Sacrifice to the Cursed Alpha King

Chapter Four

Ivy.

“Tribute to whom?” I asked again.

Alpha Ethan looked down at me, his expression cold and unreadable. For a moment, he said nothing, allowing the silence to stretch until everyone in the courtyard was waiting for his answer.

Then his lips curved into a cruel smile. “The Thornblood pack.”

A murmur spread through the crowd.

“Their Alpha King has been cursed for years,” Ethan continued. “Every night, he becomes a beast that even his own people fear. ”

His eyes settled on me.

“And now you'll be sent to him.”

For a moment, I simply stared at him.

“Me?” I was still in disbelief. I always knew that I was hated… but to this point?

“Who else?”

The silence that followed was worse than laughter.

I looked around the courtyard, searching for a single person who looked uncomfortable, someone who thought this was too cruel.

I found none.

They were watching me like they were waiting for a punishment they believed I deserved.

“Your parents betrayed this pack,” he said. “They brought shame upon our name and left behind a debt that must be paid.”

My fingers curled at my sides.

A debt.

That was what my entire life had become.

A debt I never created.

A crime I never committed.

“But perhaps this is fitting,” he continued. “The daughter of traitors being given to a cursed Alpha King.”

The first laugh came from somewhere in the crowd.

Then another.

Soon, the entire courtyard was filled with the sound.

“She finally has a purpose,” someone happily shouted.

“Maybe the beast will finish what we couldn't,” another added.

“Imagine thinking she could ever become Luna.”

Their words blurred together.

I had heard worse.

I had survived worse.

But somehow, standing there knowing they were willingly sending me away to die, it felt different.

Then Vincent arrived, his expression unreadable.

For one foolish moment my heart reached for him.

I remembered the boy who found me hiding behind the training grounds after another pack member had hurt me. He hadn't asked why I was crying. He had simply sat beside me until I was ready to speak.

“One day,” he had whispered, “they'll see you the way I see you.”

I had carried those words with me for years. They were the reason I survived.

But now he looked at me like I was something he wanted gone.

“Vincent,” I said softly, still hoping he'd stop his father from sacrificing me to the Cursed Alpha. That he'd realize how impossible this sounded.

His jaw clenched so tight at his name.

Dahlia moved closer to him, slipping her arm through his.

“You should stop looking at him like that,” she snapped and if eyes could kill, I would have fallen dead right at that moment. “It's embarrassing.”

My eyes dropped to their hands.

Ashford didn't move away from her.

“Did you really think he loved you?” Dahlia asked.

I looked at Vincent, a part of me waiting for him to defend me.

He didn't.

“You were convenient,” Dahlia continued. “A lonely omega who followed him everywhere. Someone who made him look kind.”

At that I felt something in me crack open again, and with the way her eyes lit up, she knew. She left Vincent's side and stepped closer to where I was on the ground, looking me over.

“You should be thanking him. He gave you years of pretending you mattered.”

My eyes burned.

But I couldn't risk another glance at Vincent. Not when he had made it clear over and over again that I was nothing to him.

Slowly turning around, I let the guards lead me away. Away from the pack that I had lived in the past twenty years of my life, away from my childhood best friend, away from the boy who made me feel loved and who made so many promises to me, and towards another hell. Or worse… a volcano.

*

*

*

The carriage rattled over the frozen road for what felt like hours. I sat with my hands folded in my lap, staring at nothing, while the walls of the Crescent pack shrank behind us and the forest grew thicker on either side. The trees here were taller and darker than the ones near the pack house, black branches laced together overhead so that even the daylight seemed to struggle through.

I wasn't alone. A young maid sat across from me, her hands twisting in her apron. She kept glancing at me, then away, then back again, like she wanted to say something and couldn't

find the courage.

“You're not eating,” she said at last, nodding at the small parcel of bread beside me that no one had touched.

“I'm not hungry,” I shook my head.

She was quiet for a while after that, watching the trees pass outside the window. Then she leaned closer, lowering her voice so the driver wouldn't hear over the wheels.

“Miss,” she whispered. “Do you know where they're really sending you?”

I answered after a minute. “Alpha Ethan said it plainly enough. The Thornblood pack. Their cursed Alpha King.”

“He said the words. He didn't say what they meant.” She glanced toward the front of the carriage again, then back at me, and something in her face had gone pale and careful. “I don't think you understand what you're walking into.”

