Claimed by the Demon Alpha

Selene's POV I have always known that I was unloved. Unwanted. A burden that no one asked for. But today— Today was something else entirely. I stood there, hands clenched at my sides, watching my adoptive father, mother, and Matthew stare at me like I was trash. Like I wasn't a person. Like they weren't discussing my death like it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. I had just told them. I was going to take Saira's place. I was going to be offered to the Alpha King. The Cursed King of the Blood Shadow Kingdom. Undefeated in every war he'd ever fought. Not a single bride had walked out of his bed alive. He was the name that made every young girl wake up screaming in the middle of the night. The room was silent for three seconds. Then my adoptive father set down his cup and nodded. Just like that. Like I'd told him I was going to the market. "Why?" My voice cracked, my eyes burning. "I'm going to die, and you don't feel anything?" "You should be grateful." His voice was terrifyingly calm. A laugh almost tore out of me. Grateful? "Grateful for what?" I lifted my chin and met his gaze dead-on. ‘For eighteen years of being your punching bag? For never once being treated like a human being? "Grateful that we let you live." He stepped toward me, his voice dropping low, pressing against my throat like a blunt blade. "Without us, you would have rotted on that roadside. A child with no parents, no name, nothing. We gave you food. Clothes. A roof. Do you have any idea how many people don't even get that much?" Something scorched through my chest. "That wasn't kindness—" "What have you ever done to repay us?" My adoptive mother finally spoke, setting down her teacup, fixing me with the look I had grown up dreading—pure, bone-deep revulsion. "No wolf. No ability. Eighteen years of eating our food and embarrassing our name. What exactly do you think you're worth?" "I'm going to die!" My voice rose sharply, and the tears I had been fighting finally broke free. "I'm going to die, and this is all you have to say to me?!" "Oh, stop crying." Matthew pushed off the doorframe and walked toward me, looking down at me like I was a broken tool that had finally found one last use. "You think your death is worth something? The Alpha King won't even look at you. He'll toss you out to feed the wolves. No wolf, no worth—did you really think he'd take you as a bride?" He let out a short, cruel laugh. "Keep dreaming.But maybe that weird moonlight mark of yours will keep you alive?" "Matthew—" "You should be thankful." He leaned in close, his voice dropping to something quieter and far more vicious. "At least this time your death actually buys us something. That's more than your life ever did. You've done nothing but waste space and breathe our air." My lips began to tremble. "I am your daughter." I heard my own voice go hoarse, fracturing at the edges, like something finally breaking beyond repair. "I am your daughter—how can you—how could you—" "You are not our daughter." My adoptive father's voice came down like a blade. Clean. Precise. Without a single moment of hesitation. "You never were. You were a mistake we picked up off the side of a road." Silence. My tears stopped. Not because the pain had eased—but because it had gone so deep I couldn't feel anything anymore. My adoptive mother rose from her chair, smoothing her skirt, her tone as casual as if she were handing out chores. "Since you're leaving, pack your things tonight. Don't keep the envoy waiting. And wash the bedding in your room before you go—don't leave a mess for us to deal with." The bedding. I was going to my death, and she was thinking about the bedding. My adoptive father's hand came up. Crack. My head snapped to the side. The burning spread across my cheek in waves. My eyes stung. But I locked my jaw and refused to let a single tear fall. I won't cry. Not anymore. They don't deserve it. "You will regret this," I said, my voice barely above a whisper—but every word landed like it had been carved from stone. "Every single one of you will regret this." Matthew laughed. "What are you going to do—crawl out of your grave and haunt us?" I didn't answer. I turned around and walked out. I was an adopted child. Picked up at three years old with no parents, no name, no history. It took me eighteen years to understand that what they gave me wasn't love. It was shelter. And shelter came with conditions—stay silent, endure, and never embarrass them. The year I turned eighteen, I failed to awaken my wolf. After that night, even the thin tolerance they'd shown me disappeared entirely. My adoptive father stopped feeding me. My adoptive mother locked the pantry. Matthew told me to go die every single morning. And Werren—my fated mate, the Alpha's son—turned his back on me in front of the entire pack. "Don't touch me," he'd said. "Do you know how humiliating this is? Having a wolfless mate?" I stood there and said nothing. I just watched him walk away and thought: You will all regret this. Through all of it, only one person had been different. Saira. She was the only person in these past months who had made me feel like I was still human. She'd pressed her own bread into my hands on the nights the pantry was locked. She'd sat beside me without a word when no one else would come near. The night my fever wouldn't break, she'd stayed until dawn. So when she came to me trembling, barely able to speak, saying her mother was dying and she couldn't go— I didn't think twice. "I'll go. I'll take your place." I thought that this time, it would be different. I thought giving my life might finally be enough for them to see me. The carriage left. Werren never came. As though I had never existed at all. Outside the window, the mountain road was swallowed in darkness. The witch sat across from me, humming something tuneless and low. I didn't want to die. The thought circled endlessly. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. Why should I have to— "Such a shame, really." I snapped my gaze up. The witch's clouded eyes were fixed on me, her lips curving into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Your friend. Saira." She tilted her head. "What a pretty little liar." My heart stuttered. "What?" "That rescue." She leaned forward, her voice as unhurried as if she were discussing the weather. "It was theater. She knew she'd been chosen a full month before the announcement. She needed someone to die in her place, so she had you pushed into that river. Watched you drown—almost. Then swooped in at exactly the right moment to play the hero." The carriage seemed to tilt beneath me. "Werren too. He's been with Saira for months. They're getting married next month—right around when you would have married him. The whole thing was his idea. He needed you gone." She paused. "Your adoptive family knew as well. They agreed to let you take Saira's place in exchange for Matthew's promotion to Gamma." She shrugged. "Everyone wins. Everyone but you." I pressed both hands over my mouth, but the sob tore free anyway. Saira. The bread she'd pressed into my hands. The shoulder she'd offered without a word. The long night she'd kept watch until dawn. All of it was a lie. Every last piece of it, engineered to send me willingly to my death. And then there was my family. I replayed the scene in my mind—my adoptive father's nod, my adoptive mother humming as she turned back to the dishes, Matthew's grin. I had told myself it was indifference. That they simply didn't care. But it wasn't indifference. They had known. They had always known. They hadn't merely watched me walk toward death with cold eyes—they had built the road. Sat in that dining room and nodded and hummed and smiled, celebrating. My death wasn't a loss to them. It was a transaction. A deal they had signed long before I ever opened my mouth. I thought the worst thing was that they didn't love me. But they didn't just fail to love me. They hated me enough to engineer my death—and toasted to it. Something rose in my chest that I had never felt before. Not grief. Not the hollow ache of rejection. Hate. Clean, scalding, wide-awake hate. "That King," I said, my voice startlingly steady. "Is he really that terrible?" The witch looked at me. "The last girl they sent—they found three fingers. Nothing else." She settled back into her seat. "The one before that, they found nothing at all. Not even bone." She met my eyes without blinking. "He won't see you as a bride. He'll see you as prey." "Stop the carriage." My voice didn't sound like mine. "Stop—the carriage—" "I can't do that, girl—" "Let me out!" I threw myself at the door, fingers clawing at the handle, wrenching with everything I had. "I won't do this! I won't die for them! I won't—" The witch's hand closed around my wrist like iron. "Too late, little fool." Her clouded eyes didn't waver. "The Alpha King is waiting for his bride in Black Mountain." The wheels kept turning. My screams dissolved into the mountain wind, swallowed whole, like nothing had changed at all. No. I can accept death. But I will not die for those demons who played with my life like it was nothing—not for a single one of them！