Chapter 6 My Misery; Alpha Malric

Rhea’s POV

They hauled at my arms like I was already dead weight. As their grips tightened, a cold, certain panic spread in my chest. I pleaded, my voice cracking on each word as if it were someone else speaking through my mouth.

“Two minutes. Just Two minutes with my daughter.” I pressed the demand through my teeth, every syllable a shard. I would not—could not—leave without seeing her one more time. “Please.”

Scarface’s mouth twisted into a sneer as he appraised me for a long. “Fine. Two minutes,”His tone carried no mercy.

My legs felt like lead as I walked back toward Freye’s room. The house seemed to hold its breath, betrayal sat heavy in my bones, a stone I could not swallow. Liema rushed to meet me in the doorway. Seeing her face broke what little composure I had left.

“My lady,” she murmured, voice cracking. She dropped to her knees and folded me into a hug. I let everything go then. Sobs tore out of me, wet and unladylike; the sound of my grief filled the small room.

“Why me, Liema?” I whispered through my tears. “Why is the moon goddess so cruel to me?”

Liema’s hands were sure and warm against my hair. “Perhaps she is preparing you for something greater,” she offered softly, like a midwife naming pain before the birth. “Sometimes we must lose what we hold dear to find a path that we could not see before.”

“That is comforting nonsense,” I spat, turning my face away until her fingers found my cheek again. “I am being kept hostage by Alpha Malric of Duskmoor Hollow. What greater thing is that? What lesson could possibly be wrapped in this ruin?”

Her expression went hard for a second and then softer. “That’s why you must be careful, my lady. There are rumors. Malric carries a curse as old as his line. They say he slew his own father with bare hands and strangled his mate. They call him a monster, a man who takes women like trinkets.”

The mention of that name made bile rise in my throat. I wanted to laugh, to scream, to bite something alive. Instead I smoothed a hand over Freye’s hair and kissed her forehead so softly it felt like theft. My chest ached as if some animal gnawed there.

“Time’s up,” Scarface called from the hall. My throat constricted and I pressed one last, desperate kiss to Freye’s sleeping face. Liema’s fingers closed around mine with a final, fierce squeeze.

Theon stood in the corridor, jaw tight, his eyes raw with an emotion he could not hide. I wanted him to say more, to shout down the men, to drag me from their clutches and tear his debts into confetti. Instead the promise that fell from his lips was small and useless: “I will pay it all. I swear.”

“You promised,” I whispered. The words hung like accusation and plea both. “Please watch after Freye until I am back.”

Liema’s nod was all the reply I needed. I turned and walked out with the men, the world narrowing to the slam of the carriage door and Theon’s figure shrinking behind the glass. I told myself that something in me had already gone cold that night.

Theon’s grief would be bitter and real, but so would his cowardice. And a part of me died with each step the carriage took away from home.

****

Duskmoor Hollow was darker than imagined. The forest seemed to swallow light, branches arching like ribs.

The Alpha’s castle rose from the mist, black stone and sharp towers, banners snapping in the wind. When we arrived, they shoved me inside, Scarface barking, “Get down.” I stumbled on the stone, knees burning, shame twisting in my gut.

We passed armor and portraits that seemed to watch me. Servants looked away. At last, the throne room opened.

On a raised dais sat a figure whose presence swallowed the room. He was immense in a way that had nothing to do with mere muscle. Power radiated from him.

“Alpha,” Scarface announced, and his voice sounded small. He shoved me to the floor before the dais as if presenting a spoil. My knees scraped against the rough floor and sparked pain that made me focus.

Up close, the Alpha’s size undid me. His shoulders were broad and carved like cliffs. Even he was not merely a man; he was an edict. My wolf tucked away somewhere within me, whimpering with painful, animal knowledge.

“You may leave,” he said to them. His voice was low and velvet-dark, a baritone that rolled and settled into bone.

For an instant I could not breathe. Life and all its small comforts felt as if they were being pulled toward that single voice. Footsteps echoed as men moved back, leaving us with only him and the space between us.

“Look at me.” I needed not to be told twice, my eyes snapped upward and took him in.

His face was like a map of contradictions. He looked as if he might be in his early forties.

His cheekbones were precise enough to be weaponry. He had a straight, harsh nose and a jaw that could slice through metal. The detail that stopped my breath was his eyes.

Heterochromia made one iris winter-blue and the other green as old leaves. For a blink, I thought I saw different worlds living in him.

His lips tipped in a smirk that seemed to taste of cruelty. “Crawl to me, dove,” he said, and each syllable felt like a drop of poison on my skin.

My body wanted to refuse, to kneel in stubborn defiance, to spit in the face of the man who would demand such humiliation. Instead my hands obeyed a fear older than reasoning and eased on to the floor. My palms scraped stone.

He leaned forward then and something about him closed in on my chest. I saw, quite suddenly, three pale columns of scar or mark spreading from the nape of his neck toward his collarbone.

The curse.

The stories came back in a rush — half-remembered whispers about bloodlines poisoned from birth. The air around him was heavy with sorrow so old it had weight.

One word rose in my mind that seemed to fit him better than any other. Misery.

“Look at me, dove,” he repeated, gentler this time, and the gentleness was more dangerous than rage. “I am not a patient man.”

Something hungry shifted in the corners of room, and I understood now what Liema had feared. Misery liked company. Misery preferred those it could bend.