“Then tell me,” I said. I didn't say it because I cared. I said it because there was nothing else to do with the hours ahead of us but listen. Because how worse could it get than a werewolf who was cursed into a beast?

She took a breath, like she was steadying herself before jumping into cold water.

“The Alpha King of Thornblood is named Cassian Voss,” she began, “He became Alpha very young. People say too young. There are stories that he poisoned his own father to take the title, and that he even cried at the funeral, pretending grief he never felt.”

I said nothing, but something in me went very still, listening despite myself.

“He was too young to rule then, so his father's Beta, a man named Grant, took the pack in hand instead. And here's the strange part. Beta Grant knew what young Cassian had done. Everyone whispered it. But instead of punishing him, he raised him like a son. Taught him. Protected him.”

“And Cassian repaid that how?” I asked, already guessing the answer from the way her voice had dropped.

“He killed him too. Took the pack back by force once he was grown. By then the whole territory loved Beta Grant and hated the boy who murdered him for it, but there was nothing anyone could do. He was already the Alpha King.”

The carriage jolted over a rut in the road, and I gripped the seat without meaning to. Outside, the trees had grown so thick and close that almost no light reached us at all.

“That still isn't a curse,” I eyed her. “That's only a cruel man.”

“The curse came after.” Her voice dropped even lower, barely more than a breath. “There was a couple in his pack once. A werewolf and his wife, and she was a witch. They saw him kill Grant with their own eyes. He killed the husband for it, right in front of her, and did something to the body I won't repeat. In her grief she cursed him. Every night, without fail, he becomes something else. A beast. Something that isn't a wolf and isn't a man. And whoever he marks as his mate is doomed to die by his hand, because the curse won't allow him to love anything and keep it alive.”

I stared at her. For the first time since the fire, since the chains, since Vincent's betrayal, something other than grief moved through me. It felt almost like fear, except fear required wanting to live, and I wasn't certain I still did.

“They lock the whole pack inside the territory at night,” she went on. “No one by blood can leave once the sun goes down, not until the curse is lifted, which no one believes will ever happen. That's the beast you're being handed to, Miss. Not some inconvenience your Alpha wants to be rid of. A monster.”

The carriage rolled on. I watched the black trees slide past the window and said nothing for a long moment, turning her words over the way you turn over a stone to see what's crawling underneath.

“Why are you telling me this?” I finally asked, not quite understanding why she'd be gossiping about her Alpha King to me. What if he found out and have her killed? Especially knowing who he is and what he has done and can do?

Her hands twisted tighter in her dress, and when she spoke again, her voice had dropped almost to nothing.

“Because I don't think you should go quietly, Miss. Do you want to escape?”

I turned to look at her fully then. Her eyes were wide and frightened, but there was something else in them too, something I hadn't felt aimed at me in longer than I could remember. Something close to kindness.

“Why would I do that?” I asked. My voice came out flat and hollow, scraped clean of anything but exhaustion. “Why would I run from my own fate?”

The maid stared at me like I'd struck her. “You'd rather die?”

“I'd rather stop fighting something that was decided for me the moment I was born,” I told her honestly. “It doesn't matter where I run to. This pack, that pack, some forest in between. I'll still be the traitor's daughter wherever I end up. At least here, my dying serves some purpose. Keeps the peace. Pays a debt. It's more than I've ever been allowed to do for anyone.”

“That's not living,” she whispered. “That's just letting them win.”

“They already won,” I shrugged, feeling tears well up in my eyes but I didn't let them fall. Not anymore. “A long time ago.”

She didn't answer that. She simply watched me for a long moment, her hands twisting in her lap, something building behind her frightened eyes that I didn't have the energy to name. I turned back to the window, to the black trees sliding past, and let the silence settle between us the way silence had settled over most of my life.

I didn't see her move until it was already done.

Pain exploded through the back of my head and the world tilted. I didn't even have time to react.

The last thing I registered before the dark swallowed me whole was her voice, breaking, apologizing to someone, though I couldn't tell if the words were meant for me or for herself.

“I'm sorry. I can't watch another one die for nothing. I can't.”

I woke to the sound of hushed voices.

For a moment, I didn't open my eyes. The ache in my head was the first thing I noticed, followed by the unfamiliar softness beneath me. It wasn't the hard wooden floor of the carriage or the cold stone of the cell in Crescent pack. There was a warmth around me, a blanket covering my body, and the faint smell of smoke and herbs lingering in the air.

