The wolfless bride of the drying alpha

Arielle’s POV The stone floors of Silvercrest Keep never stayed clean. Not when they had me to scrub them. I knelt in the servants’ corridor the morning after my twenty-second birthday, my knees raw against the freezing flagstones. Gray mop water soaked through my thin dress, biting into my skin. Yesterday had been my last chance. Every Alpha daughter was supposed to shift before turning twenty-two. My stepsister, Elara, had shifted at fifteen into a rare silver-white wolf. The pack called her the blessed daughter. I had stood alone in the Moon Temple beneath the full moon, exposed to the judgment of three hundred wolves, while my father, Alpha Lucas, watched with crossed arms. My stepmother, Valeria, pretended to pray. Elara smiled. I had waited until my throat was raw. Nothing happened. No snapping bones. No fur. No wolf answering inside me. Just a trembling girl while the elders announced that I had failed to awaken. By morning, I was back where they believed I belonged: the leaking room behind the kitchen, eating after the omegas and scrubbing floors while Elara enjoyed her privileged life upstairs. “Move!” A boot struck my bucket, sending dirty water splashing across my face. Lira, the Beta’s daughter, burst out laughing with her friends. “My mother says this Keep smells because you breathe in it,” she spat. “Go back to the servants’ quarters where you belong.” As they walked away, another girl whispered loudly enough for me to hear. “Her mother was the same before she died. Witch blood. Her grandmother was a forest witch, too. That’s why she’ll never shift.” My mother’s blood. My grandmother’s legacy. They had turned both into a curse. My mother had been wolfless, but she was also a healer. She had learned the secrets of herbs from my grandmother’s book and saved pups when the pack healers failed. She had been the only person who ever truly loved me. My father had once loved her, too. When I was little, he used to tell me that no woman could ever take her place. Now, whenever he looked at me, I saw nothing but disappointment. “Oh, Arielle. You missed a spot.” Valeria and Elara stood over me. Valeria wore a red gown worth more than a year’s wages for a servant. Elara’s silver silk complemented her perfect wolf, and her carefully styled hair and painted lips made her look every inch the princess of the pack. I lowered my head and scrubbed harder. “Don’t scrub too hard,” Elara said sweetly, loud enough for the passing warriors to hear. “Father says you were never really an Alpha’s daughter. You’re just someone we have to feed. Twenty-two and still nothing. Even the pups shifted before you.” Valeria’s smile turned cold. “Your father doesn’t want you in the great hall. You embarrass him. Elara is the only daughter he can be proud of. Remember your place.” She kicked my bucket, spilling the remaining water across my dress. “Now clean it.” They walked away, leaving the scent of expensive perfume behind them. I pressed my bleeding palms against my mouth, fighting the sob threatening to escape. But there was one secret that kept me going. Kael Blackthorn. For six months, we had been meeting in secret. It had started the night Valeria tore my mother’s healing book apart. I had been crying behind the rose bushes when Kael found me, his amber eyes warm and his voice gentle enough to quiet the shame inside me. “You are not a failure to me,” he had whispered, tucking a strand of wet hair behind my ear. “My wolf is calm around you. And your scent… herbs and roses. I like it.” After that night, our secret meetings became a lifeline. We exchanged notes hidden inside my mother’s book and met at midnight beside the old well. He even gave me a silver hairpin bearing the Blackthorn crest. Last week, before leaving Silvercrest, he held both my hands in the garden. “Wait for me, Arielle. The next time I return, I will come to propose. I will make you my Luna. I don’t care if you never shift. Just wait for me.” I had believed him. This morning, news swept through the servants’ quarters. “The Blackthorn convoy is on the road! Kael Blackthorn is coming tonight!” Mara, the only omega who still treated me kindly, hurried into the laundry room and grabbed my arm. “Arielle, have you heard? Alpha Kael is coming to propose! Alpha Lucas has ordered the great hall decorated, and Elara’s silver dress is being pressed.” My heart hammered against my ribs. He had kept his promise. Or so I thought. As I hurried past the study, I heard Valeria speaking through the slightly open door. “We have to hide her, Lucas. Kael is coming to propose to Elara. We cannot have Arielle crawling around the great hall looking like a servant.” My father’s weary voice followed. “I know. Yesterday was her twenty-second birthday, and she still didn’t shift. She has brought nothing but shame upon this family.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded bitter. “She reminds me too much of her mother. I loved that woman more than anyone, but her blood and her mother’s strange legacy have brought nothing but trouble.” My chest tightened. My biggest shame. My mother’s blood. My grandmother’s legacy. The bucket slipped from my hand and clanged against the floor. “Who’s there?” Valeria snapped. I ran. Barefoot, my wet dress slapping against my legs, I clutched Kael’s silver hairpin as though it were the only promise I had left. Then the horn sounded. A long, deep, ceremonial blast that announced the arrival of an Alpha coming to propose. “BLACKTHORN AT THE GATES! ALPHA KAEL BLACKTHORN HAS ARRIVED!” The Keep erupted into celebration. I crept toward the dark upper banister overlooking the great hall. My dress was filthy, my palms were bleeding, and my body trembled with cold. But I still held the silver hairpin tightly in my hand. Below, the massive doors swung open, allowing snow and icy wind to sweep into the hall. Kael Blackthorn strode inside. Tall and broad-shouldered, with black hair tied behind his head and a scar cutting through one eyebrow, he looked every inch the powerful Alpha he was becoming. His amber eyes swept across the assembled wolves. Elara stepped forward in her shining silver dress, extending her hand with the confidence of a woman expecting to become a Luna. My father opened his arms, beaming. “Kael, my boy! We’ve been waiting for your proposal!” Kael didn’t look at Elara. His gaze moved past the Beta, past the assembled warriors, and past the woman waiting eagerly for him. Then his eyes lifted. Straight to the shadow where I stood. Our gazes met. I smiled through my tears and raised the silver hairpin he had given me. You came for me. For one fragile moment, I believed my suffering was finally over. Then Kael’s eyes fell on the hairpin. His expression changed. The warmth vanished from his face, replaced by cold disgust. He pointed directly at me. “Who gave you that, thief?”