RAYA
I had startled awake before I realized the pounding sound coming from the oak wood of my room door had stopped.
“What the hell?” I growled still grouchy, rubbing my eyes to look about the room when my gaze caught on the clear blue of my father’s eyes.
I jolted, scurrying back into the sheets with a whimper rising in my throat.
“Finally decided to grace us with your presence Aye? Fucking bitch! Get up!” He mused before roaring toward me, the tall bulk of his frame tight around his stomach before I felt his hands tighten on my neck.
“Please father,” I wheezed, beating at his large hands as stars appeared in my vision.
“You see this whore? This is the summons to the Alpha’s palace! And guess why it came today? Because you are a stupid little cunt who can’t get anything right!” He bellowed, brandishing the neat white of a paper I couldn’t read, only noticing how white it looked compared to the yellowed plate of his nail bed.
My heart beat a jagged rhythm in my chest as I wracked my mind for answers. I’d been quiet the other night, hadn’t I?
“I told him you weren’t in Pa! I really did!” I choked out, tears springing to my eyes as I kicked out my legs only managing to connect with air before he flung me against the wall.
I groaned, my elbows hammering into the wood so that I cuddled it, the world blurring around the edges when I looked up at him, struggling to rake in lungfuls of air.
“Clean yourself up, we're going to see the King if it isn't enough trouble that he knew you had lied already!” My father gritted through the spaces in his teeth, and my eyes widened to the size of golf balls in my sockets.
“You better be ready when I come knocking, waste my time any more than you already have, and I’ll be locking you up in the outhouse again,” My father sneered, half-craning his head to look at me.
I bit down on my tongue, quietly watching him snag the half-empty bottle he had left besides my small foam on the floor before he staggered out, swearing under his breath.
I knocked my hands against my ribs, stumbling on my hands and feet to the small cubicle of our washroom and splashing the cold, throttled spring on my face, coming out just in time for the big man with angry eyebrows to lace his hand around the collar of my night dress.
“I-i’m not ready yet Pa, I-i haven't got my proper clothes on yet,” I stammered, turning my face away from his open-mouthed leer as I felt his eyes roam the length of my body.
“Oh, I dare to say it can't get any more proper than this Raya, It's a good thing you're a whore like your mother, Alpha Toph, and his men sure would like your tight little body,” He grated, pressing the bulbous pipe of his nose against my body so that I shrieked, my eyes widening as I fought against his hold.
What was he saying? How could my father do this to me? I felt a flood of bitterness so hot it burned my chest and traveled up my throat as I fought against his hold and he dragged me, laughing, out through the oak wood door and into the dark street.
#
I was no longer crying when I stood, shoulder to hip, with my father, in the expansive throne room of the Alpha Toph’s palace.
“Any moment now,” The barrel-chested werewolf I’d had the unfortunate fate of being born to rumbled deeply, his eyes dancing nervously around the gold-plated far walls and dome ceiling of the throne room.
I followed my father’s eyes to the line of powder-faced courtesans on their pert little thrones, their ringed fingers waving feathered fans over their bodice.
The three little witches for the Alpha werewolf. It was a nickname the villagers gave his high mistresses, with their upturned beak noses and judgy eyes.
The noise of swords clashing behind us as the sparse crowd gathered closer on the line of the red carpet had my father scurrying back like a hopper with flight phobia.
I let out a small gasp as the guards shouldered roughly past us, the blonde wolf-cut of the Alpha Prince’s hair damn near towering over the cluster of iron-chested guards.
He strode into the room like a freaking hurricane, the broad line of his shoulders following forward as the ascended the dias and turned in one swift motion.
“Lower your head brat, do not shame me here.” My father hissed, and I took my eyes off the handsome man to see that all the heads in the crowd were kissing their knees, following quickly with my shallow bow before the crowd rose.
The ball of mucus in my throat snagged sharply when I saw that the Alpha’s piercing gaze was trained on me, as he spoke in a voice that sounded like it had been cut out of glass, to my father.
“Where is my offering Mr. Banks?”
“I-i do not have it y-yet your majesty, I only need but a little time-” My father sniveled, and a gust of shame heated my face.
I didn't like the way he cowered in front of the prince. We might have been poor, but we were purebred wolves.
“How embarrassing,” I bit under my breath, my heart hammering once in my chest when the Prince’s eyes flickered to me again as he took slow measured steps down the dias.
I could feel the energy in the crowd shift, the tug in my chest coming hard enough that I keeled over when the Prince stood before me, the aura of his power cloaked his form like a shield.