I should have been afraid.

But strangely, I wasn't.

Maybe because I was too tired to be.

“She shouldn't have been brought here.”

The voice was low, unfamiliar, and edged with frustration.

“Where else was I supposed to take her?” the maid whispered back. “Back to them? So they could hand her over and watch her die?”

A pause followed.

“Leah, you don't understand what you've done.”

“I understand perfectly, Obenai.”

The name barely registered before I slowly opened my eyes.

The first thing I saw was the inside of a tent. Thick fabric walls surrounded me, and a small fire burned in the center, casting flickering shadows around the room.

The maid from the carriage stood near the entrance, her arms crossed as she faced a man I had never seen before.

He was tall, with golden blond hair that fell slightly over his face and striking blue eyes that seemed too calm for the tension filling the tent. He looked older than her and there was something in his expression that told me he wasn't someone who was easily shaken.

His eyes widened the moment he noticed my eyes open.

“She's awake.”

Leah immediately turned around.

“You're awake.”

I pushed myself up slowly, ignoring the dizziness that immediately washed over me.

The moment I remembered everything, my expression hardened.

“You should have left me.”

Her face fell.

“Ivy—”

“You should have let them take me.” My voice cracked, but I didn't care. “That was what I was meant for, wasn't it? A sacrifice.”

“You don't mean that.”

I laughed quietly, but there was no humor in it.

“Don't I?”

I threw the blanket off and tried to stand, but my body betrayed me. The room spun violently, and I barely managed to stay upright before a hand reached out to steady me.

I immediately pulled away.

“Who are you?” I asked tightly.

“Ivy, this is my brother. Obenai,” She replied.

Obenai pinned his gaze on me but I didn't let it bother me.

“Why did you save me?” It made no sense to me why she'd go through this length for my sake.

Before any of them could answer, a strange sound cut out through the silence.

All three of us froze.

“What was that?” Obenai asked, his hands clenched at his sides.

Leah turned toward the entrance of the tent, her hand moving instinctively toward the weapon at her side.

Then came another sound.

A howl.

Except it wasn't a wolf's howl.

It was deeper.

Crueler.

Something that seemed to shake the air itself.

The blood drained from Leah's face.

“No…”

I looked at her. “What is it?”

She didn't answer. She didn't need to.

Because the fear in her eyes told me everything.

The cursed Alpha King had found us.

A violent crash echoed through the forest.

The earth trembled.

Then came another.

Obenai stepped in front of us, his body tense.

“Stay behind me.”

But even he sounded like he already knew that wouldn't matter.

We all rushed outside and froze as the beast came out of the darkness like a nightmare in the flesh.

Everything Leah had told me was true.

No.

It was worse.

It towered over every werewolf I'd ever seen.

Its body was covered in black fur that seemed to swallow the moonlight itself. Massive claws dug into his palms, if you'd call them that.

He turned his head and then his eyes found mine.

Goosebumps spread out on my arms, my heart pounding so fast that I was scared it would burst out in the next second.

Unaware of the exchange between us, Leah and her brother drew out their weapons, running towards it.

Without taking his eyes off me, he flung them out of the way like they weighed nothing.

Then he started walking towards me.

I closed my eyes, my lips pressed tightly together as I counted to five before he killed me for running away from him.

I waited for the unbearable pain.

For claws ripping through my body.

For darkness.

Nothing came.

Confused, I slowly opened my eyes.

The beast stood inches away from me, it's enormous face hovered over mine. It's hot breath fanning my face.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I watched Obedai reach for him from behind, blade raised high to strike him. But the beast was so fast that he grabbed him and gave him a blow that sent him flying to the ground again.

“You monster!” Leah cried out, and with her sword held high, she charged from the side.

Just like how he handled Obedai, he swung his arm at her which sent her flying through the air.

I turned around to see him watching me intently, my eyes round with fear. Then he did something that stunned me. He raised his hand to my face and gently caressed my cheeks. The murderous rage in his eyes softened.

And I wondered why.

Just as my exhausted body almost gave out, I felt him carry me in his arms. And then he started moving.

The siblings called out to me but I didn't register what was said.

I tried to stay awake.

I tried to understand.

Why did the monster spare me? And why did he look at me like that?

But exhaustion finally won.

The last thing I felt was the warmth of the beast beneath me…

And the steady heartbeat of the creature who was supposed to be my death.

Then darkness took over.