The forced union

CHAPTER 002

THE FORCED UNION

The vase shattered against the wall, exploding into a thousand glittering shards that rained down onto the floor. Cecilia barely registered the sound. 

Her chest heaved with each breath, her hands trembling as she reached for the next object, a silver candlestick that had belonged to her grandmother.

"Cecilia, please—" Darcy's voice came from somewhere behind her. 

The candlestick followed the vase, leaving a dent in the stone wall. The satisfying crash did nothing to ease the fury burning through her veins.

"How could he?" The words tore from her throat, raw and jagged. "How could he do this to me?"

She grabbed a crystal decanter from her desk and hurled it across the room. It struck her mirror, and both shattered in a symphony of destruction. 

"I am the Alpha Queen of the Greensville Pack!" Her voice rose to a shout. "I am feared across every territory! I have built this pack into something unstoppable, and he dares—he dares to sell me off like some breeding mare!"

"Cecilia—"

"To the Redwood Pack!" She spun to face Darcy, her eyes blazing. "The Redwood Pack, Darcy! A pack so pathetic they're drowning in debt. A pack without honour, strength, and anything worth salvaging. And my father wants me to tie myself to their heir? To Cassian?"

The name tasted like poison on her tongue. She had heard of Cassian, of course. He was nothing like what an Alpha Queen needed in a mate.

Darcy moved closer, her steps careful as if approaching a wild animal. "Your father believes..."

"I don't care what my father believes!" Cecilia swept her arm across her desk, sending papers and ink bottles crashing to the floor. "He has no right. No right to choose my mate. No right to threaten my position. No right to humiliate me like this!"

"And Lila," she spat the name. "He would give my crown to Lila. My cousin who has never led a single raid, never made a hard decision, never done anything but smile and nod and play the perfect daughter."

"Lila is kind."

"Kind doesn't keep a pack safe!" Cecilia whirled around. "Kind doesn't maintain our borders. Kind doesn't strike fear into our enemies. I have made this pack strong. Me. Not my father. Not Lila. Me!"

But even as the words left her mouth, doubt crept in. Her father would do it. She knew he would. 

Bonn was many things, but he had never made empty threats. If she refused this marriage, she would wake up tomorrow as nothing: No pack, title and money. 

The thought made her stomach twist with something that felt terrifyingly close to panic.

"Please, sit down." Darcy's hand touched her shoulder gently. "You're exhausted. You've been pacing for hours."

"I can't sit," Cecilia said, but her voice had lost some of its fury. Now she just sounded tired. "If I sit, if I stop moving, I'll have to accept that this is really happening."

"It is happening," Darcy said softly. "The question is what you're going to do about it."

Cecilia slumped against the wall, sliding down until she sat on the floor amongst the broken glass and spilled ink. 

Her training leathers were still damp with sweat from yesterday, “Had it only been yesterday?" and her body ached from tension.

"What would you do?" she asked, looking up at her beta. "If you were me, what would you advise?"

Darcy was quiet for a long moment, her expression thoughtful. Then she came and sat beside Cecilia, heedless of the debris around them.

"I would tell you that from what I've gathered, Cassian is not the monster you're painting him as. The reports say he's quiet, yes, but also intelligent. Diplomatic. Some even say he's handsome." Darcy paused. 

"And most importantly, I would tell you that losing your throne would destroy you in ways this marriage never could."

The words hit harder than Cecilia wanted to admit. She closed her eyes, feeling the truth of them settle in her bones.

"So I should surrender," she whispered. "I should bow to my father's demands and marry a man I don't know from a pack I don't respect."

"I would call it choosing your battles," Darcy said. "You can marry Cassian and keep your crown, or you can refuse and lose everything. Which humiliation can you live with?"

Cecilia sat there as the first rays of dawn began to creep through her window, painting the destruction of her chamber in shades of gold and amber. Around her lay the physical evidence of her rage: broken glass, shattered wood, torn tapestries. 

But beneath the fury, fear coiled tight in her chest.

She was the Alpha Queen. She had fought too hard, sacrificed too much, to let it all slip away because of pride.

"I'll do it," she said finally, the words scraping out of her throat. "I'll marry him."

Darcy released a breath she seemed to have been holding. "I think that's wise—"

"Don't." Cecilia held up a hand. "Don't tell me it's wise. Don't tell me it's for the best. Just... don't."

She pushed herself to her feet, her body protesting every movement. Her reflection in the remaining shards of mirror showed a woman she barely recognised—hair wild, eyes red-rimmed, face pale with exhaustion and rage.

"I need to tell my father," she said.

***

Bonn's study smelt of old leather and pipe smoke, a scent that had once meant comfort and safety.

Now it just made Cecilia's stomach turn. Her father sat behind his massive oak desk, papers spread before him, looking for all the world like a king conducting business.

He didn't even look up when she entered.

"Father," she said, her voice flat. "I've made my decision."

"I assumed you would." Bonn's tone was maddeningly dismissive as he continued writing. "Self-preservation has always been your strongest trait."

The barb found its mark, but Cecilia refused to rise to it. "I will marry Cassian."

"Good." He set down his quill and finally looked at her. 

His face showed no satisfaction, no relief, just the same cool assessment he might give a battle strategy.

