All Chapters of The Crippled Masked Alpha : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

​[Anya’s POV]​The great hall was silent, thick with the smell of old cedar and expensive cologne. Today wasn’t just the Succession Ceremony, where I would finally be named the Shadow Pack’s Beta. Today was the day Caleb was supposed to seal it.​Just get through the speech, I told myself, clutching my hands behind my back. Then the proposal.​For six years, I had stood beside Caleb, managing the pack’s difficult supply routes and doing the grunt work my father and stepmother, Elara, never bothered with. Today was my reward: the title, the wedding, the life I’d earned.​"Anya, dear, try to smile," Elara hissed from the front row. Her red lipstick looked like a freshly painted slash of disapproval. "You look like you’re about to fight a bear, not marry a Beta."​I ignored her. Elara and her daughter, Seraphina, who stood preening beside her, always treated me like a poorly trained servant. They hated my silver-grey eyes, the mark of my true mother's lineage and they certainly hated my

​[Anya’s POV]​Alaric’s glare was like a physical push, driving me toward the drawing room. My father and Elara were already there, trying to look important but failing miserably. They stood beside a massive, high-tech wheelchair, waiting for the man who sat in it to move.​And there he was. Alpha Ronan Thorne.​The rumors were right about his size. He was huge, even sitting down. His shoulders strained the dark fabric of his expensive suit. He sat perfectly still, but every line of his body screamed power.​He wore a polished silver mask that covered the left half of his face, where the worst injuries were rumored to be. The mask was cracked in one place, giving it a brutal, shattered look. His visible features were sharp: a strong jawline, and one eye deep, icy black that was currently fixed on the patterns in the carpet. He looked like a fallen king, ruined but still terrifying.​"Anya," my father mumbled, shoving me forward. "Meet Alpha Ronan."​"No need for introductions," Ronan'

​[Anya’s POV]​The small, elegant drawing room at Thorne Manor was not the setting for a quiet wedding; it was a stage for a political show. There were only about twenty people present, but every face was important, high-ranking Alpha representatives, solemn pack officials, and the nervous-looking King's envoy, who was seated right in the front row.​I gripped my bouquet so hard the petals cracked. He’s lying. He’s not crippled. This entire wedding is a trap. The chilling realization from the car ride was my only comfort now. I wasn't marrying a victim; I was marrying a mastermind.​My father, now pale and sweating, played the role of the proud patriarch, walking me down the short aisle. He kept his eyes fixed on the King's envoy, clearly desperate to look deserving of the reward.​Ronan waited at the front, sitting in his wheelchair. He looked powerful and tragic, the picture of a man broken by war. But I saw the tension in his shoulders, the stillness that was too perfect, too pract

​[Anya’s POV]​The cold, unforgiving steel of the dagger rested heavy in my hand. It wasn't a fancy blade; it was simple, dark, and designed for one thing: a clean kill. Ronan, the Alpha who wasn't crippled, stood before me, his face bare and flawless. He had just handed me a weapon and commanded me to choose between murder and alliance.​My fingers tightened around the hilt, the tension making my knuckles white. If I drove this into his chest now, the King’s money for Devon would disappear instantly, and my brother would die. If I didn't, I was agreeing to fight a war I didn't ask for, allied with a man who had lied to me from the start.​But the biggest truth, the one that cut deeper than the steel was my father's final betrayal. A Trojan horse. He didn't sell me for money; he sold me for a dirty land deal with Alpha Vorlag, willing to sacrifice his own children for a strip of turf. My hatred for him was a cold, pure stone in my gut.​I looked at Ronan. He was waiting, still, lettin

[Alpha Ronan Thorne’s POV]The steel of the listening device felt cold and useless in my hand. Alaric stood opposite my desk, his posture rigid, his face an angry mask of disappointment."A bug," Alaric muttered, his voice a low growl. "Inside her luggage. I searched that room myself, Alpha. She must have distracted the guards.""Vesper is more meticulous than you give him credit for," I corrected, dropping the device back onto the dark wood. I knew exactly when and how the bug was planted, not by Anya, but by Vesper’s people after the initial security sweep, probably during the wedding dress transport. "And you missed it because you were looking for a bomb, not a gossip tool. It means the enemy is close, Alaric. Too close."My frustration was immense, but I couldn't afford to show it. The entire pack's stability rested on my calculated stillness. I had spent three months perfecting the act of the crippled Alpha, using the very real, very small scar above my eye as the centerpiece of