The Alpha’s Last Bride

Signed in Red

Ayla

The cell was colder than before.

Or maybe I was colder. I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. Every breath burned, my skin felt like parchment stretched over flames, and the stone beneath me leeched what little strength I had left.

So when the heavy doors creaked open again, I didn’t bother lifting my head. Not until I caught the scent of leather and pine and something darker—something dangerous.

Damien Voss stepped into the corridor like the storm had followed him, cloak flaring behind broad shoulders. His boots echoed over the stone, slow and deliberate, as though the dungeon itself answered to him.

But it wasn’t just him.

The second figure trailed behind, older, shorter, wrapped in the scent of herbs and fire. A healer.

I dragged myself to sit up, my muscles trembling with the effort. Damien’s shadow fell over me long before he did.

“She’s burning up,” the healer said softly, crouching outside the bars. “Fever’s taken hold.”

“She’ll live,” Damien said. His voice was ice. “If she chooses to.”

My tongue felt thick. “You bring medicine now? When I’m half-dead?”

“You’re not half-dead,” he said, eyes hard. “You’re stubborn. There’s a difference.”

The healer hesitated, a small vial in hand. “May I?”

I didn’t answer. My pride wanted to spit in their faces. But my body—my body wanted to survive.

So I nodded, barely.

The door clanked open. The healer knelt beside me, murmuring as he pressed a cool cloth to my forehead and tipped the vial to my lips. The liquid burned, bitter and sharp, but I swallowed.

When it was done, Damien didn’t move.

“I don’t want your help,” I whispered hoarsely. “I want out of this cell.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “Then earn your release.”

He stepped back, nodding once to the healer. “That’s enough.”

When the cell clanged shut again, he lingered just beyond it.

“This isn’t mercy,” he said. “It’s strategy.”

I coughed. “Everything is strategy to you.”

He didn’t deny it. “You said you’d rather die than kneel. I’m giving you a third option.”

“Marriage.”

His silence was confirmation enough.

“Do you think I’m desperate enough to say yes?” I asked.

“I think you’re desperate enough to live.”

And I hated him for being right.

Before I could speak again, another set of footsteps echoed down the corridor. Garrick Fenros emerged from the shadows, crisp and clipped as ever, holding a leather-bound folder like it might bite.

“She’s agreed?” Garrick asked, raising a brow.

“She’s alive, isn’t she?” Damien muttered.

I narrowed my eyes. “You’re enjoying this.”

“I’m enduring it,” Damien replied. “Same as you.”

Garrick cleared his throat, stepping closer to the bars. “The terms are simple, Miss Morvain. You will enter into a legally binding union with Alpha Voss. This is not a romantic gesture. It is a matter of necessity. You will reside in the Luna quarters, attend required public events, and participate in nightly visits until a viable heir is conceived.”

My stomach turned. “Charming.”

Garrick didn’t blink. “You’ll sign the agreement during the wedding ceremony—in blood, as per Stormwatch custom. Not before. For now, you’ll be bathed, dressed, and escorted under guard.”

I tried to laugh, but it came out as a rasp. “So I’m still a prisoner. Just a cleaner one.”

“No,” Damien said at last. “You’re my wife.”

The words hung there, sharp and absurd. Not ‘you will be’—you are.

As if the choice had already been made. As if I wasn’t already shackled by it.

The medicine worked faster than it should have.

By the time I was marched—half-carried—up from the dungeons and into the inner keep, the fire behind my eyes had dulled to a manageable flicker. My limbs still ached, but the tremors had faded, and I could breathe without feeling like my ribs were splintering.

It wasn’t just medicine. I knew that. Knew the way it had burned on my tongue, the unnatural clarity that followed. A potion. Something rare. Expensive. Likely brewed for nobility and kings.

I wondered how many of my people would still be alive if we’d had access to vials like that.

If Rowan had had it.

If the dying woman on the cot—the one who trusted me with her hand in mine—had felt even a moment of relief.

The thought made bile rise again.