“What are you called?” Alpha Tophas gritted in that voice again, and a shudder went through me when I felt the cool iron of one claw tip my chin up so that his dust-gray eyes bored into mine.
“Raya, Your majesty,” I whispered, struggling to breathe past the weight pressing on my chest as murmurs went up around the crowd.
What was happening to me? Why did I feel the yoke of a bond between us?
I had gone mad, finally. The way my mother had when she fled from our cottage house. Away from my father. It was the only explanation that made any fucking sense!
I felt my eyes shift wildly in my head when the Alpha spoke again, the neat arch of his brow creased over his forehead.
“Leave my palace Banks. The girl would do with a little washing up, your debt to the throne is settled.” He boomed, and I whipped my head to my father as confusion muddled my brain.
Surely the prince hadn't been referring to me?
“Father, I-” I wheezed, running around the man who watched on quietly to grip the lapel of my father’s brocade before he shrugged his arm away and realization dawned on me like a ton of bricks crashing on my head.
“My immense thanks your Majesty, I shall see to it that her things are brought over,” My father’s gloating voice made my ears pop and I stumbled away from the men, feeling the walls closing around me as I whirled around on my feet to search for the iron double doors we had come through.
I couldn't stay back as the prince’s mate! What about my dream to be an artist? I couldn't paint in the palace!
“Father! You can't! Don’t leave me here Pa!” I screeched, bounding toward the retreating hanger of my father’s back before I felt the collar of my shirt hook on something hard.
I swung my head to look, just in time for the iron bracket of a fist to come flying at me, catching me in the cheek so that I staggered backward, into the line of the crowd who parted around me.
“Pathetic isn't she?... Makes you wonder what his majesty sees in her-” The whispers floated around me as the white film of shock broke apart in my eyes before I cupped a shaky hand to my cheek.
The Prince had hit me, hard. Harder than my father ever did.
“Don’t you ever, maid girl, make a fool of me the way you just did again. Not if you want to get anywhere in this palace.” He spat caustically, before nodding to the guards who cupped their hands roughly under my armpit.
“Take her to the dungeon.”
RAYA BANKS“No! Wait!” I gasped, feeling my hands shoot out to reach for the man a split second before the iron clasp of his royal guards jerked me back, the metal pound of iron clashing on my head and sending me into the darkness at breakneck speed. The sound of voices drifting from the spaces in the wood door when I came to was almost deafening.Where was I? I cracked an eye open, fighting the darkness that was pressing down heavily on my eyelids when I caught the tall shadow of a man standing over me, the wolf of his scent so overpowering it couldn’t have been anything but royal blood.“Y-your majesty,” I rasped, struggling to my knees and managing to look up at the man, the glint of his claws half-hidden in his tunic cuff catching my eye and I gulped reflexively.“You disappoint me, Banks, I could have taken you as mistress you know? Put you on your good little throne beside mine in the throne room dias. This futile struggling, it is...appalling.” He hissed and I gritted my teeth
NIKOLAII had a half-dead woman in my arms and an itch in the back of my throat.“Who is she?” Igor asked with an air of mischief I was accustomed to, and I turned to glare at the roguish-looking man with a smirk playing on his purple lips.“I haven't the faintest idea Igor, prepare the horses, we’re going back to my Stone city castle.” I breathed over my shoulder at my best man, letting my eyes roam over the woman’s bare neck, the thin gold chain of a necklace caught my eye.It was the same kind I had stretched in a tight ring around my neck. The kind the moon goddess had given me the night of my first wolfing.My breath caught in my throat when I realized what it meant. “Are you certain Nikolai? Your father would be quite upset,” Igor tempered with a hint of warning in his throaty voice that sent shivers down my spine.Upset would have been putting it lightly for the King. My father would be livid, I could almost imagine him blowing a vein in his forehead when the concierge gave hi
RAYAIt had always been the same, my nightmares of the woman in the red hood with claws for hands and her bloodied fangs extended dangerously from her twig-thin lips.My mother had never said anything to me when she chased me through the fog, the crimson of her cape bleeding in and out of view until my breathing seized in my throat and I snapped awake.Again and Again, night after night up until today, when I felt the thud of my heart pounding into the soft cushion of a comforter I felt under my back as her words rang in my mind’s ear.“Run,” The woman had whispered when she’d suddenly burst through the fog to grip me with burning hands, her hot breath scalding my face.My mouth fell open as I peered into the empty sockets where her eyes should have been, before I felt the weight of my body shoot up, gasping and twisting awake as a chill clawed at the seat of my spine.“Are you alright miss?” A disembodied voice boomed so close to my ear that I let out a banshee scream, throwing my ha
