The Alpha's Reborn Mistake

Chapter 2

CLARA

Three weeks was not enough time to prepare to marry a monster.

I know that sounds dramatic. Cecelia told me I was being dramatic. She said it at least four times in the days leading up to the wedding while she packed my things into bags and tried to make me eat and kept saying things like "maybe he is not as bad as people say" and "you never know Clara he might surprise you."

"Cece," I said on the third day. "They say he killed his own mate."

She was quiet for a moment. "Maybe she deserved it."

"Cecelia!"

"I am just saying we do not know the full story!"

"That is not comforting at all."

"I am trying my best here Clara work with me."

I loved her for trying. I really did. But nothing she said made the cold feeling in my stomach go away and on the morning of my wedding day I sat in front of the mirror in my white dress and stared at my own face and thought about how this was the second worst day of my life.

The first worst was still Sean's rejection three weeks ago. Lyra had been quiet ever since. Not the peaceful kind of quiet. The wounded kind.

"You look beautiful," Cecelia said softly, appearing behind me in the mirror. Her eyes were red. She had been crying on and off all morning and trying to hide it.

"Do not cry Cece."

"I am not crying."

"Your entire face is crying."

She let out a sound that was half laugh half sob and wrapped her arms around me from behind and squeezed hard. "I do not want you to go."

"I know."

"Promise me you will call. Every day."

"Every day," I said.

"Promise me you will not let anyone treat you badly."

I did not answer that one because we both knew I could not promise it and lying to Cecelia had always been something I was terrible at.

The ceremony was held in the Silveridge Pack great hall. Same hall where Sean had rejected me three weeks ago. I thought that was a wonderful touch. Really added to the atmosphere.

I walked down the aisle on my father's arm and he looked proud for the first time in my memory and I realised he was not proud of me. He was proud of himself for solving a problem. I was the problem. I had been solved.

And then I reached the end of the aisle and I saw Lucian Blackwell for the first time.

I had expected a monster. Something ugly and mean faced and cold in an obvious way. What I got was something much worse.

He was tall. Broader than anyone I had ever stood next to. Black hair, sharp jaw, and eyes the colour of a storm that had not decided yet whether to break. He stood at that altar like the room had been built around him and everything else in it was just decoration.

He was looking at me with absolutely no expression on his face whatsoever.

Not curiosity. Not warmth. Not even basic human interest. Just nothing. Like I was a piece of furniture being delivered to his house and he was checking that it had arrived undamaged.

I lifted my chin and looked right back at him.

Something shifted in his eyes. Just slightly. Like he had expected me to look away and was mildly surprised that I had not.

The ceremony was short. The vows were words that meant nothing to either of us. When the officiator said I do Lucian said it in a voice so flat and so cold it made the hair on my arms stand up. When it was my turn I said it clearly and steadily and looked Lucian directly in the eyes while I said it just so he knew I was not afraid.

That was a lie. I was terrified. But he did not need to know that.

When the ring went on my finger it felt like a lock clicking shut.

At the reception I sat at the head table and ate my food and watched Lucian move through the room. He spoke to his warriors. He spoke to the pack elders. He did not once come back to check on me.

Cecelia appeared at my elbow about an hour in. "How are you doing."

"I am eating," I said. "I am fine."

"He has not spoken to you once."

"I noticed."

"That is incredibly rude."

"Cece please keep your voice down."

"I am just saying! You are his wife! He could at least say hello!" She paused. "Also that woman in the red dress has been staring at you for the last twenty minutes and I do not like her face."

I looked up. There was indeed a woman in a red dress standing near the edge of the room watching me with amber eyes and a small smile that did not reach anywhere near warm. She had auburn hair and the kind of beautiful that looked expensive and she stood like someone who was used to owning every room she walked into.

"Who is that," I said.

"I do not know but I do not trust her."

"You do not trust anyone."

"I trust you. I trust Adam. I trust Mrs Graye from the bakery. Everyone else is on probation."

Despite everything I almost smiled.

The woman in the red dress turned away and walked directly to Lucian and touched his arm and leaned up to say something in his ear and he actually smiled. Small and quick but real. The first expression I had seen on his face all day.

And it was not for me.

The drive to Ironveil was silent. Lucian sat beside me in the back of the car and looked out the window the entire time and said nothing. I looked out my window and said nothing back. The dark countryside rolled past and Lyra pressed weakly against my ribs and I pressed my hand flat against my chest and told her quietly that we were going to be okay.

I almost believed it.

We pulled through the Ironveil Pack gates just after midnight. The packhouse was enormous, dark stone and high windows and surrounded by ancient trees that pressed in close on all sides. It looked exactly like the kind of place where bad things happened quietly.

The car stopped. Lucian got out without a word. I got out on my own side without waiting to be helped and followed him toward the front steps.

The woman in the red dress was standing at the top of the steps waiting for us.

Here. At his home. In the middle of the night.

She smiled at Lucian like I was not there. "Welcome back. Everything is ready."

Lucian nodded. "Good." He walked past her and through the front door without looking back at either of us.

The woman turned to me. Her smile stayed exactly the same but something behind her eyes was very different.

"You must be Clara," she said sweetly. "I am Diana. I basically run things around here." She tilted her head slightly. "I just thought you should know that before you got any ideas about settling in."

She turned and followed Lucian inside.

I stood on the front steps alone in the cold dark and looked at the open door and understood with complete and total clarity that I had not just married a cold and dangerous man.

I had walked straight into his world. And someone in that world had been waiting for me.

And she had just told me, as politely as a knife slipped between the ribs, that she intended to make my life very difficult.

The only question was how difficult.

I found out faster than I expected.

Because when I was shown to my bedroom at the far end of the east wing, isolated and quiet and as far from the rest of the packhouse as it was possible to get, I found something on my pillow.

A single dead flower.

And a note underneath it with four words written in neat careful handwriting.

Leave while you can.