Alpha King's Broken Mate

Chapter 12- Humiliation

BRISEIS

I hadn’t planned to stay long.

I only wanted to see it.

The training yard.

Stone and dirt and iron. Wooden dummies lined the perimeter. Swords and staffs stacked neatly along the fence. I remembered it all from before.

Only... this one was cleaner. Larger. The air didn’t reek of blood and sweat and punishment.

Still, I hesitated at the edge.

A few warriors were already gathered in the centre ring. Some sparred. Some watched.

They didn’t notice me at first.

I didn’t wear anything that screamed power, no royal seal, no cloak or title. Just a simple dark tunic, boots laced tight, and my hair braided down my back.

I didn’t come to be seen.

But they saw me anyway.

First a glance.

Then a whisper.

Then… silence.

The clang of swords stopped.

A few wolves stepped back from their circles.

I knew that feeling.

That slow, creeping chill.

The kind that slithered over your skin just before someone called you useless.

“Looks like the king’s pet found her legs,” someone muttered loud enough to carry.

I didn’t turn.

But I felt it.

Eyes boring into me.

“She here to fight, or just... watch?” another voice asked, mocking.

“She’s probably here to swoon,” a female wolf snorted. “Isn’t that what she’s good at?”

Laughter rippled across the yard.

I stared ahead, jaw tight.

I could walk away.

I should walk away.

But something held me still.

Something deep.

Old.

Heavy.

A voice I’d buried for years whispered, ‘If you run now, you’ll never stop running.’

A tall she-wolf stepped forward from the ring.

Black hair braided like a warrior’s. Long, pale scar across one cheek.

She was beautiful.

And she was angry.

Not the wild kind.

The quiet kind.

The jealous kind.

“You’re Briseis,” she said, voice smooth. “The little survivor.”

My wolf shifted beneath my skin.

I nodded once.

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“You think because you share a bed with him, you belong here?”

I blinked. “I didn’t come to fight.”

“Of course you didn’t.” She stepped closer. “Because you can’t. Right?”

I didn’t answer.

“See, the rest of us bled for our place. We trained. We earned respect. You? You just appeared. A scared little thing with a scar and a title.”

My heart pounded.

My wolf surged, hot and rising.

Not yet.

Not yet.

“I didn’t ask for a title,” I said quietly.

“No,” she said, circling. “But you’ll wear it, won’t you? You’ll stand beside him at court and pretend you know what it means to be one of us. You’ll keep playing weak and innocent, and he’ll keep protecting you.”

Another murmur from the watching wolves.

Some sneered.

Some smirked.

No one spoke in my defence.

Of course not.

I was alone.

Again.

She stopped in front of me.

A breath away.

“If you were mine,” she said, her voice dropping into a snarl, “I would’ve left you to bleed on the floor that day.”

The blow came faster than I expected.

Not a fist.

Not a claw.

A shove.

Hard.

My back hit the dirt.

Gasps echoed as I hit the ground, breath knocked from my lungs.

Pain shot up my spine.

My wolf snarled inside me, begging to rise.

But I didn’t shift.

I didn’t cry.

I didn’t move.

I just stared up at the sky.

At the clouds drifting peacefully overhead while wolves I didn’t know laughed at me from the edges of a ring I’d never wanted to step into.

And I understood something,

They weren’t afraid of me.

They hated me because they could still see the girl I’d been.

Small.

Silent.

Disposable.

And that made me dangerous.

Not to them.

But to their order.

Their comfort.

Their hierarchy.

Because if someone like me could rise…

What did that say about all of them?

I sat up slowly, wincing.

No one helped me.

Not even the guards.

Of course they didn’t.

Not when Orion wasn’t watching.

And he wasn’t here.

Because he trusted me to breathe on my own now.

But breathing hurt.

I didn’t cry.

I didn’t lash out.

I stood.

Met the eyes of the she-wolf who pushed me.

And walked away.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Like her hands had never touched me.

Orion found me an hour later.

I was in the garden again, knees tucked to my chest, Lyra’s drawing of Queen Clawface folded between my fingers.

He didn’t speak at first.

He just crouched beside me, eyes scanning me like he was counting every invisible wound.

“Who?” he asked softly.

I didn’t answer.

“I’ll find out.”

“I know.”

He exhaled slowly.

