Chapter 5

Mira

I moved against my will, following the butler towards the palace. I screamed at my legs to stop, but it was no use. I was a passenger in my own body.

Even now, my father’s Alpha Voice pushed me towards the Lycan King. His power over me as Alpha was absolute. If I broke through his control and disobeyed, I would completely sever my bond with my pack.

I’d become a rogue.

To live as a lone wolf, doomed to wander friends and family…it would be madness to choose that. Besides, good Alphas only asserted their dominance if it was truly vital.

And Alphas knew best, didn’t they?

I wasn’t so sure anymore.

I couldn’t understand why my father would take my choice away. He’d been enthusiastic when I’d married Tyler! He’d walked me down the aisle, and the moment he’d given me away was the only moment I’d ever seen his eyes water.

How could he be so willing to take away my happiness with the man I loved?

As I moved up the staircase to the palace, questions burning in my head, the confusion and hurt morphed into something else: betrayal.

My own father had betrayed me and given me to the most ruthless king wolves had seen in generations.

Your father is trying to help you see reason, Ash said in my head. You’re too stubborn to understand that this is what’s best for us!

But he knows I love Tyler, I thought back weakly.

Ash whimpered and nuzzled against my mind. Even though I could feel her excitement to see our mate again, she still wanted to comfort me. She understood I was hurt.

I realized it then. My father hadn’t cared if this would hurt – in fact, he knew it would. And he had forced me to go to the Lycan King anyways.

He cared more about the pack’s relationship with the king than his own daughter.

Perhaps he didn’t love me after all.

“Wait here,” the butler said just before entering the mansion. “Simon, don’t let her out of your sight.”

One of the guards stationed at the entrance walked up to me and grasped my arm. My body didn’t resist.

“Sorry about him,” the guard whispered under his breath. “He gets antsy when we have guests.”

“That’s a nice way of saying he’s an ass,” the other guard whispered from his post. The first guard, Simon, laughed.

“He’ll be as happy as we are once the King confirms you’re his mate,” Simon said. “I mean, we are all really, really happy you’re here.”

“Seriously, thank the Goddess,” the other guard groaned.

The door opened then, and Simon’s grip on my arm loosened. Both guards fell silent as several males, dressed in all black, came out of the palace, each carrying large, heavy-looking bags.

Bags that smelled of wolf’s blood.

A wave of nausea rolled through me. The stories about the Lycan King weren’t just rumors – he really was a murderous lunatic.

I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. I wanted to run back to the car and beg the driver to take me back home to my family and my husband. Even Ash was spooked; I felt her tail curl up between her legs.

I wish we’d never stepped into that room! I wailed to her.

That man, that tyrant, had pinned us under him, and we’d nearly succumbed to mating with him right then and there. I was disgusted.

I never wanted his blood-stained hands to touch me again. I was terrified I would be the next corpse being taken out of the palace if I let him claim me.

I don’t want to die here! I cried to Ash.

Our mate would never hurt us, she replied, though her voice shook.

What’s the alternative? We become his prisoner here? Look at this place! I screamed back at her.

She didn’t have a response for that.

I had to get us out of here. I knew the consequences. I knew I would break the bond with my pack, and, in that moment, I didn’t care.

I refused to be the Lycan King’s mate. I would rather be a rogue and make it on my own.

I will not obey! I shouted to my body, fighting to take it back. I held onto my hurt and anger at my father for forcing me to come here, and I felt the power of the Alpha Voice over me snap.

I didn’t waste any time as I regained control of my body. I twisted away from the guard, slipping out of his grip and beginning to run.

“Hey!” he shouted, briefly surprised before sprinting after me. “Get back here!”

My legs moved faster than they ever had. However, it wasn’t fast enough. The guards were gaining too quick – I wasn’t going to get away like this!

So I reached inside to Ash. I embraced my most primal self, and, within seconds, I shifted into my wolf form.

The guards shifted behind me, but I knew they’d never catch me now. While I may not have been fast in my human form, nobody had ever been able to keep up with me in wolf form.

Ethan had always told me I looked like a bolt of red lightning when I was running in wolf form, my terracotta fur and silver face zipping across fields too quickly for their eyes to keep up.

I sprinted into the forest around the property until my legs screamed, and then I sprinted some more. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I had to get as far away as possible.

Suddenly, an ominous howl broke through the trees, longer and deeper than any howl I’d ever heard. Ash couldn’t help but respond and howl inside my head, instinctually excited despite our shared fear.

He couldn’t be catching up already…could he?

It all happened so fast. Within a second, I heard a tree branch break behind me, and before I could even whimper, an immense weight pounced on my back and tackled me to the forest floor.

A massive black wolf, double the size of a normal wolf, pinned me to the ground with a single paw. His eyes glowed a sinister amber color, with slitted pupils more like cat’s eyes than a wolf’s. I tried to squirm away, but the wolf—no, the lycan—wrapped his jaws around my throat with ease.

So this was what made Valen Montclair so terrifying.

I growled, trying my best to be brave, but as my throat rumbled, I felt his teeth, each at least two inches long, press into my skin. It would take so little effort for him to bite through my neck. There was nothing I could do against this beast, and if I kept struggling, I just must convince him that I wasn’t worth keeping alive.

In defeat, I submitted.

He growled in satisfaction. He released my neck but kept his paw pinning me down. I looked up at him with wide eyes, his amber eyes boring into me in command: shift.

In sync, we both shifted back into human form. The grassy forest floor pressed into my bare back, and I could feel the heat radiating off his body as he hovered above me, knee pushed between my legs.

I couldn’t stop my eyes from travelling down his corded, muscular body. He looked more like a statue than a man, carved in the image of what a perfect body should be.

And there, between his legs…that thing looked more like an unsheathed dagger than an actual penis.

I’d never slept with Tyler, much less seen him bare like this. I couldn’t imagine his being this dangerous-looking though. My breath hitched, but, despite my fear, my body began to burn under his gaze.

His calloused hands roughly grabbed my chin then, forcing me to look back up at his face.

“Where,” he growled, “were you planning to go?”