Chapter 1

NORAH'S POV

The silk of the wedding gown didn't feel like a luxury, it felt like a burial shroud.

"Hold your breath, Lady Norah," the head maid commanded, her voice as cold as the stone floor.

Two other maids grabbed the silk laces of my corset. They pulled.

The air was violently forced from my lungs. I gasped, my ribs groaning under the pressure of the stiff whalebone, but they didn't stop. They pulled again, harder this time, anchoring their feet against the floor to get better leverage.

I let out a low, strangled grunt, my vision blurring as the world seemed to shrink. I looked into the mirror, and the girl staring back was a stranger. My eyes were a roadmap of red veins, swollen from a week of relentless tears.

"Don't cry anymore," one of the younger maids whispered, her eyes darting toward the door in fear. "King Matthew... he would hate to see his seventh wife with such swollen eyes on her wedding day. He values beauty above all."

I turned on her, the movement causing a sharp jab in my ribs from the tight lacing. "You think I care about what he hates?" I hissed. "He is a monster who collects wives like trophies. I am not a person to him, I am a womb with a title."

The maid grew pale and stepped back, shaking her head. "Please, just... do not get him upset. For your own sake."

She hurried out, the heavy door clicking shut behind her.

I was alone.

I stared at my reflection, watching a fresh tear track a path through the heavy powder on my cheeks. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him. Alpha Matthew of the Goloxy Pack.

A man whose hair was thin and gray, whose hands shook with a palsy that didn't stop them from being cruel. I remembered the way his hungry, eyes had roved over me at the feast, counting my years, assessing my worth as if I were a horse at an auction.

Seventh. I was to be number seven.

After my mother died, I stopped being a daughter. To my father and his new wife, I was a bargain, a piece of political currency to buy them a seat at the King’s table. They wanted me to give him sons. They wanted me to provide the heir his previous six wives had failed to produce.

"I don't want this life," I whispered to the empty room.

I didn't want to lie in his bed. I didn't want to spend my nights listening to the rattling breath of a dying man while he tried to plant a seed in me. I didn't want to be cast aside like the others, the ones who disappeared, the ones who were beaten, the ones whose bodies were carted out of the palace in the middle of the night because they gave him a daughter instead of a prince.

“Is this how I die? I wondered. Slowly, in a bed of gold and blood?”

The heavy iron bolt on the door slid back. Two guards stood there, their faces hidden behind the armor.

"The Alpha is waiting," the lead guard barked. "Are you ready to go?"

I wiped the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. I didn't answer. I couldn't.

I simply stepped forward, the heavy train of the gown dragging behind me like a chain.

The throne hall of the Goloxy Pack was suffocating, filled with the scent of expensive incense and the sweat of hundreds of high-ranking wolves. I walked down the long, stone aisle, the heavy train of my wedding gown sounding like a snake slithering over the floor.

At the end of the hall, King Matthew sat on his throne. He wasn't standing to greet his bride. He sat like a predator waiting for a meal, his skeletal hands gripping the arms of his throne.

"The girl is late," he spoke, his voice echoing through the silent hall.

My father shoved me forward, his fingers digging into my elbow. "A thousand apologies, Your Majesty. The excitement of the day... she was overwhelmed."

I was forced to my knees at the foot of the throne. I looked up and saw king Matthew’s eyes, yellowed and filled with a terrifying, possessive hunger. He reached out a shaking hand, his cold fingers grazing my cheek. I flinched, my skin crawling as if a spider had crawled across my face.

"Beautiful," he murmured, his breath smelling of decay and sour wine. "You will look even better when you are carrying my heir. Priest, begin."

The Priest stepped forward, his voice chanting the ancient rites of the pack. "Do you, Alpha Matthew, take this woman to be your seventh Queen, to bear your sons and serve your house?"

"I do," the King rasped, his eyes never leaving my chest.

"And do you, Norah of Blackwood, take this Alpha to be your mate and your master, until death claims you?"

