Fated to Die together

Alisha’s pov The floor was cold under my knees before I even understood why I was kneeling. My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against my thighs to stop it, but it didn't help. Something was wrong. I could feel it in the air before I even lifted my head — too many bodies packed into one hall. Somebody had pushed me down. I didn't turn to see who. It didn't matter. "Look at her," a voice said behind me. "Still can't stand straight in front of her betters." My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my ears. I didn't know what was going on. Guards had come for me before sunrise. They'd pulled me out of my house while it was still dark, dragged me through the pack homes, I kept waiting for someone to say something, anything, and nobody did. By the time we reached the hall, my legs were unsteady from more than just the walk. Inside, it was packed. Every pack member who could still stand had come to see this, whatever this was, and every single one of them was looking at me like they already knew something I didn't. At the front of the room, a man sat in a chair raised above everyone else, dressed richer than anyone I'd ever seen in our territory. I didn't know who he was until our alpha stepped forward and bowed to him. I felt My stomach dropped before my mind had even finished the thought, that's the Lycan King, in our hall, looking at us like we're something to be used. Whatever this was, it was about to be very bad, and some part of me already knew. Beside him stood a man I didn't recognize either. He wasn't kneeling like the rest of us near the front. He wasn't standing at attention. He was tall, dark-haired, dressed like someone who used to matter to people who no longer cared. His face didn't react to anything happening around him. For one second, his eyes found mine. My breath caught, and I didn't have time to understand why before the King started talking. "Some of you will remember my brother," he said. "Former heir. Former everything, really." Laughter moved through the front rows. "He's come here to die quietly. I thought that was very noble of him. Didn't you?" Nobody answered. Nobody was supposed to. "The thing about dying quietly," the King went on, "is that it's boring. And I've never been a boring man. I love games, especially when it involves dirty ones" His eyes moved slowly across the crowd and stopped on me, and stayed there long enough that my stomach dropped further before he even said another word. "Your outcast. The one your pack likes to blame for things." He smiled. "Perfect." She will be the prawn in my dirty game. I heard the word before I understood the sentence around it. Marriage. The dirty game sounded like it. The hall erupted, delighted, like they'd all been waiting for exactly this. "You're pairing the outcast with your brother," someone near the front repeated, checking they'd heard the joke correctly. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. I hated my life in that moment, I wished I had died the same night my parents did, instead of being left behind to live through years like this one. I didn't understand why the King was doing this to me specifically. Did he know who I was? Had I done something to earn this, some grudge I didn't even remember making or was I simply the easiest thing in the room to throw away? The man beside the throne must have been asking himself something close to the same thing, because he lifted his head and spoke for the first time since I'd walked in. "Why are you doing this?" he asked the King. "I came here to die in peace. Why drag an innocent wolf into it? You know how much I despise this. Do you even know her? Do you have some reason to hate her?" The King laughed, easy, like the question amused him. "Of course not. I don't know a common wolf. All I needed was a useless one to help you die well. And here she is." A sound wanted to come out of my throat. I swallowed it. I wasn't going to cry in front of these people. "I object to this," the man said. "Don't drag an innocent wolf into my punishment." He turned like he meant to walk straight out of the hall and leave the whole assembly behind him. The King came down off his chair himself. He crossed the room in a few steps, grabbed my arm, and hauled me up off the floor before I'd even braced for it. "I'll kill her," he said to his brother, calm, almost bored, like he was mentioning the weather. He knew everyone in that hall knew, that his brother couldn't stand to watch someone get hurt because of him. His hand closed around my throat. And then he looked towards where the man was moving. How would you feel if she’s does because of your pride? Oh poor wolf. I made a sound I didn't choose to make. It was enough to stop the man halfway to the door. He turned back, and this time he crossed the distance between us in a few fast strides, close enough now that I could hear his breathing change. "Let her go," he said. Quietly. "Agree to marry her, or I kill her." He didn't answer. The King's grip on my throat tightened instead, like the silence had angered him more than a refusal would have. My vision started to blur, I could feel myself slipping, my body going heavy in a way that scared me more than the pain did. "Let me not repeat myself," the King said, his voice dropping low, like he was losing patience with a game. "Let her go." I turned my head as much as I could and looked at the man standing there, still silent and unreadable, something in me broke open. Tears ran down to my chin. I didn't care anymore who saw. "Please," I whispered. "Answer him." He said nothing. The last thing I felt was my body leaving the King's grip and hitting the floor, hard, and then everything went dark.