They didn’t heal us because we weren’t meant to survive. But one failed assassination attempt, and suddenly I was worth preserving. Not because I mattered. But because I could be useful.

The guards led me down hall after hall, past tapestries I didn’t recognize, past glinting chandeliers and old oil paintings of men who all wore the same expression: pride thinly veiled by judgment.

Eventually we reached a thick door carved with the Stormwatch crest. One of the guards opened it and gestured inside.

My new quarters.

I stepped through slowly, unsure if my knees would still hold. The Luna suite was cavernous and quiet, done in stone and steel and fur. Rich navy drapes hung over tall windows. A carved fireplace stood cold and empty, though logs were stacked neatly within it. A tub sat ready in a side chamber, steam curling from its surface.

Three maids waited by the tub, heads bowed.

None of them looked at me, not even when I mumbled a thank you. Not when I slipped from my torn, bloodstained clothes. Not when I stepped into the bath, the water hissing against my sore skin.

They moved efficiently, silently, scrubbing months of ash and blood and dirt from my limbs. One poured warm water over my hair. Another combed out the tangles with fingers that never trembled, never hesitated.

But they never spoke. It was worse than cruelty. It was apathy. To them, I was already dead. Just a shell in a borrowed title, too temporary to bother with.

I closed my eyes and let the water lap against my chin.

It had been months since I felt clean. Longer since I felt safe.

This wasn’t safety. But it was still more than I’d had. I rested my head against the edge of the tub and let the silence stretch. Let them see I wouldn’t cry. That their cold shoulders wouldn’t break me.

Let them know the traitor could still endure.

Eventually, they wrapped me in linen and helped me into a gown—soft grey velvet with high shoulders and delicate silver embroidery at the wrists. Someone had chosen it carefully. Regal. Restrained. A Luna’s dress.

My skin prickled as the last maid fastened a silver pin at my collarbone.

“She’s ready,” one said quietly.

It was the only thing any of them had spoken.

The doors opened again.

I turned, expecting another maid. Maybe Garrick. But instead, it was him.

Damien Voss.

He filled the doorway like a shadow brought to life—broad-shouldered, tall, the very image of cold authority in his storm-black formal coat. His hair, darker than ink, had been slicked back from his face, and for the first time, I noticed how young he still looked beneath the brutal set of his jaw.

Thirty, maybe thirty-one. Yet he wore death like a mantle.

His gaze dragged over me—slow, unreadable.

The silver pin at my throat. The dress clinging to my damp skin. The hands that I kept clenched at my sides.

“You clean up well,” he said, voice low and smooth. “Though you still look like you want to murder me.”

I didn’t respond. I wasn’t going to play games. Not with him.

He walked further in, stopping a few paces away. “The ceremony will be small. Witnesses only. No celebration.”

“Afraid I’ll poison the cake?”

He gave a soft huff of something close to amusement. “Afraid you’ll say something foolish. Or worse—true.”

I squared my shoulders. “I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”

“You walked up the stairs. You took the medicine. You let the maids touch you.” His voice darkened slightly. “You accepted more than you realize."

“None of that means I agreed to be your wife.”

“No,” he said. “But it means you want to live.”

He stepped closer, and the scent of cold pine and smoke wrapped around me. His presence was oppressive, magnetic. When I lifted my chin to meet his gaze, the barest flicker of heat sparked between us—something I hated myself for noticing.

Damien studied me a moment longer. Then turned.

“Follow me.”

I did.

The walk was short—just two wings over, through vaulted corridors that smelled of stone and ash. We stopped before a heavy arched door flanked by two guards. One pushed it open, revealing a small ceremonial hall, stark and dimly lit, with a long red runner and a dais at the front.

Garrick stood there with a bound scroll. Two witnesses lingered behind him: an older man I didn’t know, and a dark-haired woman with eyes like frostbite.

Both looked at me like I was fungus growing between floorboards.

