All Chapters of The Alpha's Cursed Bride: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The Girl Nobody SeesEmily's POVThe mop hits the stone floor before I even open my eyes.I learned a long time ago to wake up with my hands already moving. If my brother's Beta finds me still in bed past five in the morning, the day gets very painful, very fast. So I rise before the sun, I mop before the birds, and I try to get through each hour without being noticed.My name is Emily. I am twenty two years old. And I have been a servant in this pack house since I was six.That was the year of the fire. The year my parents died. The year my brother stood over me in the smoking ruin of our sacred hall and told everyone that I did it, that my power had sparked, spreaded and taken them both. I was too young to defend myself, too small to fight back. Too scared to even cry.He had my wolf locked away three days later. A pack elder performed the binding and I felt her go quiet inside me. One moment she was there, warm and present, like a second heartbeat. Then she was just... still. Like

What He WantsLucas POVMy second, Adam, was waiting for me in the hall with his arms crossed and his brow creased."You have that look," he said."I don't have a look.""You absolutely have a look." He fell into step beside me. "What happened in the garden?""Their Beta was about to hit her." I kept my voice flat. I had learned long ago that letting anger out before the right moment was a waste. "In front of a guest and in front of me."Adam was quiet for a second. "The bound girl?""Her name is Emily." I said it sharper than I meant to.Another pause. He knew me well enough not to push. We walked through the guest corridor in silence until I stopped at the window that looked out onto the darkening garden. She was still there, bent over the scattered logs, stacking them with careful hands. Moving slowly, like she was used to doing everything alone.My wolf, Caius, had not been quiet since the moment she walked into that meeting room. He had pressed forward the instant she stepped th

Scars They Were Not Supposed to SeeLucas POVSomething was wrong with her back.I noticed it at dinner, the way she sat slightly forward in the chair, careful, avoiding the full press of the backrest. Most people would have missed it. But I had spent years reading bodies in battle, watching for the small signs of injury that men tried to hide when they were too proud to step back from the line.She had not touched her food.The dining hall was full. My pack ate together every evening, it was one of the few rules I held firm to. Community, presence, and a deep understanding of the people around you. Emily sat at the far end near Adam's mate, Lyra, who had tried twice to start a conversation and had been met with one-word answers.Not rude. Just unused to it."She needs time," Adam said quietly beside me, reading my expression. "She has been talked to and ordered around for sixteen years. A warm room and a plate of food is not going to fix that in one evening.""I know that," I said."

What the Records Said Lucas's POV I should not have told her that yet. I knew it the moment the words left my mouth too much, too fast, too soon. She was sitting across from me with glass at her feet and a look on her face that was not quite fear and not quite grief but something in between that was harder to watch than either. I bent down and picked up the pieces of the broken glass without speaking. She watched me do it in silence. When I straightened, she was gripping the edge of the table with both hands like she needed something solid to hold on to. "How do you know that?" she asked. "My contact found a partial record that had not been destroyed. A single witness statement…handwritten, tucked into an unrelated file. It described a figure pulling a child out of the hall before the structure collapsed." I set the broken glass in the sink. "The description does not match any Ashveil pack member. The person was described as having silver hair." She said nothing. But I watched s

AliveEmily's POVLucas was very quiet.Not the kind of quiet that meant he was calm. The kind of quiet that meant he was holding something back with every bit of control he had. His jaw fastened. His silver eyes did not leave mine."What do you mean your parents?" he asked quietly. "Emily, your parents died in the fire.""That is what Aden told me." My voice was barely above a whisper. My hands were on the floor where the paper had fallen and I could not make myself pick them back up. "That is what I was told. That is what everyone was told." I looked up at him. "But I never saw them. I never saw their bodies. I was six years old and I was so frightened and everyone just told me. And I believed it because what else was I supposed to do."Lucas picked up the paper from the floor. He read it again. His expression did not change but something around his eyes tightened in a way I was learning to recognise as fury held on a very short leash."I need to call Adam," he said."Wait." I stood