The Unwanted Bride

Elowen

I sat alone in the dim corners of my bedroom, my knees pulled tightly to my chest. The metallic, cloying stench of fresh blood still coated the back of my throat. It felt like no matter how many times I scrubbed my skin until it was raw and pink, I could not wash away the horrifying scent of death. The Obsidian pack’s brutal attack played on an endless, devastating loop behind my closed eyelids. I saw the torn throats. I heard the desperate, gurgling screams of my friends. I felt the earth shake under the weight of massive, invading wolves.

Our pack’s Alpha was gone. Our Beta was dead. Our Gamma, slaughtered in the mud.

Their families had been wiped out in a matter of hours, their bloodlines erased from the earth. The only reason the rest of us were still drawing breath was because of my father. Delta Vance had made the agonizing, humiliating choice to drop to his knees in the dirt and surrender completely to the enemy.

I was only nineteen years old. My world had devolved into a waking nightmare of grief, ash, and shattered bone. We were a mourning pack, a broken people. I doubted we would ever recover from the massacre. Yet, as I sat shivering in the dark, I had no idea that the absolute worst was still coming for me.

Heavy, dragging footsteps sounded in the hallway. My bedroom door groaned on its hinges, pushing open to reveal my father. He looked like a hollowed-out shell of the fierce warrior he used to be. His broad shoulders sagged under a profound physical and emotional fatigue, the lines around his mouth carved deep with sorrow. He stepped into the room, his posture heavy, and sank onto the edge of my bed. The mattress dipped under his weight.

"Elo," he started, his voice a raspy whisper that cracked on the first syllable. "How are you holding up?"

The question broke whatever fragile dam I had built in my mind. Tears spilled over my lashes, hot and fast. "All my friends are gone, Daddy," I choked out, the reality of my isolation crashing down on me. "I do not have friends anymore. Their houses are empty. Their scents are fading. I might never find my mate in this ruin. This is a nightmare."

He shifted closer, reaching out to pull me into his chest. I buried my face in his shirt and sobbed, letting the grief pour out of me. He held me tight, his large hand stroking my hair.

"I know it is hard," he murmured into the crown of my head. "And I cannot promise you it will get any easier, my child."

I continued to cry, my fingers twisting the fabric of his shirt. I could feel the sheer exhaustion radiating from his body. He was a proud man, a Delta who would have gladly died defending our borders. He had swallowed his pride and surrendered just to keep me alive. I did not know if I should fall to my knees in gratitude for his sacrifice or scream at him for chaining us to a life of submission. Most of the pack praised him. His choice had stopped the Obsidian pack from slaughtering the rest of us. But peace under their rule felt like a slow death.

The invading Alpha, Killian, was already taking over everything we owned. Whispers about him circulated through the remaining survivors like poison. He was a ruthless tyrant. He never smiled. He commanded vast wealth and ruled over several conquered territories with an iron fist. Our home was just another bloody trophy added to his vast collection. I doubted a man like that would treat us as anything more than disposable slaves.

My father let out a long, shuddering sigh and pulled back just enough to look me in the eyes.

"I hate to be the one to tell you this," he began, his voice taking on a heavy, grave tone.

My tears stopped. My blood ran cold. I knew that tone. Whatever he was about to say was going to shatter my reality.

"For Alpha Killian to absorb us completely," my father said, his words slow and measured, as if he had to force each one past his teeth. "I have to marry you off to him. It is the only way to prove our loyalty and guarantee our genuine surrender."

The words hung in the air, thick and suffocating. It took a full ten seconds for my brain to process the devastating, world-shattering blow he had just delivered.

I pulled away from him abruptly, scrambling off the bed until my back hit the far wall. "What!"

My chest heaved. I stared at him, searching his exhausted face for any sign that this was a sick, twisted joke. But his eyes held nothing but grim defeat.

I was nineteen. I was a virgin. I had not met my fated mate. I had barely started living. Now, my entire future was being ripped from my hands. I was being reduced to mere currency, a disposable bargaining chip used to buy a fragile peace from a monster.

Panic seized my throat. I gasped for air, the room spinning around me. Lumina, my inner wolf, whimpered in distress, pacing frantically in my mind.

"You need to calm down, Elo," my father pleaded, standing up and taking a slow step toward me. "It is beyond my power. He was the one who explicitly requested you. I know he only did it to test my loyalty. If I had refused, it would simply mean we had not surrendered. He would have killed us all."

I shook my head wildly, backing away until I hit the corner of my vanity table. "No, Daddy. No! My life cannot be used to buy peace."

"What do you propose?" he countered, his voice rising in desperate frustration. "That I say no, and he slaughters all of us? Because he can do that. He will do that, Elo."

"That man has no feelings for me," I argued passionately, my voice trembling with disgust and horror. "Neither do I have feelings for him! I am only nineteen, father. Alpha Killian is twenty-nine years old. He has been mated before. He has loved, and he has lived. This is incredibly unfair to me!"

My father’s shoulders slumped even further, his silence confirming my worst fears. He was not going to fight for me. He had already made the deal. He had already sold me to the devil.

I refused to accept this. I refused to let my life be thrown away and permanently chained to a twenty-nine-year-old enemy stranger. If my father would not stop this, I had to do it myself.

Driven by a reckless, desperate need to break this arrangement, I did the only thing that made sense in my panicked state. I turned on my heel and bolted out the door.

I ran out of the house, my bare feet hitting the dirt path outside. I did not let Lumina take over. If I shifted into my wolf form, I would arrive at my destination naked, vulnerable, and stripped of whatever small dignity I had left. So, I ran blindly and frantically in my human form.

