3

The Alpha's office smelled like cedar wood and broken things.

I stepped through the door and immediately felt the crunch of shattered ceramic beneath my borrowed heels. Pieces of plates and cups were scattered across the hardwood floor like someone had swept an entire table clean in a fit of rage. The breakfast spread that had been carefully prepared for the King's visit was smeared across the ground in a mess of crushed pastries and spilled juice.

But the mess on the floor was nothing compared to what was sitting in my father's chair.

Xavier Kane, the Lycan King, occupied the seat like he had been born in it. He was enormous. Not just tall but broad and carved from something harder than muscle, something that made the oversized leather chair look small beneath him. His dark hair fell across his forehead in a careless way that somehow looked intentional, and his jaw was sharp enough to cut steel. But it was his eyes that stopped my heart. Molten gold, burning and ancient, like staring directly into the core of something that could swallow me whole without even trying.

He was the most terrifying and the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life, and I hated myself for noticing.

My father stood pressed against the far wall with Beta Albert, both of them white as ghosts. Alpha Chris was beside them, his hands clasped behind his back, sweat glistening on his forehead. The entire room felt like it was holding its breath.

"Is this her?" The King's voice rolled through the room, low and heavy, like thunder before the rain hits.

"Yes, Your Majesty." My father's voice cracked. "This is Mia. My daughter."

Those golden eyes locked onto me, and every nerve in my body caught fire. He studied me the way a predator studies something small and soft and easy to break, his gaze traveling slowly from my curled hair down to my round face, over the curves of my chubby body in the off white gown, and all the way to my trembling hands at my sides.

"Come here." Two words. No warmth. No invitation. Just a command that my legs obeyed before my brain could object.

I walked toward him on shaking heels, each step crunching over broken ceramic. When I was close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body, close enough to smell something dark and woodsy and dangerously intoxicating coming off his skin, he rose from the chair.

He towered over me. I was not a small girl by any stretch, but standing in front of him I felt like a child. His chest was level with my eyes and I had to tilt my head back just to see his face.

"Look up." His voice was quieter now, almost soft, but the softness was a lie. I could feel the violence coiled beneath it like a snake pretending to sleep.

I lifted my chin and met his eyes. Up close, the gold was even more intense, ringed with flecks of amber that seemed to shift and burn with a light of their own. Something flickered behind them, something raw and hungry that made my pulse slam against my throat.

For one breathless moment, he just stared at me. His nostrils flared slightly, like he was breathing me in, and something changed in his expression. A crack in the mask. A flash of confusion or maybe recognition that appeared and vanished so fast I thought I had imagined it.

Then his hand shot out and gripped the back of my neck.

"What are you doing?" My voice came out as a terrified whisper, my body freezing under his grip. His palm was enormous and warm against my skin, his fingers curling into my hair with a possessiveness that made my knees buckle.

He did not answer. He tilted my head to the side, exposing the curve of my neck, and before I could scream or beg or even breathe, his mouth was on my throat.

Pain. White hot, searing, blinding pain as his canines sank into my flesh. I gasped and my hands flew up to grab his arms, my fingers digging into solid muscle as the world tilted sideways. It lasted only a few seconds but it felt like a lifetime, and when he finally pulled back, I could feel something warm and wet trickling down my collarbone.

"That will keep you from running." His lips were stained with my blood and his golden eyes were glowing, actually glowing, like lanterns in the dark. His voice was rough, almost breathless, and for a split second his thumb brushed the wound on my neck with a gentleness that contradicted everything else about him.

Then the mask slammed back into place.

"Have the contract sent to my office by morning." He released my neck and stepped past me toward the door without looking back, his massive frame moving with a predator's lazy grace. "She belongs to me now."

The door closed behind him and the room erupted.

"Did he just mark her?" Alpha Chris was gripping the edge of the desk, his face drained of all color. "That was a mate mark. That was not a slave brand. He marked her as his queen."

"That is impossible." My father stared at the blood on my neck with wide, horrified eyes. "She is nobody. She is nothing. Why would he..."

Their voices blurred into static. I pressed my hand against the throbbing wound on my neck and felt the two puncture marks beneath my fingertips, already warm and tingling with something that felt alive. My blood was roaring in my ears and my legs finally gave out. I sank to the floor among the broken ceramic and wrapped my arms around myself, shaking so hard my teeth chattered.

He had marked me. The Lycan King had marked me as his mate. Not a slave. A queen.

And he had looked at me like he wanted to destroy me.

Hours later, Tessa sat cross legged on my bed with her back against the wall and her arms wrapped around a pillow. I sat beside her with my knees pulled up to my chest, the wound on my neck covered by a bandage that was already soaking through.

"So there is no way to remove it?" Tessa's voice was barely above a whisper.

"No. A mate mark is permanent. It is biological and legal. I am bound to him until one of us dies." The words tasted like ash on my tongue.

"Then running is completely off the table." Tessa pressed her face into the pillow and let out a muffled sound of frustration. "If you are bonded to him, he will find you anywhere in the world. The mark is basically a tracking device."

"I know."

"Bella, I am so sorry." She lifted her face, tears streaking her brown cheeks. "I promised you we would find a way out and now there is no way out."

"You have nothing to be sorry for." I reached over and took her hand. "You are the only person in this entire pack who has ever treated me like a human being. That is worth more than any escape plan."

We sat in silence for a while, our fingers laced together, listening to the crickets outside my tiny basement window. Tomorrow morning, a car was coming to take me to the palace of a man who had bitten into my neck like I was property and walked away without a single word of comfort. I did not know what waited for me there. I did not know if I would survive it.

The door crashed open so hard it bounced off the wall.

Scarlet stood in the doorway, barefoot in her silk pajamas, her face twisted into something ugly and unrecognizable. Her eyes went straight to the bandage on my neck and her entire body began to shake.

"You did this on purpose." Her voice was low and trembling, vibrating with a fury so intense it made the air around her feel hot. "You scheming, manipulative little pig. You stole my destiny."

"Scarlet, I did not choose this. He grabbed me and bit me before I could even speak."

"Liar!" She stormed across the room, stopping inches from my face. "You probably threw yourself at him. You probably begged him to notice you because that is the only way someone like you could ever get a man to look twice."

"That is enough, Scarlet." Tessa stood up from the bed, putting herself between us.

"Shut your mouth. Nobody asked you." Scarlet leaned around Tessa and jabbed a finger at my face, her perfectly manicured nail nearly touching my nose. "I was supposed to be queen. I was supposed to have that mark. Not you. Not the fat little charity case who scrubs our toilets."

"He chose her." Tessa's voice was steel. "Whether you like it or not, the King chose Mia. You cannot change that by screaming about it."

Scarlet's face went scarlet. She opened her mouth, closed it, then let out a shriek of frustration that rattled the window in its frame. Spinning on her heel, she stormed toward the door, throwing her middle finger over her shoulder.

"Enjoy your king, pig. I am sure he will love having a fat little slave warming his throne."

The door slammed shut behind her and the room went quiet again.

Tessa turned to me with fire still blazing in her eyes. "Are you okay?"

I nodded slowly, my hand resting over the mark on my neck. It was pulsing beneath the bandage, warm and alive and terrifying. Scarlet's words stung, but not as much as they used to. Something had shifted tonight. I was no longer just the unwanted daughter, the invisible servant, the girl nobody would miss.

I was marked. I was bound. And the true nightmare was only just beginning.