Chapter 2: The Alpha’s Condition
1205 Words
Kieran’s question hung in the private dining room.
'What are you so afraid she’ll become?'
No one answered.
Rafe’s face had gone still, but his hand tightened around the back of his chair until his knuckles turned white.
“She is dangerous,” he said at last.
Kieran’s crimson gaze remained fixed on him. “That wasn’t my question.”
Rafe’s eyes flicked toward me.
“She killed our parents.”
“You already told me that.” Kieran’s voice stayed calm. “How?”
Rafe hesitated.
The silence stretched between us.
“She picked an herb from our mother’s garden,” he said. “Then she used it in their drink.”
“I made lemonade,” I whispered.
Every face turned toward me.
I stared at the silver tray in my hands.
“I didn’t know what I was picking.”
Rafe let out a harsh laugh. “A six-year-old should know better than to feed strange plants to her parents.”
Kieran leaned back in his chair, studying him.
“How old was she?”
“Six,” Cal muttered.
Kieran’s gaze shifted to me.
“You were six?”
My throat closed.
I nodded once.
“Common wolfsbane doesn’t kill wolves,” Kieran said.
The room changed.
Rafe’s face lost what little color remained in it.
Cal’s eyes darted toward him.
Kieran noticed.
Of course he did.
“Only bloodbane distillate would be lethal enough,” he continued. “And a child couldn’t prepare it. Not accidentally.”
My pulse thundered in my ears.
Bloodbane.
I had never heard that word before.
Rafe’s voice turned cold. “You weren’t there.”
“No,” Kieran agreed. “But someone was.”
His gaze stayed on my brother.
The meaning settled over the room like smoke.
Someone had helped me.
Someone had been there that night.
Someone had lied.
Kieran pushed back his chair and stood.
“The council meeting is over.”
Rafe’s jaw clenched. “We still have terms to discuss.”
“You have terms to reconsider.”
Kieran walked toward the door.
Rafe followed him, fury barely contained.
Cal remained near the fireplace, watching me.
I lowered my head and waited until the room emptied.
Then I gathered the glasses with shaking hands.
I wanted to disappear before anyone remembered I was there.
I almost made it to the hallway.
“Mara.”
Rafe’s voice stopped me near the basement stairs.
Cal stood beside him.
Both of them looked furious.
“What did you tell him?” Rafe demanded.
“Nothing.”
Cal stepped closer. “Did you tell him your wolf was bound?”
I didn’t answer quickly enough.
Rafe’s fist drove into my stomach.
Pain folded me in half.
“N-nothing else,” I gasped.
Rafe grabbed my hair and dragged me toward the basement door.
“You’re going to ruin everything.”
“Please,” I whispered. “He asked me directly. He’s an Alpha. I had to answer.”
The basement door opened.
Kieran stood on the other side.
He had not left.
He leaned against the stone wall with his arms folded, his crimson eyes unreadable.
Rafe released my hair immediately.
“Alpha Drax,” he said, forcing a smile. “I thought you were on your way out.”
“I was.”
Kieran’s gaze moved to me.
Then to the basement door.
Then to the bruises already forming beneath my clothes.
“But I caught her scent down here.”
His expression didn’t change.
“Fear. Hunger. Iron.”
Cal shifted uneasily.
Rafe’s smile disappeared. “My sister is being disciplined.”
“For something she did at six?”
“It is family business.”
Kieran pushed away from the wall.
“If I ally with Silver Hollow, your business becomes mine.”
Rafe’s eyes narrowed. “We already agreed on terms.”
“You agreed in principle.” Kieran’s voice remained quiet. “Nothing has been signed.”
He stepped closer.
The air tightened around him.
“My condition has changed.”
Rafe’s expression hardened. “What condition?”
Kieran looked at me.
“Mara leaves with me.”
My breath caught.
Rafe stared at him. “Why would you want her?”
Kieran’s gaze stayed on my face.
“I don’t need to explain myself to you.”
Cal laughed without humor. “She’s broken.”
Kieran finally looked at him.
The sound died in Cal’s throat.
“Then it should be easy for you to let her go.”
Rafe’s hands curled into fists.
For a moment, I thought he would refuse.
Then he glanced toward the council room, toward the alliance he wanted badly enough to sell his own sister.
“Fine,” he said. “Take her.”
The words should have hurt.
Instead, they felt like a door unlocking.
Kieran faced me again.
“Pack what you need. I return at dawn.”
I stared at him, unable to move.
His expression softened by the smallest degree.
“Do not make me come back to find you in that basement.”
Then he walked away.
I remained frozen in the hallway long after he disappeared.
Cal was the first to move.
He caught my arm and shoved me toward the stairs.
“Your room,” he said. “Pack quickly.”
I stumbled but stayed upright.
Rafe watched me with an unreadable expression.
“Don’t mistake this for freedom,” he said. “You belong to Silver Hollow until the agreement is signed.”
I looked at him.
For the first time in four years, I didn’t lower my eyes.
“Then why are you letting me go?”
His face tightened.
I walked upstairs before he could answer.
My room looked smaller than it had that morning.
The walls seemed to press in around me—the narrow bed, the cracked dresser, the single dress hanging from the back of the chair.
There was almost nothing to pack.
I folded my spare dress and placed it inside the canvas bag I had found beneath the bed. Then I added the small wooden comb my mother had given me when I was a child.
It was the only thing I had left that belonged to her.
My fingers trembled as I pulled on my gloves.
At dawn, I would leave Silver Hollow.
I should have been relieved.
Instead, I sat awake on the edge of my bed, wondering why the most feared Alpha in the northern territories wanted a broken girl everyone else had thrown away.
Kieran had seen the seal.
He had seen the bruises.
He had heard the accusations.
Still, he had offered me a way out.
I didn’t know whether that made him dangerous or different.
Maybe both.
Near midnight, the seal beneath my glove began to burn.
I clenched my teeth against the pain.
A thin line of silver light slipped across my wrist.
My wolf stirred beneath the binding.
Not the weak scrape I had felt in the glasshouse.
This was sharper.
Stronger.
Awake.
I pressed my other hand over the mark.
And somewhere deep inside me, beneath years of silence and chains, my wolf whispered one word.
Run.
- Writer
