The Alpha's Broken Chain

chapter 1: The Midnight Chore

POV: Wren

"You missed a spot."

Garrick's voice cut through the dark hall like a whip. I did not look up. I already knew where his boots were standing, right beside the bucket of cold water I had been scrubbing with for the last two hours.

"Sorry," I said. My knees burned against the stone floor. I pressed the brush harder into the c***k he was pointing at, even though I could not see any dirt there at all.

"Sorry doesn't clean floors, Wren." He crouched down so his face was close to mine. His breath smelled like whiskey. "You know what today is?"

I did not answer. I knew exactly what today was. It was the same day it always was, sixteen years running.

"Sixteen years ago," he said anyway, "our parents got in that car because you begged them to take you to see the fireworks. Sixteen years ago, you killed them."

My hands shook, but I kept scrubbing. If I stopped, he would find a new reason to be angry. If I cried, it would be worse. I had learned that a long time ago.

"I was six," I whispered, before I could stop myself.

Garrick grabbed my chin and forced my head up. His eyes were flat and cold, nothing like the brother I barely remembered from before. "Old enough to know better. Old enough to still be paying for it."

He let go and stood, brushing off his pants like touching me had made him dirty. Around my neck, the collar sat heavy and tight, a thick band of grey metal that never came off. It hummed faintly against my skin, the way it always did, pressing something inside me flat and silent. I used to wonder what it was holding down. Now I mostly just wondered how long I had left before my body finally gave out from the beatings and the starving and the cold.

"Finish the hall," Garrick said. "Alpha Ronan arrives tomorrow for the trade summit. I want this place spotless. If he sees one speck of dirt and thinks less of me, you'll wish you were never born."

I already wished that most days. But I only nodded and said, "Yes, Alpha."

He was not really my Alpha. Not in my heart. But saying his title out loud kept the bruises from getting worse, so I said it anyway.

Garrick walked off toward his office, his footsteps echoing through the empty hall. I stayed on my knees a moment longer, staring at my raw, cracked hands. There was a fresh bruise blooming on my wrist from where he had grabbed me that morning. Another one on my ribs from two nights before. I had stopped counting them a long time ago. Counting only made the pain feel bigger.

I dipped the brush back into the water and kept scrubbing.

The main hall of Thornfield Pack used to be beautiful, or so I had been told. Now the paint peeled from the walls and the old chandeliers hung with cracked glass. Just like everything else here, it had been left to rot the moment my parents died and Garrick took over. He cared more about looking powerful than actually being a good leader. The pack members whispered about it sometimes, when they thought I could not hear. They said Thornfield used to be respected. Now other packs only dealt with us because they had no other choice.

I thought about Alpha Ronan as I worked. Everyone talked about him like he was something out of a nightmare. The biggest Alpha in the region, they said. Cold as ice, ruthless in battle, feared by every pack for three territories. I had heard stories of him tearing through rogue attackers without blinking, of enemies who begged for mercy and never got it.

Tomorrow, that man would be walking through these halls.

I told myself it did not matter. I would be invisible, like always. Scrub the floors, stay in the shadows, disappear whenever anyone important walked by. That was the only way I had survived this long.

My arms ached by the time I finished the far corner of the hall. I sat back on my heels and looked at the clean stone, pale and gleaming under the dim light. At least it was something. At least I had done one thing right today.

I was reaching for the bucket to dump the dirty water outside when I heard it.

A low, heavy rumble, far off but growing closer. An engine, deep and powerful, nothing like the old trucks the pack guards used. It grew louder every second, rolling toward the front gates like distant thunder.

I froze, my heart slamming against my ribs.

It was hours too early. Alpha Ronan was not supposed to arrive until tomorrow morning.

Voices rose outside, sharp and panicked, guards shouting orders I could not make out. Boots pounded against gravel. Somewhere above me, I heard Garrick's office door bang open, followed by his cursing as he rushed toward the front entrance.

I stood frozen in the middle of the hall, bucket forgotten at my feet, my whole body trembling.

The gates groaned open.

And whatever was coming through them was already here.