The Alpha's Forbidden Affair 2

Chapter 2

Talim’s POV

The great hall was loud with laughter and clinking glasses, but everything felt muted to me. Vanessa stood at my side, her fingers curled around my arm like she owned me. She wore a crimson dress cut low enough to make the elders pretend they weren’t staring. Every time she laughed at some lord’s joke, she pressed closer, her breast brushing my sleeve. I wanted to shove her away.

I hated the way her perfume filled my nose. I hated the way her voice sounded when she called me “my love” in front of the pack. Most of all, I hated that I had to stand here and pretend any of it was real.

She leaned into me, smiling for the crowd. “Wave, darling. They want to see their Alpha happy.”

I lifted my hand. The hall cheered. My stomach turned.

I was looking for one face. One scent. One heartbeat that wasn’t here.

Reka was not allowed at banquets anymore. Vanessa had seen to that months ago. “A maid has no place among nobility,” she had said sweetly, and the steward had reassigned Reka to the scullery without another word. I had said nothing. I never said anything anymore.

Vanessa’s nails dug into my wrist. “You’re scowling again.”

“I’m tired.”

“You’re ungrateful.” Her voice dropped to a hiss only I could hear. “Smile, Talim. Or do I need to remind you what happens if my father hears his daughter is being neglected?”

I forced my mouth into the shape she wanted. The expression felt like a lie carved into my skin.

The bond between us had never felt right. From the first night she had walked into the mating circle, smiling like she had won something, my wolf had recoiled. I told myself it was only the shock of finding a mate so quickly after years of waiting. I told myself the emptiness would fill in time. It never did. Instead the hollow place inside me grew wider every day, until I could fit an entire ocean of longing inside it. An ocean named Reka.

Vanessa’s hand slid lower, brushing the front of my trousers beneath the table’s edge. “After this, you’re coming to bed. No excuses tonight.”

My body gave no response. Not even a twitch. She felt it; her eyes narrowed to slits.

The feast dragged on. Course after course. Speeches. Toasts. A visiting bard sang of ancient battles and fated love. Every verse felt like mockery.

When the clock tower struck the second hour past midnight, I could not breathe anymore. I set my goblet down so hard the stem cracked. Wine bled across the white cloth like fresh blood.

Vanessa’s head snapped toward me. “Talim—”

“I need air.”

I walked away before she could stop me. The hall went quiet in ripples, the way a stone dropped in still water silences everything around it. I felt every stare on my back as I left, but I did not look back.

The corridors outside were colder, darker. My boots echoed too loudly. I dragged my hand along the stone wall just to feel something real. My wolf was clawing at my ribs, frantic, furious. He wanted out. He wanted her.

Vanessa found me near the eastern balcony. Her heels struck the floor like gunshots. When she reached me, her hand cracked across my cheek with enough force to snap my head sideways. Heat bloomed where her palm had landed.

“You humiliated me,” she said, voice trembling with rage and something close to fear. “Again.”

I tasted copper. “I warned you I was unwell.”

“You warned me nothing. You stood up and walked out like I am some tavern wench you can discard when you’re bored.” Tears glittered in her eyes now, real ones. “Do you know what they’re saying? That the Alpha of Whiterod cannot stand his own Luna. That our bond is a sham. My father will hear of this by dawn.”

“Then tell him whatever you need to save face.”

She laughed, a sharp, broken sound. “You think this is about pride? Children in the border villages are eating bark, Talim. The granaries are half empty. One letter from my father and those gates close. No grain. No meat. No hope. Do you want their deaths on your conscience because you cannot bear to touch me?”

The truth of it sank into my bones like winter. I saw their faces: the pups with hollow cheeks, the mothers rationing crumbs. I had sworn to protect this pack with my life. Instead I was gambling their lives on a feeling I could not even name.

Vanessa stepped closer until her perfume choked me. “I am done begging. If you shame me in public again, I will sever the bond. I will walk away and take every alliance with me. Let your precious kingdom starve while I go home to a man who actually wants me.”

Severing a bond was agony beyond imagining. It could kill an alpha. It could kill the pack’s spirit. But worse than the pain was the knowledge that she was right. I was trapped.

I closed my eyes. When I opened them, my voice was steady. “It will not happen again.“

Her shoulders sagged with relief she tried to hide behind a cold smile. “Good. Tonight you come to our bed. You kiss me where they can see the marks tomorrow. You give them proof their Luna is cherished. That is the price of peace.”

She turned and walked away, the hem of her gown whispering over stone like a threat.

I stood alone in the dark corridor for a long time. My cheek still burned. My chest felt caved in. I had just sold the last piece of my soul for grain.

Then a voice brushed against my mind, soft as silk, urgent as fire.

Talim.

Reka.

Her mind-link trembled with need and something close to desperation.

I can’t wait anymore. Please. The old laundry room beneath the kitchens. I’m burning. Hurry.

Every promise I had just made to Vanessa turned to ash on my tongue.

I went to her.

The servants’ stairs were narrow and damp. I took them two at a time, heart hammering so hard I felt it in my teeth. The laundry room was buried deep, far from prying eyes and noble feet. I had claimed it months ago as ours, a forgotten place where steam and soap masked our scents.

I pushed the door open and stopped breathing.

A single candle burned on an overturned crate, throwing gold light across bare skin.

Reka stood in the center of the room, naked.

Completely bare. Her dark hair spilled down her back like spilled ink. Candlelight slid over the curve of her shoulder, the dip of her waist, the soft swell of her hips. Her arms were wrapped around herself, not from shame but from the effort of holding still. She was shaking. Her skin glistened with a faint sheen of sweat. Between her thighs, the evidence of her need shone slick and unmistakable.

When her eyes met mine, something inside me shattered wide open.

She did not speak. She did not need to.

I crossed the room in three strides, and she was already reaching for me, fingers clutching at my shirt, pulling me down into the only truth I had left.