The Cursed Alpha's Bride

Pov: Celeste "You leave at dawn on Thursday to marry the Alpha King," my father said. He did not look up from the mahogany desk. His quill scratched against fresh parchment, quick and uneven, the nib biting hard enough into the fiber to tear it. I stopped three paces into the solar. My leather riding gloves were still tucked in my belt, the smell of damp grass from the training yards clinging to my wool skirt. "Say that again," I said. My father pressed his heavy signet ring into a pool of scarlet wax. "The arrangements are settled, Celeste. You are going north to the wolf court. You will take the royal vows with King Nicolas." The room seemed to tilt sideways beneath my boots. The air grew thin, cold, and impossible to pull into my lungs. "The wolves," I whispered, the word bitter as bile on my tongue. "You are handing me to the wolves." "It is a treaty," he said, blowing on the hot wax. "A binding alliance." "A treaty?" The shock shattered, replaced by a sudden, scalding heat that surged from my chest down to my fingers. I closed the distance to the desk, slamming my flat palms against the edge of the polished wood. "They burned my village to the ground! I was twelve years old, digging my mother’s body out from collapsed beams while their beasts howled in the woods! Have you lost your mind?" "Watch your voice," King Ald snapped. He finally raised his eyes. They were sunken, red-rimmed, and hollow. The crown sat crooked against his graying hair. "I pulled dead men from the cellars with my bare hands," I leaned forward, staring straight into his pale face. "I smelled burning flesh for three months after you took me in. You made me sit in this court, you made me wear your colors, and now you want me to lie in a bed with the monsters who slaughtered my blood?" "That raid was ten years ago," he said, his voice flat and worn out. "Border skirmishes happen. Nicolas rules the entire northern territory now. He demanded a royal bride of human blood to seal the peace. You are my daughter, and you will answer the call." "I am an orphan you dressed up in silk because your own daughters died in their cribs!" I threw my hands out, chest heaving. "Do not pretend this is about duty to family. Why now? Why Nicolas?" Aldric reached for another blank sheet of paper. "I do not answer to you, girl." "He has spent eight years slaughtering every human regiment that crossed the river," I pressed, watching every muscle in his face. "Three months ago, you called him a rabid animal who deserved to starve behind the peaks. Now you are handing him your only heir with less than a week’s notice. Why is he asking for a human bride?" Aldric dipped his quill. His hand shook, a single black drop spattering across the clean parchment. "It is a diplomatic condition," he muttered, keeping his eyes glued to the ink. "A gesture of goodwill from our kingdom to theirs." "Goodwill?" I let out a dry, harsh laugh. "Since when does an Alpha King trade in goodwill? They do not negotiate. They take. If Nicolas wants peace, he demands grain, timber, and iron. He does not ask for a human girl unless there is a knife at his throat, or one hidden behind his back." "That is enough, Celeste!" James slammed his palm down, rattling the crystal decanters on the side table. "He is planning something," I insisted, refusing to step back. "Or you are. Look at me, Aldric! Tell me why a beast who despises humans wants one wearing his ring." "I said that is enough!" He stood up, his chair legs scraping violently across the stone floor. For a second, the king looked smaller, shriveled inside his heavy velvet robes. His jaw worked, teeth grinding together as his gaze darted past my shoulder toward the closed balcony doors. He was not angry. He was terrified. The realization settled like cold lead in my stomach. I had spent six years in this palace learning how men lied. I had learned to read the twitch of a courtier’s eye, the subtle drop of a shoulder, the sweat on an advisor's neck when a ledger did not match the treasury vaults. Aldric was not arranging a proud alliance. He was cowering. Outside the solar, the heavy thump of boots echoed down the gallery. I turned slightly, listening through the thick oak door. Foreign voices were muttering in the hall. Low, clipped tones from the eastern provinces, speaking in sharp dialects that never belonged in our capital. Earlier this morning, two couriers in unmarked mud-spattered leather had nearly knocked me down in the grand corridor, their horses lathered with white foam in the yard below. The palace servants had been scurrying like rats all week, carrying sealed dispatches by candlelight, refusing to look anyone in the eye. Something was breaking on our borders. Something ugly, silent, and close. And my father was throwing me across the northern river to buy himself room to breathe. "You are selling me," I said quietly, the heat in my chest turning to ice. "You are throwing me into a wolf's cage to save your own skin." Aldric did not deny it. He straightened his tunic with trembling fingers, pulling the velvet down over his rounded belly. When he spoke again, all the false authority was gone, leaving only cold, blunt survival. "The northern carriage will be at the south gates before sunrise on Thursday," he said. My heart hammered against my ribs. "Thursday? That is two days." "You will pack two trunks," he continued, turning his back to me and walking toward the leaded-glass window that looked out over the courtyard. "No court attendants. No personal maids. Only Captain Thomas and six riders to see you to the river crossing. The High Alpha’s guard will take custody of you at the border stone." "Two days," I repeated, my breath catching in my throat. "You will not leave the royal wing until the carriage arrives," Aldric said, not turning around. "My guards will be outside your door to ensure you are not disturbed." "To ensure I do not run, you mean." He looked out the glass, his reflection pale and distorted against the gray afternoon light. "Pack your bags, Celeste. Pray to whatever gods your mother believed in. Because in forty-eight hours, you belong to the Alpha King."