Three

Vanessa

The pack house reeked of sex.

Moans echoed off the marbled walls. Every corner stank of wine and sweat.

Usually, I found my escape. It was a miracle I’d kept my virginity after eight years in this depraved pack.

Except for that one time when one of the servant boys, Zachary, tried to lure me into his bed. I always counted myself wise and lucky. I went to the main court on purpose. I wanted to see Alec's reaction to someone manhandling me.

“On your knees, traitor bitch,” a drunken gamma slurred as he grabbed a goblet of wine, spilling it down my breasts. “Didn’t they train you to please?”

I smiled, because that’s what servants do, and because I had caught Alec watching.

Across the hall, he stood at the throne, surrounded by well-wishers. His fiancée, Maya, clung to his arm like a jewel. I was glad that he saw me.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said softly, taking my time to unzip the drunken gamma.

Alec’s reaction made my heart sink. There was rage in his eyes, but then Beta Lucas whispered something, and he looked away.

Reminding me that I wasn’t worth his reputation.

Just when Beta Lucas managed to distract him, I noticed the gamma's eyes were closed. When his head arched back, I stood up silently and slipped away, walking past a pair of nobles tangled up against a pillar and a middle-aged woman calling for a servant girl to give her a massage.

My friend Amma was being whipped behind a velvet curtain by a warrior, and instead of crying, she moaned loud enough to compete with the string quartet.

I hated it here.

I missed my pack, where everything was simpler, where I didn’t have to worry about some corny, entitled fool having access to my body, where I had my father, and lived like a princess.

I got into the kitchen. No fool would come in there and demand sex. But my relief was short-lived, as Alec’s fiancée, Maya, walked in, barking orders at the staff, pretending she was the queen of the world.

Her voice grated on my nerves. “The pheasant is too dry. That servant dropped a fork. Do I need to whip someone myself?”

I mimicked her in my mind while trying to wipe the wine off my neck. The wine reminded me too much of my father’s blood, warm, red, and senselessly spilled.

I remembered his capture so vividly. That night, they dragged him through the Great Hall, chained, bloody, but even as he fell, he still held his head high.

I bit back my lower lip. Another wave of bitterness rose inside me. From an alpha's daughter to a nameless girl scrubbing floors, hated, forgotten. And now, cursed by this bond.

Mating bonds were rare. It only came once in a lifetime, if ever. Some people never even experienced it. And mine belonged to someone whose name I was trained to hate.

I was supposed to kill him, not crave his scent, not ache when he looked at me.

I waited until Maya left the kitchen before slipping out to look for Priestess Olga. She was the only one who could help me.

Just like me, Olga wanted Alec dead. He didn’t have the slightest clue. I hadn’t known her before, but she claimed to be a strong ally of my father. I believed her.

Olga had saved me years ago when my father was executed. She hid me, bribed guards, and brought me to the alpha's house.

I wondered why and begged her not to, but she said nobody would suspect. She told everyone I was her distant niece. She made me invisible, until somehow, they figured out who I was.

I found her near the front steps and pulled her behind the rose bushes in the garden, making sure no one was listening.

“What’s wrong, child?” she asked, her motherly voice making me feel worse.

Tears slipped down my cheeks as I told her everything. Her mouth gaped open in shock.

“I don’t want it,” I kept repeating. “I hate him.” I clutched her cloak. “Break it, please,” I begged. “It burns every time I breathe.”

She stroked my face. “I feel your pain, but that pain is power. Use it.”

“Power?” I scoffed. “The goddess must be so cruel to link us.”

“Don’t speak badly about the goddess,” she said softly. “Don’t worry. I have wolf's bane. It will calm your wolf for a while.”

I knew the dangerous effects of wolf's bane, but I agreed to use it.

Olga brought out a wooden needle from her bag, found my vein and pricked my wrists. She chanted, drew old symbols on my skin, and I felt a thick magic settle over me like a shroud.

My wolf went silent. I let out a relieved sigh.

“This is temporary,” Olga said. “Open your eyes. Use this bond to your advantage. He will not kill you. He’ll fall to his knees. Make him trust you. Then kill him.”

I looked at my hands. Blood dripped from my palms.

She made me look at her. “You’re no longer that thirteen-year-old girl I hid in this house. You’re a weapon sharpened by pain.”

The motherly voice was gone, replaced with a coldness that usually scared me whenever she turned like that.

Alec trusted the priestess. He prayed and sought wisdom from her. He never knew she too wanted revenge.

And now, she would use this bond as a weapon to get him.