped over her without looking down. One of the kitchen girls dropped a basket of laundry near her and muttered that the alpha’s sheets needed changing before noon.

Lyra kept working.

By the time the sun sat high, the main floors were done. She was carrying a bucket of dirty water toward the back door when a hand closed around her upper arm hard enough to bruise.

One of the enforcers. Broad, scarred across the nose. He didn’t bother with words. He simply dragged her down the corridor that led to the alpha’s private wing. Her bare feet slipped on the clean boards she had just finished. She didn’t fight. Fighting only made the bruises last longer.

He stopped in front of the heavy oak door and shoved it open.

“Alpha wants you.”

The door closed behind her with a solid thud.

Caden’s room smelled of leather, woodsmoke, and the sharp bite of whiskey. The curtains were still half drawn even though it was full day. He stood near the wide window with his back to her, shirtless, the long scar down his side catching the light. His dark hair was tied loosely at the nape of his neck. A half empty glass sat on the table beside him.

Lyra dropped to her knees the moment the door shut. Head down. Hands flat on the floor. The position was automatic. She had learned it the first month they brought her here.

Silence stretched.

Then Caden’s voice, low and rough from a sleepless night.

“Look at me.”

She lifted her head.

His eyes were the color of wet stone. Cold. Unhappy. Whatever had kept him awake had left its mark in the tight set of his jaw.

“You broke one of the crest plates last night.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Dain says you were careless.”

She said nothing. Careless was the word they always used when they wanted a reason.

Caden turned fully toward her. He walked closer until the toes of his boots stopped inches from her knees. He smelled of rain and the whiskey he had been drinking since before dawn.

“I don’t like carelessness in my house.”

His hand closed in her hair and yanked her head back. Pain flared across her scalp. She kept her mouth shut.

“You think because the blood moon is coming that the rules change?” he asked quietly. “That you get to drop things and walk away?”

“No, Alpha.”

He released her hair only to backhand her across the face. The blow snapped her head to the side. Copper flooded her mouth. She stayed on her knees.

Caden’s voice stayed calm, almost conversational.

“Your family died because they thought they were better than the rest of us. Stronger. Cleaner blood. Look where that got them.” He crouched in front of her, one hand resting on his knee. “And look where it got you. Still breathing only because I allow it. Still useful only because I say so.”

He stood again. The next blow caught her across the other cheek. Then another. He didn’t use his full strength. He never did at first. He liked the build. Liked watching her try not to make a sound.

Lyra’s vision blurred. She tasted blood. Her wolf pressed once against the inside of her ribs, weak, distant and then sank back down under the familiar weight of fear and pain.

Caden grabbed the front of her shift and hauled her up just enough to drive a fist into her stomach. Air left her lungs in a harsh rush. She folded forward. He let her drop back to the floor.

“Get up.”

She pushed herself onto her hands and knees. Her arms shook.

He kicked her ribs hard enough to lift her sideways. She hit the floor on her shoulder and stayed there, breathing in short, careful pulls. Something in her side flared bright and sharp.

Caden paced a short line in front of her, rolling his shoulders like a man working out a knot of anger that had nothing to do with a broken plate.

“I’ve had three borders tested this week,” he said, almost to himself. “Two scouts missing. And the full moon is three nights away. The last thing I need is a cursed leftover making noise in my kitchen.”

He hauled her up by the hair again and struck her across the mouth. Her lip split wider. Blood ran down her chin and dripped onto the floor she had cleaned only hours earlier.

She did not beg.

She never did.

Caden’s breathing had grown heavier. His eyes were darker now, the way they got when the anger needed somewhere to go and she was the nearest thing that could not fight back. He raised his hand again....

The door opened without a knock.

Dain stepped in, glanced once at Lyra on the floor, then fixed his gaze on Caden’s face.

“Alpha. Emergency.”

Caden’s hand stayed raised for a second longer. Then he lowered it slowly.

“What kind?”

“Pack meeting,” Dain said. “The border captains are already gathering in the hall. They’re waiting on you.”

Caden stared at him for a long moment. The muscle in his jaw flexed once.

He looked down at Lyra. Blood marked her mouth and the front of her shift. One eye was already swelling. She stayed where she was, breathing shallowly through the pain in her ribs.

Caden wiped his knuckles on a cloth from the table, tossed it aside, and reached for the shirt draped over a chair.

“Stay on the floor until I get back,” he said without looking at her. “If you move, Dain will put you back there.”

He walked out. Dain followed and closed the door behind them.

The room went quiet except for the sound of Lyra’s careful breathing and the distant murmur of voices beginning to gather downstairs.

She did not move.