"What?!" Kira burst out before she could stop the word from escaping. Over her dead body.
Her father met her outburst with a flat, emotionless stare. "It is not a topic for discussion."
Tears burned at the corners of her eyes. He had already stripped her of everything—her birthright, her freedom, her place in the pack. But this? Her right to choose who she loved, who she shared her life with, belonged to her alone. It had to.
"I refuse it," she said through clenched teeth. "I know the King wants your heir, and I am not that heir. If you force me, I will tell him you are only deceiving him."
Fury flashed in his eyes like lightning. He closed the distance between them in one swift motion and struck her with the back of his hand.
The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth as her teeth sliced into the side of her tongue.
"You dare defy me?" he snarled. "Your father and your Alpha? For twenty years, I have suffered the affliction of your existence. I will suffer no more."
The words cut deeper than any slap ever could. To him, she wasn't a daughter; she was a mistake to be tolerated. The one who killed her mother.
She wanted to scream that she hadn't asked to be born, hadn't asked for her mother to die bringing her into the world. But she didn't get the chance.
"Gammas!" Rolf barked.
Two of them swept into the room, muscles tense and ready for his command.
"Take her to the dungeons," Rolf commanded, turning his back on her as if she were already gone.
"What? No! Why?" Kira's voice rose in a frantic pitch as the gammas seized her arms.
They dragged her through the corridors like a common criminal while the pack watched in silence. Her father followed at a calm, unhurried pace.
Once they reached the cold stone cells beneath the pack house, he ordered the gammas to bind her face down to a rough wooden bench. Then he calmly took a long leather whip from the wall.
"You will marry the King," he said. His voice was unsettlingly gentle, as if he were merely asking her to pass the salt.
"I will not marry him," she answered, holding on to her defiance with everything she had left.
The whip cracked across her back. Pain exploded through her body, and she cried out. Yet her father simply repeated the same words, and she forced out her own in reply: "I will not marry him."
It became a silent battle of wills, his against hers. She refused to let him take the last thing she still owned without a fight. By the tenth lash, she was sobbing openly, tears streaming down her face, but she would not break. Her back felt as though it were on fire.
By the fifteenth lash, her whole body shook uncontrollably, and warm blood soaked through her dress.
Perhaps death would be kinder than giving in. All her life, she had dreamed of finding a true mate, someone who would love her the way she had never been loved as a child.
She had never imagined being forced into an arranged marriage. It was so bitterly unfair.
On the twentieth lash, her voice cracked, barely more than a whisper through tears and exhaustion.
"What is so difficult to obey?" her father hissed, frustration sharpening his tone.
He raised the whip again, clearly prepared to continue until she either agreed or stopped breathing. In that moment, something inside her gave way.
"I will marry him," she whispered, the words so faint they were almost lost in the damp air of the cell.
He let the whip fall to the floor with a dull thud.
"Shouldn't have taken you this long," he snarled. "Now listen. You are my heir, and you are not forced into this. You understand the price for peace, and you are willing to pay it for your people. Do you understand?"
She nodded, sniffing back fresh tears.
He turned and walked out of the cell without another look. She heard his voice through the bars, speaking to the gammas outside.
"Get some female omegas to take her out of here. Get the pack doctor to fix her up. I need her to be in good shape until King Derek Wolfe arrives tomorrow. And keep a strict eye on the wildcat. I do not want her missing before her marriage tomorrow."
"Yes, Alpha," one of the gammas answered.
The cell gate squeaked open as her father's footsteps faded down the corridor. Pain and exhaustion finally pulled her under, and Kira drifted into darkness.
***
The next day…
"This is unacceptable," Jessica, her best friend fumed, her voice trembling with anger as she helped an omega carefully fastened the delicate beige lace gown around Kira's body.
The dress was beautiful, too beautiful, for a marriage she wasn't happy about.
Kira said nothing. There was nothing left to say and nothing she could do. She could only stand there, letting the anger and misery swirl inside her like dark water.
"What about your education?" Jessica pressed on. "You are a straight-A student at The Central. Are you really going to give all that up?"
Kira let out a long, tired sigh. "I am sure I would not," she muttered, barely loud enough to be heard.
"How can you be sure?" Jessica's voice shook. "Kira, we are talking about King Derek Wolfe of Dravengard. He is a monster. He has hated werewolves for the longest time. All Lycans…"
"…prefer humans over us and treat us with suspicion," Kira finished for her friend. "I know, Jess. But what can I do?"
Tears gathered in Jessica's eyes and spilt over. She knew exactly how much Kira had always dreamed of finding her true mate, of falling in love with someone who would cherish her, protect her, see her for the kind, strong soul she truly was.
Kira might carry the Alpha's blood, but only a handful of people in the pack even knew it. To most, she was just the girl who never shifted at eighteen, the one they bullied and mocked without mercy.
Jessica had always cheered for her friend to get every happiness she deserved.
And now this? Forced into a marriage with a man who saw werewolves as little more than dirt beneath his boots?
She wished with everything in her that she could stop it, could grab Kira's hand and run far away. But when two powerful men had decided to use Kira as their pawn, what chance did anyone else have? Fear twisted in Jessica's stomach. What horrors waited for her friend in the Lycan territories?
A sharp knock sounded at the door. Luna Lydia swept inside, her eyes narrowing into slits as they landed on Kira. Jessica rose quickly and bowed low, but Kira stayed exactly where she was, lifting her chin and glaring straight back at the Luna.
"The King is here," Luna Lydia announced coldly. "Make sure you do not disgrace your father in that room. I hope the Lycans clip those wild wings of yours."
She flicked her fingers toward the omegas who had followed her in. "Bring her."
The walk to the grand hall felt like a march to the gallows. Every step made the wounds on her back flare with pain, the lace of the dress rubbing against the raw welts. She was going to die so young in a foreign land, she was sure of it.
Ever since the death of their former king, King Maurice, who had tried so hard to bring werewolves and Lycans together, the Lycans had turned colder than ever.
Suspicion had replaced trust. Hatred had grown deep roots. They barely tolerated werewolves, even at Aethelwulf Centralis University, the one place that was supposed to be neutral ground.
When the gammas finally pushed open the heavy double doors, Luna Lydia let out loud, dramatic sobs that scraped against Kira's already raw nerves. She wanted to grab the woman by her perfect hair and scream "liar" right in her face, but she held herself still. Too much was at stake.
Then, her eyes adjusted to the figures sitting in the opposite side of the room. Her breath caught in her throat. Her heart stopped, then restarted with a violent thud.
It was him.
The towering stranger from the riverbank. The man who had saved her life from the rogue and then vanished into the shadows. The man who had haunted her dreams for the last twenty-four hours.
That man is King Derek Wolfe?
Kira's head spun. Someone, please... wake me up.