Bound To The King Who Hates Me

Selene Damaris;

I curled into the corner of my cell, trying to make myself as small as possible. My knees were pressed tightly to my chest.

The gown I once wore with pride—ivory silk stitched by the kingdom’s finest hands is now nothing but shredded gray fabric hanging off my body like a ghost of who I used to be. My feet are bare, bruised, and throbbing. And my hair, once brushed smooth by a dozen handmaidens, now hangs in tangled, greasy strands across my face.

It’s been seven days since they threw me into this cold, forgotten place.

Seven days since everything I knew was taken from me.

I used to be Princess Selene Damaris of the Obsidian Claw Pack—the Alpha’s daughter. People bowed when I entered the room. No one dared to speak out of turn when I walked past. My father made sure of that. Alpha Thorne Damaris ruled without mercy, and I stood proudly in his shadow, untouchable. Unbreakable. Or so I thought.

Now he’s gone. He was killed.

Our kingdom has fallen.

And the throne that should have been mine now it belongs to him.

Alpha Kael Draven.

The slave who once kneeled in our dungeons… now rules as king.

And me?

I’m nothing.

Just a prisoner. A spoil of war. His prize.

The surrounding silence is broken by the low clink of chains from down the hall. Heavy footsteps follow, slow and deliberate, getting closer. My head jerks, heart pounding in my ears.

The cell door creaks open, letting in a slash of warm, flickering torchlight. A guard steps inside, his eyes cold and unreadable, holding a metal tray.

The stale stench of bread and meat hits me instantly. It shouldn’t smell good—gods, it shouldn’t—but hunger doesn’t care about pride. My stomach growls so loudly it echoes, loud and pitiful. I hate that sound. Hate how it betrays me.

The last thing I ate was a crust of dry bread that morning. Or maybe it was the morning before? Time blurs here, behind stone and shadow.

Outside the barred window, the golden stretch of sunlight begins to fade. Another day is dying.

With a clang, the tray lands near my feet.

“Eat up, Princess,” the guard sneers,"Last meal you’ll have like royalty, forgotten you’re nothing now?”

I didn’t answer. My fingers twitch toward the food, but I refuse to lunge. He won’t get the pleasure of seeing me scramble like a street curve.

He smirks. “We all hate you here, you know. Every wolf in this fortress remembers what your father did to ours. Beg the king tonight maybe he’ll keep you alive a little longer.”

I forced my chin high. My throat aches to speak, yet I hold my silence. Only my eyes answer, burning with a quiet defiance that once made seasoned warriors flinch.

The guard snorts. “The king will be with you in a few hours. Be ready to receive him.” His voice drops to an oily whisper. “He’s eager to greet his favorite prisoner.”

He turns and slams the door. The crack reverberates through stone and bone alike. I flinch despite myself.

Kael Draven. Even his name twists in my chest, a blade of fear sharpened on memory. He was once my father’s slave, beaten, whipped, paraded in chains.

And in two hours he will stand in this cell with me.

Dusk bleeds into night. Footsteps return, more of them this time. I rose slowly, my joints were screaming protest as my money fingers brushed the damp wall for balance. My breath swung in my throat.

“Bow,” barks the lead guard to the soldiers behind him. “The Alpha King approaches—Alpha Kael Draven of the Nightfa—”

“Do not announce me, Varek,” comes a low voice out of the darkness. Smooth as winter steel, lethal in its calm. My pulse slams against my ribs.

“S‑sorry, my King,” Varek stammers, folding almost double.

The cell door bursts inward, crashing against stone. He strides in.

The room shrinks around him. Towering, broad-shouldered, wrapped in black leather and steel that fits him like second skin, Kael Draven commands the space by sheer gravity. Gold eyes sweep the cell.

His jaw is strong, a scar slicing over one brow in pale contrast against tanned skin.

My breath catches. He looks like death incarnate. And death is looking at me.

I straightened despite the quake in my knees. If he strikes me down, he will do so while I stand. I meet those molten eyes.

I didn’t look away.

Even though every fiber in my body begged me to.

Kael Draven stood just feet from me, and there was nothing human in the way he stared. No flicker of warmth. No mercy. Just... loathing. Pure and venomous, like he’d been waiting years to feed on it.

