The Alpha And His Bride..

Elvara

Goddess.

My breath caught as I climbed down from the carriage slowly. What stood in front of me wasn’t just a big house. It was a giant of a place. Taller and wider than anything I’d ever seen in my life.

The walls rose above us as if they went on forever, dark and cold, and the shadows were more intimidating than the structure. The air was chilly and there was something eerie about it, and heavy too, because it pressed down on my chest until it was too hard to breathe.

When we got close to the tall gates, I stopped walking.

Then, out of nowhere, the gates fell open.

Two soldiers stood waiting on the other side, but something about their build told me they weren’t like the regular guards we had back at home.

These men were huge, and just looking at them made my stomach drop. They looked like all they needed to murder me was to strike a fist right in the middle of my skull.

I shook the thought away and forced myself to stay calm as one of them stepped forward, his eyes locked onto me. “You’re the slave Alpha Asher bought, right?”

Slave? My jaw tightened, and I tipped my chin up. How far were the two of them from court not to know who the hell I was?

“I’m not a slave. I’m the Luna of Duskborne.”

The two men shared a doubting look before one of them grabbed my wrist so hard it hurt. “Whatever. Move.”

I bit back a curse and allowed them to lead me forward, keeping my head down but my eyes wide open as I took my surroundings in.

Everything around me was strange and new. I’d spent my whole life in one small pack village, and this place felt like an entirely new world.

Inside, it was much larger than I’d thought. The hallways seemed to stretch on forever, twisting and turning through the shadows, and I ignored the eyes that turned to watch us pass, all of them looking at me with interest.

Every step I took made my skin crawl, and for a very brief second, I glanced back, checking to see whether it was too late to make a dash for the gate. There was something too eerie about the place, and just when I thought it was just me, the soldier holding my arm tensed up as well as if he’d felt it.

For the first time in a long time, real fear burned in my gut.

Maybe everything they said about Alpha Asher was true after all.

The guards finally stopped in front of a huge golden door, which creaked open slowly, and the soldiers gripped my arms tighter before shoving me forward into a massive room.

My legs froze as dozens of eyes turned on me at once. Strict-looking soldiers lined up along the walls, watching me without blinking. Some old men sat off to the side; they looked like pack elders and while some of them looked at me as one would look at a bird about to lose its wings, others had no expression at all on their faces.

The silence in the room was abrupt and heavy, and it pressed down on me.

This had to be the pack’s meeting hall.

Everything about the room screamed money and power and there was always something spectacular to look at. Gold pillars, thick curtains, and polished furniture. But none of that mattered, because that’s the very moment when I saw… him.

He sat on a gold throne, his dark eyes already fixed on me, and swear to Selena, he looked nothing like anyone else in that room.

Black heirloom rings decorated his fingers which tapped slowly and lazily against the arm of the throne. He didn’t have to move for the whole room to feel his presence.

My eyes moved up to his face, and my breath caught for a whole different reason.

His jaw was sharp, like it had been carved from stone. His eyes were dark grey, the color of a storm about to break, and a thin scar cut across his eyebrow. It should have made him look rough, but somehow it just made him look more dangerous. More impossible to look away from and fucking hot.

He wore a long black coat over broad shoulders, with nothing beneath, and my throat tightened at the dark runes of ink on his skin beneath. His aura was cold, and I knew it was that same iciness that rolled off him and filled the whole hall.

I barely noticed the soldiers around me dropping into bows until one of them shoved hard on my neck for not doing the same.

I grunted, kept my back straight and my chin up, even as confusion built inside me. Who was this man that made grown soldiers this scared?

“Alpha Asher,” they said together, heads dropping into solid bows.

My eyes went wide. This was him?

The Rogue Alpha of Duskborne. This man? A young, powerful-looking man?

Oh Goddess.

He was nothing close to what I’d pictured.

I’d imagined some kind of monster, a twisted and ugly monster like the rumors and Martina had described. Not this man who looked like sin wrapped up and delivered by Selena herself.

“Well, this is a surprise,” Xia, my wolf, whispered suddenly through our mind link. Her voice filled me with relief. After three days of silence from her, I thought maybe I’d lost her too.