Damien strode up to the dais. I stayed at the threshold for a breath too long—until the woman scoffed. I forced myself forward, spine straight, refusing to shrink under their judgment.

Garrick unrolled the scroll and cleared his throat.

“This is not a bonded union,” he began. “There will be no joining of souls, no sanctified rites. This is a contract, witnessed and upheld by Stormwatch law. Its terms are as follows—”

I tuned him out.

My eyes flicked to Damien, who stood beside me without flinching. A blade hung at his hip. Not for use, I knew. Just tradition. Alpha grooms were meant to carry steel, even in peace.

I almost laughed at the absurdity.

The terms were as expected—separate rooms, nightly visits for the sake of lineage, no public affection save when appearances demanded it. I would be Luna in name. Nothing more.

Then Garrick produced a blade. He offered it to Damien first. Without a word, Damien took it and sliced the pad of his thumb. Blood welled instantly. He pressed it to the scroll in a practiced motion.

Then Garrick held the blade out to me.

I hesitated.

One drop of blood. That’s all it would take.

One drop to end everything I was before.

I took the blade.

Sliced.

The hall fell silent.

Damien turned to me then. “Luna,” he said softly, like it was a brand instead of a title.

The ceremony ended without fanfare.

No kiss. No whispered vows. Just the metallic tang of blood and the creak of silence stretching far too long.

When it was done, Damien stepped back like the whole thing had left a sour taste in his mouth. He didn’t even look at me as he turned and descended the dais, black coat flaring behind him like smoke.

“Dismiss the witnesses,” he said to Garrick. “And have her escorted back.”

Garrick blinked. “You’re not—?”

“No,” Damien bit out. “Not yet.”

Then he was gone—storming through the arched doors and vanishing into the shadowed corridor beyond, his boots cracking like thunder over the stone.

I exhaled, only then realizing I’d been holding my breath.

Garrick offered a clipped nod to the guards. “Escort the Luna to her suite.”

Luna. As if saying it would make it real.

I didn’t bother responding. Didn’t thank him. Didn’t acknowledge the way his eyes slid over me with thinly veiled disappointment.

I was too tired. Too angry. And too aware of how my hands still trembled, even now.

Back in the suite, I slammed the door with enough force to rattle the frame. The dress was suffocating, its silks too tight and its bodice stiff with formality. I tore at the laces, dragging it over my head and throwing it across the chaise.

The moonstone necklace clattered to the floor.

I paced the room, still raw from the confrontation—if it could even be called that. Damien hadn’t yelled. He hadn’t so much as raised his voice. But something in the way he left—abrupt, tight-jawed, seething with restraint—made me feel like the fury sat beneath his skin, coiled and waiting.

Good. Let it burn.

I flung open the tall wardrobe, shoved aside the gowns, and found a thin shift to sleep in. Not that I expected sleep. Not tonight.

I slid beneath the furs, body chilled despite the fire crackling in the hearth. My thoughts wouldn’t stop spinning—circling the ceremony, the feel of his eyes on me, the blade in my hand, the word Luna ringing like a noose.

I didn’t know what I felt. Triumph, maybe. Rage. Or dread, coiled low in my gut. Probably all of it—blurred together so tightly I couldn’t separate one from the next.

I turned toward the window, watching snow whip across the glass in silver-edged waves, trying not to think about what came next—about the terms I’d signed in blood, about the promise that lingered between us like a match waiting to strike.

The first night.

Sleep crept in slowly, fogging the edges of my thoughts, pulling me under inch by inch. I might’ve surrendered to it, if not for the quiet creak of the door behind me.

I stilled, every muscle taut.

Footsteps followed—slow, deliberate. The weight of them pressed into the stones, into me. I didn’t have to turn to know it was him.

Damien.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t announce himself. Just closed the door with a click soft enough to feel intimate. Possessive. The room dimmed with his presence, the air thickening like stormclouds gathering just before they break.

I rolled onto my back, eyes meeting shadow, heart beating a little too loud in the quiet.

The Alpha had come to claim his bride.