He tilted his head slightly, and I caught the full view of his face. He was as brutal as I remembered—masculine to the point of intimidation, but not untouched by time or war. A long, jagged scar cut from his left cheekbone down toward the edge of his jaw, breaking the symmetry of his beauty. But it didn’t make him any less striking. If anything, it made him worse—handsome in the way lightning is beautiful: deadly and never to be touched.

He stepped forward.

His hand reached out, not gently, and sifted through the tangled strands of my nearly white-blonde hair. I clenched my jaw as his fingers ran through it slowly, like he was inspecting a prize.

Then, without warning, he gripped it tight and yanked my head back.

I cried out, my scalp burning with pain as I was forced to meet his eyes again. My body tensed in panic, my heart beating a frantic rhythm as his face hovered close.

“When I enter this room,” Kael said, his voice like ice cracking on a lake, “You rise. You do not sit there like some cowardly, wide-eyed rodent waiting for death.”

His grip tightened, sending another pulse of pain through my head. I whimpered, trembling beneath him.

“I would want nothing more,” he continued, his voice darker now, “than to punish you. Over and over. Just for the pleasure of watching you break.”

I swallowed hard. “Y-Yes…” I choked, the word bitter on my tongue. “Yes… my king.”

His face twisted in disgust.

He released my hair only to drag his hand downward, stopping just below my collarbone. I froze. His palm rested over my breast, his hand circled my nipples through clothing and then pinched it so hard, I screamed out as a thick wave of pain reverberated through me. He held the nub tight as he looked me in the eye.

“You are mistaking,” he said lowly. “I am not your king. I will never be your king.”

He leaned in until I could feel his breath against my ear.

“I am the king to my people. And you…” His hand pressed harder. “You are not one of them.”

I shook beneath his hold.

“You are nothing,” he whispered. “You are my slave. My property.”

I nodded quickly, praying to whatever gods hadn’t already abandoned me that he would stop.

“Please… just—please,” I begged, the words tumbling from my lips.

He didn’t let go.

Instead, his grip grew sharper, sharper until pain bloomed in my chest and I gasped.

“I said you’re my property,” he repeated. “Say it.”

“Y-Yes… master,” I forced out, tears stinging my eyes. I hated it. I hated how low it made me feel.

His hand released me, and I sagged back against the wall, breathing like I had just survived drowning.

Kael stepped back, his expression blank and unreadable. And then—swiftly—he ripped my tattered top in one violent motion, leaving me exposed to the torchlight and his gaze. I gasped, my arms instinctively moving, but I fisted my skirt instead, refusing to cover myself, if only to preserve the last shred of control I had.

He didn’t leer. He didn’t smirk. There was no lust in his eyes.

Only cold assessment.

He stepped forward again and pressed a hand against my breast, the same one he’d hurt, the bruised flesh already sore. He didn’t flinch as I did. He just stood over me, watching.

“Stand.”

I hesitated.

“Now.”

My legs were weak, my knees trembling, but I stood, shaky and small.

Kael didn’t look at me. Not at my face. Not at the parts of me exposed. Every beat of my heart trembled beneath his command.

“Varek,” he called.

The door creaked open.

I flinched again.

I didn’t want to be seen like this. Not like this. But when I tried to step back—his hand clamped around my boobs, stopping me instantly. The pressure was painful.

“Unless you want to fall again,” he murmured.

I froze.

“Yes, Your Highness?” the guard said, voice wavering.

Kael turned his head, calm and cruel. “Take a good look at the slave,” he said. “Do you like what you see?”

I wanted the ground to swallow me whole.

Varek hesitated, clearly caught between fear and shame. “Y-Yes, my King.”

Kael looked back at me.

“Have the servants wash her. Clean her. Get her ready for my chamber in three hours.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Varek said and backed away.

Kael finally released me.

I staggered back, wrapping my arms around myself, my chest heaving.

I looked at him full of hatred.

He saw it. And he smiled, just slightly.

“I will hurt you in ways you’ve never imagined. You’ll beg. And you’ll learn to crave the pain. Everything your father did to me, to my people… I will return it. And worse.”

His voice lowered further. “I’ll share you if I please. I’ll make you the most obedient dog the world has seen. I will break you.”

I gritted my teeth. “You can never break me,” I hissed. “Monster.”

His eyes glittered.

“I love that fire,” he said. “Because I love snuffing it out.”

He turned toward the door, throwing one last sentence over his shoulder.

“Your training starts tonight… in my bed.”

Then he walked out, leaving the cell colder than before.