The Alpha's Broken Chain

Chapter 3: The Deceptive Treaty

POV: Ronan

The negotiation table sat in Garrick's office, papers spread across dark wood that had not been polished in years. I sat across from him, forcing my attention onto trade routes and shipment numbers, but my wolf would not settle. Every few minutes, that scent drifted faintly through the walls, rain and pine cutting through the stale air of the office, and my whole body strained toward it.

"The southern route gives your pack access to three new territories," Garrick was saying, tapping a map spread between us. "In exchange, we'd need increased protection along our eastern border. Rogue activity has picked up."

I nodded along, only half listening. My mind kept circling back to the girl in the hall. The collar around her neck. The way she had flinched the second Garrick raised his voice.

"That girl in the main hall," I said, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Tell me about her."

Garrick's smile flickered, just for a second. "My sister. Wren." He said the name like it tasted bad in his mouth. "She's... troubled."

"Troubled how?"

"She killed our parents." He said it flatly, like reading off a grocery list. "Sixteen years ago. Caused an accident that took both their lives. She's been under close watch ever since. The collar keeps her wolf suppressed. For everyone's safety."

I listened carefully, tracking every shift in his heartbeat, every flicker in his scent. A wolf's senses do not lie, even when the mouth does.

Garrick's pulse spiked the moment he said the word "killed."

"She was a child when the accident happened," I said slowly. "How exactly does a child kill two adults?"

"She begged them to take her somewhere that night. Distracted my father while he was driving. Simple as that." His heartbeat jumped again, faster this time. "She's dangerous, Alpha. Unstable. The collar isn't cruelty, it's necessary."

Every word out of his mouth rang false in my ears, layered with the unmistakable rhythm of a lie. I had negotiated with enough dishonest leaders to know exactly what deception sounded like, and Garrick was practically shouting it with every breath.

"How old is she now?" I asked.

"Twenty-two."

Sixteen years. Sixteen years of that collar locked around her throat for a mistake a six-year-old could not possibly have caused on purpose, if she had caused it at all.

My hands curled into fists beneath the table.

"She looked malnourished," I said. "Bruised."

Garrick shrugged, entirely too casual. "She's difficult. Sometimes discipline is required to keep order."

Something in me snapped quiet and sharp, like a rope pulled too tight finally giving way.

I thought of my own pack, of every rule I had built around protecting the weakest members first. I thought of the girl kneeling on that cold floor, scrubbing at a spot that did not need scrubbing, flinching at a raised voice like it was second nature to her by now.

I thought of the scent that had ripped through my chest the moment I walked into that hall, and I understood with sudden, absolute clarity that I was not going to walk out of this pack without her.

"I want to amend the treaty," I said.

Garrick blinked, caught off guard. "Amend it how?"

"The girl. Wren." I held his gaze, letting a fraction of my Alpha authority bleed into my voice. "She comes with me. Add her to the terms, or there is no deal."

"She's not part of any trade discussion," Garrick said, forcing a laugh that came out thin and nervous. "She's a pack liability, not a bargaining chip."

"Then it should cost you nothing to let her go."

His eyes darted toward the door, toward the hall where she had been kneeling not twenty minutes ago. I watched calculation move behind his expression, weighing something I did not yet fully understand.

"I don't think you understand what you're asking for," Garrick said carefully.

I stood, planting both hands flat on the table, letting the full weight of my presence fill the room. "I understand perfectly. Rewrite the contract, or I walk, and you can explain to your council why you lost the most valuable trade deal your pack has seen in a decade over one worthless slave."

Garrick's face went pale.

"You have until morning," I said, straightening my jacket. "Choose carefully."

I walked out of that office without waiting for an answer, my wolf finally settling now that a decision had been made. Whatever secrets Garrick was hiding about his sister, I intended to uncover every single one of them.

But first, I needed to get her out of this place.

____________________

POV: Wren

I was not supposed to be listening.

I had been sent to fetch water for the guest quarters, but the office door had been left open just a c***k, and I froze in the hallway the moment I heard my own name.

"She comes with me," Alpha Ronan's voice said, low and absolute. "Add her to the terms, or there is no deal."

My whole body went numb. I pressed myself against the wall, water bucket forgotten in my shaking hands, and listened to my brother's voice climb higher with panic.

"You don't understand what you're asking for."

I did not understand it either. Why would the most feared Alpha in the region want anything to do with me? I was nothing. Garrick had made sure I believed that every single day for sixteen years.

The door swung open, and I barely managed to step back before Alpha Ronan strode out, his expression carved from stone. His grey eyes flicked toward me for just a second as he passed, and something in that gaze made my breath catch in my throat.

Then he was gone, disappearing down the hall, and I was left standing there with my heart slamming against my ribs.

Garrick called for me an hour later.

I walked into his office with my head down, the way I always did, bracing myself for whatever punishment was coming. Instead, I found Garrick pacing behind his desk, his face pale and furious, while Alpha Ronan sat waiting in a chair across from him, arms crossed, watching the door like he had been expecting me.

"Sit," Garrick snapped.

I sat in the empty chair, keeping my eyes on my lap.

"The Alpha," Garrick said, biting off each word like it hurt him to say them, "has made an unusual demand as part of our trade agreement."

I said nothing. I had learned a long time ago that silence was safer than questions.

"He wants you," Garrick continued. "As part of the deal."

My head snapped up despite myself, and I looked at Alpha Ronan for the first time since he had walked into this pack. He was watching me steadily, his grey eyes unreadable, giving nothing away.

"I don't understand," I whispered.

"Neither do I," Garrick snapped. Then, turning to Ronan, his voice took on a wheedling edge. "Surely we can discuss additional compensation. She's proven difficult to manage. You'd be taking on quite a burden."

Something dark flickered across Ronan's face. He rose slowly from his chair, and the air in the room seemed to grow heavier with every step he took toward Garrick's desk.

"You've insulted her enough for one lifetime," Ronan said, his voice dangerously quiet. "I suggest you stop while you still can."

Garrick's mouth opened, another protest already forming, but Ronan released something then, some invisible wave of pressure that pressed down on the entire room like a physical weight. I gasped, my body instinctively curling smaller in my chair, every instinct screaming to submit even though the pressure was not aimed at me at all.

Garrick was not so lucky. His knees buckled, and he dropped hard against his own desk, breathing ragged, his face white with fear.

"Sign it," Ronan said, sliding the contract across the desk. "Now."

Garrick's hand shook as he reached for the pen. He looked up at me once, something ugly and resentful in his expression, like this was somehow my fault for existing at all.

"You'll regret this," he muttered, though I could not tell if he was talking to Ronan or to me.

The pen scratched against paper.

I sat frozen in my chair, watching my entire life get traded away in exchange for trade routes and border protection, and I had absolutely no idea if I had just been saved, or if I was about to find out exactly how much worse things could get.

Ronan folded the signed contract and tucked it into his jacket without a word. Then he turned to me, and for just a moment, something almost gentle crossed his sharp features.

"Pack your things," he said quietly. "We leave within the hour."

I did not move at first, too stunned to process what was happening.

"Wren." My name in his mouth sounded strange, careful, nothing like the way Garrick spat it. "You're safe now."

I did not believe him. I did not know if I would ever be able to believe anyone again.

But I stood anyway, and I walked out of that office, because whatever waited for me outside these walls could not possibly be worse than what I was leaving behind.

I hoped.