The silence that followed was heavy. I could hear my father’s frantic breathing behind me. I could feel the eyes of the entire court, the ministers, the generals, the other pack leaders, all waiting for the "I do" that would seal my fate.

“I do” I replied.

A collective sigh of relief rippled through the hall, but for me, it was the sound of a cage door locking.

"The union is witnessed," the Priest declared. "Alpha, you may now mark your bride and claim her for the Goloxy Pack."

My heart pounded so hard I could hear it. The King rose from his throne, his joints popping in the silence. He stepped down toward me. As he approached, I squeezed my eyes shut, my entire body trembling.

But then, I saw it as I opened my eyes.

Tucked into the King’s velvet sash, hanging like a common trophy, was a pendant of crushed sapphire and silver.

My heart stopped. The world seemed to tilt on its axis. It was my mother’s neckpiece, the one she had been buried in. Or so I thought. My father must have dug it up, or stolen it from her casket, to offer it as a tribute to this monster.

"A beautiful trinket," the King murmured, noticing my fixed stare. He fingered the sapphire with a trembling hand. "Your father told me it belonged to your mother. He said she was a spirited bitch, just like you, but that she eventually learned to bow. I expect you to learn much faster."

A hot, acidic rage began to boil in my chest, a fire that started in my gut and drowned out the coldness of my fear.

"Don't speak of her," I whispered, my voice shaking with a different kind of intensity now.

"What?" The King leaned in, his shadow falling over me, smelling of old age. "I didn't hear you, little Queen."

Suddenly, his hand lashed out. His fingers gripped my hair, his nails digging into my scalp as he yanked my head to the side. I let out a sharp cry of pain as he exposed the sensitive, pulsing skin of my neck.

I saw his teeth, blunt, yellowed, and terrifying. He was going to mark me in front of everyone, claiming me like an animal.

"Submit," he hissed against my skin, his hot breath making my stomach turn. "Show them you are mine."

The Alpha aura rolled off him, a heavy, suffocating pressure that felt like lead weights being dropped onto my shoulders. It was designed to force an Omega to her knees in total surrender. My father leaned forward, his voice an ugly whisper.

"Do it, Norah! Offer yourself! For the sake of our lands, just let him mark you!"

The pressure was immense. My bones felt like they were going to snap under the weight of the Alpha’s command. But then I looked at the pendant again, the memory of a woman who never bowed to my father’s cruelty and something inside me broke.

"No! I will not!"

The words ripped from my throat, just as tears streamed down my face, but I didn't care. "And take that pendant off!" I screamed, my voice breaking. "You aren't fit to touch a single thing she owned!"

"Norah!" my father shrieked, his face turning a sickly, ghostly grey. "Shut up!"

My father was trembling now, his eyes darting toward the King in terror. I turned my gaze to him, cold and unwavering.

"You stole from a dead woman to buy back your pride," I spat at him.

I turned back to the King. The hall was so quiet I could hear the sounds of breathing. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, the wind whipping around me.

"I refuse the mark. I refuse the King."

The words were small, but they stopped the heartbeat of the room.

The King’s hand froze as he slowly pulled back, "What did you say, child?"

I looked him straight in those ancient, hateful eyes.

"I said no. I will not be your seventh trophy. I will not be a vessel for sons you don't deserve. I would rather be a beggar in the woods than a Queen in your bed."

Gasps ripped through the hall. My father let out a strangled cry and threw himself to the floor. "She is mad! Your Majesty, the girl is ill with fever, she doesn't know what she says!"

King Matthew stood up slowly. The fragile, old man was gone, in his place was a humiliated Alpha. The power of his presence hit me like a physical wave, trying to force me back to my knees.

"You refuse me?" he whispered, the sound more terrifying than a scream. "In front of my people?"

He turned to the Captain of the Guard, his face twisting into a mask of pure, blackened rage. "Take her. Strip her of the Blackwood name. Strip her of her status. Throw her into the pits until she forgets what the sun looks like. If she will not be my wife, she will be my prisoner until the day I decide to hang her."