The Crimson Alpha’s Broken Mate

"Hold still, mija. You wiggle like a fish." "It hurts, Rosa." "I know it hurts. That's how you know the cream is working." I sat on the edge of my narrow bed with my sleeve pushed up past my shoulder. The sun was barely up. Gray light came through the little attic window and dripped onto my arm like dirty water. There was a handprint on it. Purple in the middle, yellow around the edges. Four fingers and a thumb. I knew whose hand it was. Rosa rubbed the cream in slowly. It smelled like old grass and pennies. Her fingers were rough from thirty years of scrubbing floors, but they were the gentlest hands in the whole house. "You dropped one bowl," she said, shaking her head. "One." "It was the big one. The one with the gold edge." "It was a bowl, Sofia. It was not a person." I tried to laugh. It came out like a hiccup. Down below, the wolves were running laps around the estate. I could hear their feet crunching on the gravel and somebody yelling, "Move it! Move it!" Every morning at five thirty, the pack ran. Father said strong wolves never sleep in. I wasn't strong. So I slept in until Rosa came to get me. "Eat," she said, and she pushed a plate onto my knees. Toast with butter. And jam, real jam, with bits of fruit in it. "Where did you get jam?" "Don't ask questions you don't need the answers to." "That's not a real rule." "It is in this house." I took a bite. It was warm and sweet and for one whole second, I felt almost okay. Then Rosa dug into her apron pocket and pulled out a little brown bottle with a black dropper top. My stomach dropped. I knew that bottle. "Open," she said. "Do I have to?" "The Alpha says so." "The Alpha says a lot of things." "Shh!" She looked at the door like it might grow ears. "Don't talk like that. Not even up here." I sighed and opened my mouth. She squeezed in five drops. They hit my tongue like a bitter lemon dipped in old tea. "Ugh!" I coughed and squeezed my eyes shut. "Rosa, what is in that stuff?" "Vitamins." "It tastes like a dead plant." "Then it's a very healthy dead plant. Swallow." I swallowed. My throat burned a little. It always did. And after a few minutes my whole body would feel heavy, like I was wearing a wet coat. I had been taking the drops since I was fifteen. Father said they were for my nerves. Nobody ever asked if my nerves wanted them. Rosa put the bottle away. Then she did something strange. She grabbed my wrist, very fast, and slid something cold and small up my sleeve. I felt it slide down my arm and stop in the crook of my elbow. "Rosa? What was that?" "Don't look." "But what is it?" "I said, don't look." Her voice cracked on the last word. Her eyes were shiny. "Keep it close to your skin. Tell nobody. Not the Beta, not your brother, not even that nice girl from the newspaper." "Olivia?" "Especially Olivia. She talks." "She's a reporter, Rosa. She's supposed to talk." "Don't ask me today, Sofi." She held my face in her hands. "Please. Not today. When it's time, I will tell you. I promise on my mother's grave." I had never heard her say that before. Rosa never swore on her mother. She said it was bad luck. I nodded slowly. When I tugged my sleeve down, I felt it press against my skin. It was a small key. A brass one, I could tell from the shape. It was warm from Rosa's hands. Something inside me stirred. It was Stella, my wolf. She hardly ever moved. Most days she lay curled up in the back of my mind like a sleepy dog under a porch. But right then she lifted her head. She sniffed the air. And she looked at the key like she knew it. How? How could she know it? "Go on now," Rosa said, wiping her eyes with her apron. "You'll be late for breakfast, and the Alpha hates it when you're late." "He hates it when I'm early, too." "Then be on time. Like a clock." I laughed for real that time, a little one. Rosa kissed me on the forehead the way she did when I was small. I pulled on my gray sweater, even though it was too big. It hid my arm. Hiding things was my best skill. I had been doing it since I was three years old, when I hid under a table and stayed quiet while my mother died on the other side of it. I don't remember her face. I only remember her shoes, black ones, and her voice saying, "Be quiet, my sun. Whatever you hear, be quiet." So I was quiet. For sixteen years, I was quiet. I walked down the creaky attic stairs with one hand on the wall. The key felt like it was burning a hole in my sleeve. Why would Rosa give me a key? What door would it open? Every door in this house had a lock, and every lock was ruled by my father. At the bottom of the attic stairs, the whole house smelled like coffee and floor polish. I could hear plates clinking in the dining room. Somebody laughed. It was a big, easy laugh. I knew it was Brandon's. My mate. The strongest wolf in the pack. The one everyone loved. Three months ago, my father had pointed at him and said, "That one is yours." No sparks. No sweet smell. No warm feeling in my chest like the stories say. Just a nod and a handshake and a boy with a nice jaw. I told myself that's how it worked for some people. I turned the corner onto the main staircase, and I stopped so fast my sneakers squeaked. There was something on the banister. A red drop. Bright and wet, sitting right on the dark wood. I stared at it. I knew what it was. Everybody in a wolf pack knows what blood looks like. But this wasn't the kind of blood you see after a fight. This was a single, lonely drop. Like someone had coughed it up. "Sofia." I jumped so hard I almost slipped. My father stood at the top of the stairs. I hadn't even heard him. Richard Reyes, Alpha of Wolfsbane, was a big man with wide shoulders and a voice that made grown wolves flinch. But that morning his face was gray, like paper left out in the rain. There were dark rings under his eyes. One hand was pressed against his mouth. "Father," I whispered. "Are you okay?" He didn't answer. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the banister in one quick swipe. The white cloth turned red. He shoved it in his pocket like it was nothing. "What are you looking at?" he snapped. "Nothing. I just..." "Then stop staring and go eat." "But, Father, you're..." "I said go!" I flinched. My arm throbbed where his hand had been last night. I wanted to turn and run. I always wanted to run. But my feet wouldn't move, because I could see something I'd never seen on his face before. He was scared. Not angry. Not annoyed. Scared. Like a boy who'd broken a window and was hoping nobody noticed. "Father," I said quietly. "I won't tell anyone." He looked at me for a long time. His eyes were the same brown as mine. I had never noticed that before. I had been so busy looking at the floor around him that I'd forgotten we had the same eyes. "Sofia," he said. His voice was low and rough. "If anyone asks you what you saw this morning..." "Yes?" "You saw nothing." "I know." "Nothing. Do you understand me?" "I understand." He started to say something else. His mouth opened. For one wild second, I thought he might say sorry, or ask if my arm hurt, or call me by my mother's nickname for me. Instead he coughed. A deep, wet, awful cough that shook his whole body. He grabbed the railing to stay up. "Father!" I ran up two steps toward him. My hand reached out all by itself. "Don't touch me!" he barked. I froze. Then, behind him, at the very top of the staircase, a door clicked open. Someone had been standing in the shadows the whole time. A tall shape. Broad shoulders. I couldn't see his face, only the outline against the light of the hallway window. A man's voice drifted down, smooth and gentle. "Everything all right, Alpha?" My father straightened up like a puppet pulled by a string. He wiped his mouth and put his hard Alpha face back on. "Everything is fine," he said. But my fingers had gone ice cold. Because I knew that voice. And it wasn't supposed to be upstairs at this hour, in my father's private hall, listening! How long had he been there, and what exactly had he seen?