"Though I hardly needed your answer. The Redwood Alpha and his heir arrive later this morning."

Cecilia's hands clenched into fists at her sides. "You were that certain I would agree?"

"I was certain you weren't foolish enough to throw away everything you've built." Bonn leaned back in his chair. "Now go prepare yourself to receive your husband-to-be. And Cecilia..." His eyes hardened. 

"You will behave yourself. I want no hostility or dramatics from you.You will be civil, or I will interpret that as a refusal of this arrangement. Do I make myself clear?"

Every muscle in Cecilia's body screamed at her to argue, to fight, to rage against his commands. But she was trapped, and they both knew it.

"Crystal clear," she forced out through gritted teeth.

"Dismissed."

The word was a slap. Like she was a subordinate instead of the Alpha Queen.  

Her claws pricked at her fingertips, begging to tear his throat out in front of the entire council.

Cecilia turned and walked out of the study, each step controlled.

Only when she was in the corridor, the door safely closed behind her, did she let herself pause.

She pressed her forehead against the cool stone wall and took several deep breaths. 

She could do this. She had faced down rival Alphas, had survived challenges to her authority, and had made impossible decisions. She could survive one arranged marriage.

She had to.

By mid-morning, the palace was in an uproar of preparation. Servants rushed about, preparing guest chambers and laying out refreshments. 

Cecilia had bathed and changed into formal attire, a gown the colour of a fresh bruise, cut high at the throat and tight at the wrists. It was armour disguised as silk.

Her hair was braided back severely from her face, and she wore her mother's silver circlet, the one that marked her as Alpha Queen.

Armour, she thought. It was all just armour.

She stood in the formal receiving hall with her father on one side and the council members arranged behind them. The picture of unity and a pack in agreement.

It was all a lie.

The doors opened, and two men entered.

Alpha Eli of the Redwood Pack was older than Bonn, his hair more grey than brown, his frame stooped with age and worry. He wore fine clothes that couldn't quite hide how worn they were at the edges. A failing Alpha of a failing pack.

But it was the man beside him who drew Cecilia's attention because his scent hit her first— pine smoke and winter steel, the smell of a wolf who had run through snow and blood and never once looked back.

It slid under her skin like a claw before she could stop it. A thin scar was visible on his left eyebrow, it looked old, like the kind earned by someone who once was in a fight.

He was taller than she had expected with dark hair that fell just past his collar and sharp features that might have been handsome if Cecilia had been in any mood to notice. 

He wore simple travelling clothes, and there was something in the way he carried himself that spoke of control rather than weakness.

His eyes met hers across the hall, and for a moment, something passed between them. 

Understanding, maybe. Or mutual resentment.

Then the moment broke, and the formalities began.

"Alpha Bonn," Eli's voice was warm with relief. "Thank you for this generous alliance. The Redwood Pack is honoured—"

The words washed over Cecilia like meaningless noise. 

She stood rigid, her face a mask of cold politeness, as agreements were made and wedding arrangements discussed. 

Three days, they decided. Three days until she would be bound to this stranger.

"Perhaps," Bonn suggested at one point, his voice carrying forced cheer, "the young couple should take a moment to speak privately and begin getting to know one another."

No. Every instinct in Cecilia screamed against it. But refusing would be seen as the hostility her father had warned against.

"Of course," she said, her voice arctic. "How thoughtful."

She led Cassian to a small antechamber off the main hall. When the door closed, leaving them alone, she turned to face him.

He was watching her with those dark eyes, his expression unreadable.

"So," she said, her tone sharp enough to cut. "This is what desperation looks like."

Cassian's eyebrow raised slightly. "I beg your pardon?"

"Your pack is drowning in debt. Your father is too weak to save it. Tell me, Cassian, when you spread your legs for my pack’s gold, did you at least pretend to enjoy it? Or were you thinking of all the stronger males who turned me down first?”

Cecilia crossed her arms. "Tell me, Cassian, how does it feel to be a political bargaining chip?"

"Much the same as it feels for you, I imagine."

The response was so calm, so measured, that it only fuelled her anger further.

"Don't compare us," she snapped. "I am the Alpha Queen of the Greensville Pack. You are the heir to a pack so pathetic it needs my resources to survive. Don’t pretend you’re a man. You’re a walking dowry with a cock."

"No," Cassian agreed quietly. "We're not. I'm here by choice. You're here because your father backed you into a corner."

The words landed between them like a challenge. She was taller than most males, had broken stronger wolves with her bare hands, but something in the way he held still…coiled, not cowed…. made the wolf inside her bare its throat for half a heartbeat. 

Her knees almost buckled before she snarlingly yanked control back and locked it.

"Get out."

"We should discuss—"

"I said get out!" Her voice rose to a shout. "I don't want to hear your voice. I don't want your opinions. I don't want anything from you except your absence!"

Cassian studied her for a long moment, and something like pity flickered in his eyes. That was worse than anything else. And then he stood up and walked to the door.

But then he stopped with his hand on the latch. Without turning, he said, voice soft as falling ash,  

“Be careful which parts of me y

ou break, Cecilia. Some of them bite back when you least expect it.”  

   

And with that he left. Heat crawled over Cecilia's skin and she felt the first prickle of real danger.

WHO THE HELL IS THIS MAN?