The Alpha's Shattered Bond: His secret Lycan Heir

004

The Boardroom of Broken Dreams

VINA HALE

Is it possible to have an out-of-body experience while your body is still being dragged down a hallway at twenty miles per hour? Asking for a friend.

If you had told me this morning that by midnight I’d be hand-delivered to the Alpha’s private study like a pizza with the wrong toppings, I would have laughed. I would have said, “No, I’m the girl who scrubs the grease trap; the Alpha doesn’t even know I have a last name.”

But here we are.

Jace’s hand was still clamped around my arm. It wasn't the romantic, “I’ll never let you go” grip from the movies. It was a “You are an embarrassing problem I need to solve” grip. His skin was scorching hot against mine—that’s the True Fated Bond for you. It’s like being plugged into a high-voltage socket while someone is simultaneously dumping a bucket of ice water over your head.

My heart was doing this frantic, hummingbird-on-caffeine thrumming against my ribs. He said mine, I kept thinking. He smelled my jasmine and honey. He felt the spark. He can’t un-feel that, right?

He threw open the heavy oak doors to his father’s study and practically tossed me inside.

The room smelled like expensive cigars, old leather books, and the kind of suffocating, ancient power that makes your knees want to hit the floor before your brain even knows why. Alpha Magnus was sitting behind a mahogany desk that looked like it cost more than the house I grew up in. He didn't look surprised. He looked… disappointed. Like he’d ordered a steak and got a lukewarm bowl of porridge instead.

“Sit,” Magnus said. It wasn’t a suggestion. My legs gave out before I could even decide to obey.

Jace stood to the side, pacing like a caged tiger. He wouldn't look at me. The golden glow in his eyes was gone, replaced by a frantic, jagged gray. He looked like he was vibrating.

“So,” Magnus began, leaning back and joining his fingers together. He looked at me with the same clinical interest a scientist might give a particularly ugly mold sample. “The Moon Goddess has a truly perverse sense of humor. A True Fated Match. The first in three generations of Blackwoods. And she gives the gift to… this.”

He gestured to me. To my raw, scrub-reddened hands. To my gray tunic that had a literal wine stain on the hem thanks to Sarah.

“I felt it, Father,” Jace snapped, his voice raw. “The pull… it was like nothing I’ve ever described. It was agonizing.”

“Agony is the body’s way of telling you something is wrong, Jace,” Magnus said calmly. He stood up and walked around the desk. His presence was so heavy I felt like I was being flattened into the carpet. He stopped in front of me, but he spoke to his son. “A pack is not a fairy tale. It is a business. It is a machine. And a machine is only as strong as its weakest gear.”

He reached out and tilted my chin up with one cold finger. I tried to pull away, but I was paralyzed.

“Look at her, Jace,” Magnus commanded. “Really look at her. She is rankless. She has no scent to command a room. She has no wolf to lead a hunt. She has no family connections, no dowry, no power. If you make this… thing… your Luna, the Silver Moon pack becomes a laughingstock by morning. The Blood-Claw pack will smell our weakness and be at our borders by sunset. Our allies will withdraw. Our lineage will be diluted.”

“She’s my mate,” Jace whispered, but he sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

“She is a liability,” Magnus barked, his voice finally losing its calm. “Sarah is an asset. Sarah brings the support of the Council of Elders. Sarah brings a lineage of three High Alphas. Sarah can give you heirs that will make the earth tremble. This girl?” He let go of my chin with a flick of his wrist. “This girl will give you pups that will be bullied until they’re exiled.”

I finally found my voice. It was small, shaky, and sounded like it belonged to a different person. “I… I have a wolf. She’s just… quiet. And I work hard. I know this pack better than anyone. I care about—”

Magnus laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound. “You care? My dear, no one cares about the feelings of a servant. We are talking about the survival of the throne.”

He turned back to Jace. “The choice is simple. You can be a man who follows a chemical itch in his brain and watches his kingdom burn to the ground. Or you can be the Alpha I raised you to be. You can secure our future. You can lead us to the greatest era the Silver Moon has ever seen.”

Silence stretched across the room. It was thick and suffocating.

I looked at Jace. Please, I begged silently. Look at me. Remember the cookies. Remember when you said my scent was peaceful. Remember that we were chosen.

Jace stopped pacing. He finally looked at me. But he didn't see Vina. He didn't see his mate.

He saw a liability.

He saw the "flea" Sarah had mocked.

He saw the reason his father would look at him with shame for the rest of his life.

His jaw set. The tension in his shoulders didn't leave, but it changed. It became cold. Rigid. The man who had growled "Mine" was dead. In his place stood the Future Alpha, a man who had been taught from birth that power was the only thing worth having.

“The pack,” Jace said, his voice as flat as a grave marker, “comes first.”

Magnus smiled. It was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen. “Good. We go back out there now. You will end this before the moon sets. You will show them that a Blackwood is master of his own destiny, not a slave to a mating bond.”

Jace nodded once. He didn't come to help me up. He didn't offer a hand. He just walked toward the door.

I sat there on the floor, my fingers digging into the expensive carpet. I felt cold. A deep, bone-chilling cold that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.

Note to the Moon Goddess: I think I’d like to file a formal complaint. Or maybe just a request for immediate spontaneous combustion. Because I have a feeling that what comes next is going to be a lot worse than being ignored.

It’s one thing to be a nobody. It’s another thing to be the person the hero decides to sacrifice to save the world.

I’m not the heroine of this story, am I? I’m the collateral damage.

I stood up, my legs feeling like lead, and followed them out into the hallway. Back toward the music. Back toward the crowd.

Back toward the end of my life.