Chapter One – Tribute
1193 Words
“They’re laughing at you.”
The words slithered through the ballroom like smoke, sour and untraceable.
Serena Vale didn’t turn her head. She couldn’t afford to. Her eyes stayed locked on the coffin in the center of the hall—draped in black silk, lilies stacked in obscene heaps. A king’s coffin, they called it. But there was no grief here. Not in the jeweled masks, not in the jeweled mouths already whispering.
The masked heirs had not gathered to mourn. They had come for debts.
Her father’s debts.
Her debts now.
The Master of Ceremonies raised his cane. The c***k against marble rang sharp as bone splitting. Instantly, laughter dwindled to silence.
“Alaric Vale,” he declared, his voice sharp enough to draw blood, “leaves behind no fortune, no honor, and no wolf worth his name.”
The words sliced through Serena like knives. He let the silence stretch until it was cruel, then spoke again.
“His House stands broken. His daughter—” another pause, deliberate, “—inherits only his debts.”
The hall erupted. Laughter rolled across the walls, bouncing off chandeliers, weaving between pillars. Masks gleamed with cruelty, jeweled feathers trembled as heads tipped back in mockery.
Serena’s fists curled at her sides, trembling against her will.
“Wolf-less.” The word hissed from behind jeweled fans. “Wolf-less Serena. Pretender. Mistake.”
Another c***k of the cane. “As is tradition, she is offered as Tribute of the Society. To serve, to suffer, until her debt is paid in full.”
A delighted gasp swept the room. Tribute meant shackles. Tribute meant prey.
Her stomach turned to stone. “No…” Her voice rasped, raw. “This cannot be happening.”
A woman’s syrup-sweet tone rose above the din. “What use is a Tribute with no wolf? She’ll break before dawn.”
More laughter followed, sharper now—daggers wrapped in velvet.
“Look at her hands,” a young lord drawled, lifting his goblet. “She’s shaking. Wolves don’t shake.”
Serena dug her nails into her palms until skin tore. She wanted to scream, to claw their masks away and make them bleed. Instead she fixed her eyes on the coffin. *I will not bend. Not in front of them.*
Then silence fell. Not laughter’s lull, not the Master’s command, but something heavier. Unnatural.
A gaze.
From the balcony above, a figure stood cloaked in shadow. His mask was black edged with silver, but his eyes—storm-gray, alive—held her. They sliced through the jeweled masks, through the perfume haze and wine-stained jeers, straight into her.
Her breath caught. For one suspended second, chandeliers blurred, laughter dulled. There was only him.
And something stirred. Heat coiled low in her gut, unsettling, dangerous. Behind the locked door inside her—the one where the wolf should have been but never answered—something rattled. A faint whisper, a scratch at the edges of her soul.
Then he moved.
The Master’s cane cracked again. “House Duskbane, your claim is law. Does the heir step forward?”
Gasps scattered like sparks. Heads swiveled upward.
The figure descended the staircase, unhurried, each footfall deliberate. The crowd shifted instinctively, as though the floor belonged to him.
“Lucien Duskbane,” someone breathed, half-reverent, half-afraid. “The rival’s son. The wolf who never lost.”
Serena’s lungs locked tight.
Lucien crossed the marble as if he commanded the hall itself. The crowd parted, masks dipping away from his shadow. When he reached her, the masquerade held its breath.
He studied her in silence. His gaze trailed her face, her trembling hands, back up as though mapping something only he could see. Then his gloved hand lifted—not touching, just hovering inches from her cheek. Close enough that heat seemed to radiate from his palm.
“Tribute Vale,” he murmured, low for her but sharp enough for others to catch. “From this night forward, you belong to me.”
The hall exploded.
“He claimed her?”
“A wolf-less? Madness.”
“He’ll tear her apart before dawn.”
Serena froze. *Belong? To him?* Fury clawed her chest, shame bit her tongue—but beneath both, something darker curled. The locked door rattled harder.
And then, impossibly—
A growl.
Weak, uncertain, but hers.
Her knees nearly buckled. Her wolf. The ghost she had never known, the hollow that mocked her all her life—alive, however faint.
Lucien’s eyes narrowed, storm-gray lightning. He had heard it too. His hand lingered in the air, closer now, unreadable.
The masquerade roared, oblivious to the impossible shift inside her. Serena’s chest heaved, terror tangling with something far more dangerous.
Her wolf was not gone.
And Lucien Duskbane had been the one to wake it.
---
The laughter swelled again, but beneath it Serena noticed something else.
Near the coffin.
A smear of red against the black silk.
Not lilies. Not drapery. Blood. Fresh. Too fresh.
Her father had been sealed inside hours ago. The casket had been closed.
Her stomach knotted. She whispered, “That can’t be right.”
Lucien’s head tilted, catching what others missed. His voice was a blade meant only for her. “What did you see?”
“The blood. On the silk. It wasn’t there before.”
For the first time, his mask of indifference slipped. “You’re certain?”
She nodded, throat tight. “It’s new.”
He leaned closer, his breath brushing her ear. “Then someone wanted it seen.”
Her skin prickled. “A message. A warning.” Her voice dropped lower, trembling. “Or proof.”
Her father hadn’t died of weakness. He had been murdered.
She whispered, “Who—”
His hand closed around her wrist, firm and grounding. “Not here. Keep still.”
But the truth coiled in her gut, venomous and undeniable. This wasn’t humiliation theater alone. The masquerade was a stage for something uglier. Someone in this hall had killed her father—and wanted her to know.
---
The Master lifted his cane again, oblivious—or pretending to be. “It is done. Tribute Vale belongs to House Duskbane.”
The hall erupted once more, but Lucien didn’t turn. His storm-gray eyes stayed locked on Serena’s. His words fell like steel velvet between them.
“Then the first debt she pays will be the truth.”
Serena’s throat went dry. “Truth?”
“Who killed your father,” Lucien murmured, so low only she heard.
Her blood froze. Fury and confusion warred inside her. “You think someone *here*—”
His grip tightened, steady and certain. “I don’t think. I know.”
---
The laughter rose again, masks gleamed, wine spilled as though nothing had shifted. But Serena felt it—the weight of eyes, the prickle of danger.
Someone in this masquerade had put fresh blood on her father’s coffin. Someone had m
urdered him.
And now she was Tribute—shackled to Lucien Duskbane. The wolf who had woken her own.
Her only ally… or her most dangerous jailer.
- Writer
