Chapter Two

RAYA

I had startled awake before I realized the pounding sound coming from the oak wood of my room door had stopped.

“What the hell?” I growled still grouchy, rubbing my eyes to look about the room when my gaze caught on the clear blue of my father’s eyes.

I jolted, scurrying back into the sheets with a whimper rising in my throat.

“Finally decided to grace us with your presence Aye? Fucking bitch! Get up!” He mused before roaring toward me, the tall bulk of his frame tight around his stomach before I felt his hands tighten on my neck.

“Please father,” I wheezed, beating at his large hands as stars appeared in my vision.

“You see this whore? This is the summons to the Alpha’s palace! And guess why it came today? Because you are a stupid little cunt who can’t get anything right!” He bellowed, brandishing the neat white of a paper I couldn’t read, only noticing how white it looked compared to the yellowed plate of his nail bed.

My heart beat a jagged rhythm in my chest as I wracked my mind for answers. I’d been quiet the other night, hadn’t I?

“I told him you weren’t in Pa! I really did!” I choked out, tears springing to my eyes as I kicked out my legs only managing to connect with air before he flung me against the wall.

I groaned, my elbows hammering into the wood so that I cuddled it, the world blurring around the edges when I looked up at him, struggling to rake in lungfuls of air.

“Clean yourself up, we're going to see the King if it isn't enough trouble that he knew you had lied already!” My father gritted through the spaces in his teeth, and my eyes widened to the size of golf balls in my sockets.

“You better be ready when I come knocking, waste my time any more than you already have, and I’ll be locking you up in the outhouse again,” My father sneered, half-craning his head to look at me.

I bit down on my tongue, quietly watching him snag the half-empty bottle he had left besides my small foam on the floor before he staggered out, swearing under his breath.

I knocked my hands against my ribs, stumbling on my hands and feet to the small cubicle of our washroom and splashing the cold, throttled spring on my face, coming out just in time for the big man with angry eyebrows to lace his hand around the collar of my night dress.

“I-i’m not ready yet Pa, I-i haven't got my proper clothes on yet,” I stammered, turning my face away from his open-mouthed leer as I felt his eyes roam the length of my body.

“Oh, I dare to say it can't get any more proper than this Raya, It's a good thing you're a whore like your mother, Alpha Toph, and his men sure would like your tight little body,” He grated, pressing the bulbous pipe of his nose against my body so that I shrieked, my eyes widening as I fought against his hold.

What was he saying? How could my father do this to me? I felt a flood of bitterness so hot it burned my chest and traveled up my throat as I fought against his hold and he dragged me, laughing, out through the oak wood door and into the dark street.

#

I was no longer crying when I stood, shoulder to hip, with my father, in the expansive throne room of the Alpha Toph’s palace.

“Any moment now,” The barrel-chested werewolf  I’d had the unfortunate fate of being born to rumbled deeply, his eyes dancing nervously around the gold-plated far walls and dome ceiling of the throne room.

I followed my father’s eyes to the line of powder-faced courtesans on their pert little thrones, their ringed fingers waving feathered fans over their bodice.

The three little witches for the Alpha werewolf. It was a nickname the villagers gave his high mistresses, with their upturned beak noses and judgy eyes.

The noise of swords clashing behind us as the sparse crowd gathered closer on the line of the red carpet had my father scurrying back like a hopper with flight phobia.

I let out a small gasp as the guards shouldered roughly past us, the blonde wolf-cut of the Alpha Prince’s hair damn near towering over the cluster of iron-chested guards.

He strode into the room like a freaking hurricane, the broad line of his shoulders following forward as the ascended the dias and turned in one swift motion.

“Lower your head brat, do not shame me here.” My father hissed, and I took my eyes off the handsome man to see that all the heads in the crowd were kissing their knees, following quickly with my shallow bow before the crowd rose.

The ball of mucus in my throat snagged sharply when I saw that the Alpha’s piercing gaze was trained on me, as he spoke in a voice that sounded like it had been cut out of glass, to my father.

“Where is my offering Mr. Banks?”

“I-i do not have it y-yet your majesty, I only need but a little time-” My father sniveled, and a gust of shame heated my face.

I didn't like the way he cowered in front of the prince. We might have been poor, but we were purebred wolves.

“How embarrassing,” I bit under my breath, my heart hammering once in my chest when the Prince’s eyes flickered to me again as he took slow measured steps down the dias.

I could feel the energy in the crowd shift, the tug in my chest coming hard enough that I keeled over when the Prince stood before me, the aura of his power cloaked his form like a shield.

“What are you called?” Alpha Tophas gritted in that voice again, and a shudder went through me when I felt the cool iron of one claw tip my chin up so that his dust-gray eyes bored into mine.

“Raya, Your majesty,” I whispered, struggling to breathe past the weight pressing on my chest as murmurs went up around the crowd.

What was happening to me? Why did I feel the yoke of a bond between us?

I had gone mad, finally. The way my mother had when she fled from our cottage house. Away from my father. It was the only explanation that made any fucking sense!

I felt my eyes shift wildly in my head when the Alpha spoke again, the neat arch of his brow creased over his forehead.

“Leave my palace Banks. The girl would do with a little washing up, your debt to the throne is settled.” He boomed, and I whipped my head to my father as confusion muddled my brain.

Surely the prince hadn't been referring to me?

“Father, I-” I wheezed, running around the man who watched on quietly to grip the lapel of my father’s brocade before he shrugged his arm away and realization dawned on me like a ton of bricks crashing on my head.

“My immense thanks your Majesty, I shall see to it that her things are brought over,” My father’s gloating voice made my ears pop and I stumbled away from the men, feeling the walls closing around me as I whirled around on my feet to search for the iron double doors we had come through.

I couldn't stay back as the prince’s mate! What about my dream to be an artist? I couldn't paint in the palace!

“Father! You can't! Don’t leave me here Pa!” I screeched, bounding toward the retreating hanger of my father’s back before I felt the collar of my shirt hook on something hard.

I swung my head to look, just in time for the iron bracket of a fist to come flying at me, catching me in the cheek so that I staggered backward, into the line of the crowd who parted around me.

“Pathetic isn't she?... Makes you wonder what his majesty sees in her-” The whispers floated around me as the white film of shock broke apart in my eyes before I cupped a shaky hand to my cheek.

The Prince had hit me, hard. Harder than my father ever did.

“Don’t you ever, maid girl, make a fool of me the way you just did again. Not if you want to get anywhere in this palace.” He spat caustically, before nodding to the guards who cupped their hands roughly under my armpit.

“Take her to the dungeon.”