“I gave you space,” he said. “But I forgot how wolves behave when they think they’re not being watched.”

I met his gaze.

“I don’t need revenge,” I said. “I just need time.”

His jaw tightened.

Then relaxed.

“Time,” he agreed. “But not silence.”

His hand brushed mine.

Warm. Grounding.

And then, without a word, he rose.

And left.

I didn’t see her again.

Not that day.

Not the next.

The she-wolf with the scar vanished like smoke after a fire, whispers in the halls, a name that made wolves go suddenly silent when I passed.

But I knew she hadn’t been punished.

Not yet.

Orion hadn’t roared.

He hadn’t summoned her in front of the court.

He hadn’t demanded blood.

He’d done something far worse.

He’d waited.

The change came quietly.

Not like thunder.

Like fog.

Subtle. Creeping.

It began when two warriors flanked me during my walk to the gardens, not guards. Elites. Silent, sharp-eyed, older than most, dressed in black.

They didn’t speak.

But they followed.

A few wolves bowed when I passed.

Not deeply. Not sincerely. But enough to make the others look twice.

By the third day, someone pulled out a chair for me in the dining hall.

I didn’t sit.

But it happened.

Orion never said a word.

He didn’t need to.

He was drawing lines.

Invisible ones.

Uncrossable ones.

On the fourth day, I was summoned.

Not to his chambers.

To the strategy room.

The door was guarded.

Inside: maps, scrolls, a half-burned candle, and the Alpha King himself seated at the head of the table.

I paused in the doorway.

“You’re early,” he said without looking up.

“You summoned me.”

“I did.” He looked up then. Eyes sharp. Focused. “Come sit.”

I sat.

He passed me a scroll.

A schedule.

Training.

Court briefings.

Herbology with the palace healers.

History of the northern and eastern packs.

All structured.

All for me.

“I didn’t ask for a title,” I said, almost defensively.

“You didn’t need to,” he said simply. “The moment you walked into that yard, they gave it to you. Without mercy.”

I swallowed hard. “You want me to pretend I belong?”

“No.” His voice dropped. “I want you to make them regret thinking you didn’t.”

My heart pounded.

“Why now?”

“Because I let them watch you bleed,” he said, voice low. “I gave you space. And they used it to remind you of who you used to be.”

His eyes locked on mine.

“They won’t do it again.”

He didn’t kiss me.

He didn’t touch me.

He didn’t even walk me back to my chambers.

He just gave me the scroll.

The path.

And the first real step toward power.

Not to survive.

But to stand.

That night, after the scroll had been tucked beneath my pillow and the last ember in the hearth had dimmed, I heard the softest knock on the door.

Then a squeak as it creaked open.

“Briseis?” came the tiniest whisper.

I smiled before I even turned.

Lyra tiptoed in, hugging her stuffed wolf and wearing a crooked crown made of twigs, yellow flowers, and a glittery shoelace she must’ve stolen from somewhere.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, eyes wide and solemn.

“Bad dreams?”

She shook her head. “I just missed you.”

She climbed up onto the bed without waiting for permission, curled up beside me like she’d done it a thousand times, her tiny feet freezing against my leg, her little hands clutching her stuffed toy like it was a treasure.

“I brought your crown,” she mumbled, already half-asleep.

“My crown?”

She nodded and adjusted it gently on my head, barely balancing it in my hair.

“Queen Clawface,” she yawned. “Strongest in the whole kingdom.”

I laughed under my breath, swallowing the sting behind my eyes.

“You’re the only one who thinks that.”

“No,” she whispered, snuggling closer until her nose was tucked under my chin. “Papa thinks it too. He just hasn’t said it out loud yet.”

I froze, just for a breath.

Then slowly… wrapped my arms around her.

We lay there in the soft hush of moonlight and firelight, her warmth pressed against mine, her crown slipping off and tumbling to the floor like it had done its job.

And for once, I didn’t feel watched.

I felt… held.

Safe.

Loved.

We fell asleep tangled together, her tiny heartbeat thudding against mine like a lullaby, her breath slow and soft, her dreams unspoken but glowing in the air between us.

And maybe for the first time in forever, I dreamed too.

Not of running.

Not of bleeding.

But of a world where little girls wore crowns of flowers and fierce wolves slept with stuffed toys…

…and no one ever had to fight to be seen.