Before I could think about that any further, a deep voice cut through the room.

“You’re Nicholas’s daughter?” His voice was cold and sharp wnough that every word landed heavily in the air.

“Yes,” I forced my voice to stay steady. “I am.”

He leaned forward, eyes locked on mine like he was studying his prey. “Then you already know. Your father sold you to me. You’re mine now. Mine to do with as I please.”

Mine. Mine?!

The word hit me with sheer absurdity, and I scoffed hard.

Neither of us looked away, both refusing to be the first to blink. Alpha Asher was testing me, waiting to see how I’d react, but if he wanted to play this game, so could I.

I tilted my head, letting a calm, seductive smile spread across my face even as anger burned hot in my chest. “I think you have your words messed up, Alpha. I’m not a thing you own.”

His brow lifted.

“My father might have been dumb enough to think he sold me to you,” I went on, “but don’t fool yourself, Alpha. I’m a Luna in my own right. I’m nothing like him. You’ll need more than a bad deal to actually own me.”

Whispers broke across the hall, and the soldiers who had been standing rigidly shifted uncomfortably. Even the elders stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

Cold hit me deep in the bones as Asher’s face hardened.

His mouth twisted into a slow, cold smile.

“If you’re so powerful, then why did your father sell you off like garbage? You could have fought him. Yet here you are, standing in my hall,” he mocked.

My temper flared. Fuck. He knew how to hit a nerve.

Even though I was scared down to my bones, I looked him straight in the eyes to show him I wasn’t scared of him. “That’s simply because my father is a weak fool. He isn’t worth a single ounce of me. And I swear, I’ll make sure his life turns into a nightmare,” I said sharply.

He leaned back, completely unbothered. His eyes slid slowly down my body in a way that sent heat crawling up my neck.

“I don’t care about you and your father’s messy history,” he said. “I bought you. You’re mine now, and you’ll do what I say until I decide I’m finished with you.”

My hands balled into fists, my nails cutting into my palms. Arrogant jerk. Every word that came out of his mouth felt like poison.

“And what makes you think I’ll bow to your rules like some pet?” I shot back, refusing to look away.

His eyes flashed, and his voice dropped heavily. “Because you don’t have a choice here. You have no power in this place. This isn’t your pack. It’s mine. My rules. Break them, and you die.”

Die.

Something in me went quiet at that word, but I kept my face still so he wouldn’t see how deep it landed.

My father had threatened to kill me before, and they’d always felt empty, like wind. But Asher’s words carried real weight.

They weren’t threats. They were promises. The way he looked at me while he said it made me feel like he could see straight through me without lifting a single finger.

I swallowed hard.

Whatever he wanted from me, it wasn’t going to be good.

Every instinct in me screamed that I wouldn’t make it here, and I knew that tonight I had to do my best.

Tonight, I decided. I have to find a way out.

“You just said it yourself: those are your rules, Alpha.” A small smirk pulled at my mouth. “I’ll be living by my own rules.”

Asher’s mouth twitched, drawing my attention right back to that scar over his brow, and somehow that only made him harder to look away from.

“We’ll see about that,” he snapped. “Let’s find out how much of that fire is left once I’m through with you.”

Wait. My mind scrambled to catch up. Through with me?

“Lock her up,” he commanded, catching me off guard.

Two soldiers moved toward me fast, their footsteps heavy enough to shake the floor and panic rose in my chest, but I forced myself to stand tall.

“Apologize. Now,” Asher ordered, “Or you’ll sit in the dark for days with no food and no water.”

I clenched my hands, my eyes still burning with defiance as I stared at him. “You wish!”

The soldiers grabbed me, hauling me forward by the back of my collar, and gripped me harder than anyone had in days. They dragged me across the hall, and I heard the elders murmuring as I left. The crowd shifted restlessly, but no one, not even one person, moved to stop it.

Cowards.

I still didn’t break.

If this Alpha thought I’d beg, he could keep waiting.

I am Elvara. I don’t beg.

My own family already tore me apart once. Nothing Alpha Asher does to me now will ever hurt as much as that did. All I had to do was find a way to run as fast as I could.