ALPHA NIKOLAI“Fucking hell,” I cursed under my breath as I shut the door behind me, catching my bottom lip between my teeth as the ringing in my ears faded and I spread out the wrinkled paper between my fingers.Rays Banks, the daughter of a merchant tailor from the main city was wanted for absconding from the royal palace.I balled the paper in my hand, gritting my teeth as the implications ran through my mind.My brother was as merciless as he was ugly, but you would never tell from his dastardly good looks, the straight line of his spine, and the lopsided smirk that seemed to be permanently etched on the line of his bow-shaped lips.I knew how the village maidens daydreamed of him in the fields and farms, wishing for a dark prince that would whisk them from their sad little lives, up until he pressed the pointy tip of his sword at their throats.He would not give up easily, not without a fight. It didn't help in the least bit that I was spoiling for one.I cast my thoughts back to
RAYA BANKSI shifted my weight on the soft comforter of the bed uneasily. The longer the maid girl stood at the threshold of the silver-lined room, the more I struggled to clamp down on the urge to bite into my finger beds, the stretch of silence hanging like a maiden’s tits in the space between us.”Judith was it?” I croaked, managing to clear out the rubbish at the last syllable and affecting a measly charge of authority in the time it took the girl to look up and nod dutifully, staring at me through the heavily-lashed rims of her soulful eyes.I shifted again, glancing around the richly-dressed space and feeling like a brown-nosed donkey in a wedding dress as the unease settled like lead in my belly.“I’ll draw you a bath Miss, it’s almost time for dinner,” Judith voiced suddenly, startling me into what felt like a disembodied nod, grateful when she disappeared into the washroom and left me alone with my thoughts.Had Nikolai filed that under her list of duties as well? The though
RAYA“What the hell is that?” I coaxed, hardly trusting myself to breathe as I exchanged wide-eyed looks with the slack-jawed handmaiden.It had stopped almost as soon as it started, the shrill noise of a woman’s scream that felt like it was coming from outside our doors. My hands shook as they shot out to grip the cowl of the girl’s maiden smock, forcing her back into a squat as she rose to go.“No! Judith, it might be dangerous! We don't know what’s out there!” I whispered harshly, searching the twin black pools of her eyes that seemed to lack emotion. I would have thought the lady quite strange, if I hadn't heard the rapid thudding of her heart under my iron grasp.”I’m sure it’s not a big deal miss, these things happen sometimes around these here parts,” She started, and I blanched instantly, snatching my hands away from her bodice as she had just told me she liked her coffee cold and stumbling back into the tub, feeling the soap suds of the water flop and slosh about me.Not a b
NIKOLAIMy feet hit the ground almost noiselessly as I bounded toward the gates, feeling the dense calcium of my bones snap and twist as I shifted into my wolf mid-air, leaping up to the fire-lit cubicle of the Keep’s guard stations.“Y-Your Highness-” One of the hollow-cheeked keep guards exclaimed, lowering the spear gun he had spun to face me and adjusting the oversized helmet on his bald head with brown-rimmed claws.“Status report Baldy,” I growled, feeling the pool of drool gather on the sides of my law as I peered down the steep wall to see the large beige-furred wolf that was writhing and groaning outside the castle gates.I felt my brows furrow with concern as the guard launched a long spiel about how the soldiers had to trap the wolf in silver-wrought chains to keep it from biting off any more of the guards heads.I could tell it was agitated, throwing the triangle of it's head this way and that with deep, sorrowful groans as the silver bit into it's fur, leaving angry red w
ALPHA TOPHThe balls of my eyes shifted in my head restlessly as I watched the thin flaps of my father’s lips open and close with something akin to irritation.“You have to learn to get along with your brother Tophas, it's never been heard before in our history that the pack brothers are sworn enemies! This rubbish you have with your brother simply must stop!” He roared in his alpha voice, the red-rimmed balls of his eyes sending a shiver through my spine before I looked away.I hated that he called me Tophas, why the fuck couldn't he just call me Toph like everyone else?It was shorter even, easier on the tongue. A part of me knew already that it was to spite me, to show that he still possessed some sort of twisted dominance over me.“Do you understand me? There are issues we must attend to as a pack! Our legacy is on the verge of -” He started again and I felt something in me snap as I jumped to my feet.“Enough father!” I deadpanned, the clenched bell of my wrists shaking slightly