The cool evening wind whipped through my hair, stinging my tear-stained cheeks. I was not thinking clearly. My mind was a chaotic storm of anger and fear. I needed to reach the former Alpha's grand estate, a place now forcefully claimed and occupied by Killian himself. I needed to stand in front of this tyrant, irritate him, and force him to see me as utterly unworthy of being his Luna. I needed to disgust him so much that he cancelled the union himself.

I pushed my human muscles to their limits, sprinting through the familiar trees of our territory. My lungs burned, my breath coming in ragged, heavy pants. I had never seen Alpha Killian in person, but I knew his reputation. I knew his dark, intimidating looks would stand out in any crowd.

The grand estate finally came into view through the dense treeline. The moment I reached the edge of the forest, I saw the imposing figures guarding the front of the building. They were massive, dangerous-looking men with hardened faces. None of them carried the familiar scent of our pack. They were Obsidian wolves.

I stepped out of the protective shadow of the woods and into the open. The wind shifted, carrying my scent straight to them. The guards instantly snapped to attention.

Before I could even take another breath, they moved.

They ambushed me from the shadows with terrifying speed. A heavy body slammed into my side, aggressively tackling me to the ground. The harsh earth scraped against my cheek. Dirt filled my mouth. Heavy hands shoved my shoulders down, firmly pinning me against the unforgiving ground.

"Get off me!" I thrashed under their grip, but they were too strong.

A sharp, agonizing sizzle ripped through my wrists. The guards bound my struggling hands behind my back with silver chains. The metal bit deep into my skin, burning like liquid fire. The smell of my own searing flesh hit my nose. Tears of sheer, blinding pain pricked my eyes, but I stubbornly refused to let them fall. I swallowed the immense agony, clenching my jaw so hard my teeth ached. I would never give these enemy guards the twisted satisfaction of seeing me cry.

"I demand to see Alpha!" I yelled loudly, my voice ringing clear and defiant across the courtyard.

A few of the guards chuckled, a dark, mocking sound that fueled the fire in my chest. They grabbed the burning chains and forcefully dragged me to my feet, hauling me toward the grand doors of the estate.

They dragged me into a cold, dimly lit waiting room inside the manor. The guards stepped back, leaving me standing in the center of the room. The silver chains continued to sear my wrists, sending fresh waves of agony up my arms with every heartbeat.

A hefty, dangerous-looking man approached me. He had dark brown hair and piercing green eyes that locked onto mine with an imposing intensity. I stood my ground, staring right back at him, never averting my gaze.

"What do you want with Alpha Killian?" the brown-haired guard asked, his tone dripping with authority.

"I need to speak to him," I stated, forcing my voice to remain steady. Lumina paced nervously in my head, the reality of our reckless charge sinking in. But there was no turning back now.

The guard studied me, unimpressed. "Do you have an appointment?"

I shook my head.

"Very well then, book an appointment," he dismissed me coldly and turned around to leave.

"I am sorry, I can't do that," I called after him, "since my father plans to marry me off to him."

The guard stopped in his tracks. He slowly turned back around, raising an eyebrow. His sharp green eyes swept over me, intensely questioning my identity and searching for a lie. When he realized I was telling the truth, his expression shifted.

"You are Vance's daughter?" he asked.

"Delta Vance," I corrected him sharply, defending my father's hard-earned rank.

"Not anymore," the guard responded with a cruel smirk.

My blood boiled. They had taken everything away from us. Our home, our freedom, and now they were stripping my father of his title and respect. Why in the world would their Alpha want to marry me?

I opened my mouth to fire back an angry insult, but before I could speak, a deep, impossibly imposing, and rumbling voice echoed from the inner office. The sound alone vibrated in my chest, dripping with a lethal masculinity that commanded instant obedience. It summoned me directly.

"Follow me," the brown-haired guard ordered, dropping his smirk.

I arched an eyebrow at him, refusing to move until I shook my bound hands. He sighed in annoyance, pulling a thick leather glove from his belt before stepping behind me. He swiftly removed the silver chains. The metal fell to the floor with a heavy clank. I pulled my arms forward, staring at my painfully singed and raw wrists. The bastard wasn't even man enough to touch the silver with his bare hands.

The guard pushed open the heavy oak door and escorted me inside the Alpha's office.

I stepped into the room, and my breath caught in my throat.

Alpha Killian was sitting behind a massive desk. He was dangerously handsome. His dark, striking features radiated a lethal, unsmiling, and suffocating authority that seemed to suck the oxygen right out of the room. His dark hair fell perfectly, framing a jawline carved from granite. His dark eyes pierced right through me. He was a terrifying vision of raw power, an easy object of fantasy for any woman. But he was the man who had slaughtered my people, and I absolutely refused to cower in his presence.

I forced myself to stand tall, pushing my shoulders back and keeping my chest high.

"What do you want? I do not have all day," Killian said, his voice mean and grating, laced with an arrogant impatience.

I looked him dead in his piercing dark eyes. "I do not want to marry you. Please ask for something else."

He stopped shuffling the papers on his desk. He leaned back in his leather chair, steepling his large fingers together. His gaze darkened.

"Or else what?" he challenged, his voice dropping an octave into a cold, intimidating growl.

I was momentarily taken aback. I blinked, caught off guard by his immediate assumption that a nineteen-year-old girl standing in his office with burnt wrists was making a physical threat against an Alpha.

"Nothing," I answered honestly.

*Stupid girl, we shouldn't have come here,* Lumina whimpered in my head, her tail tucked firmly between her legs. I ignored my wolf, pushing forward.

"A man like you should not involve himself with someone like me," I continued, desperately trying to reason with his logic.

He raised a dark eyebrow, his expression mocking. "What do you mean by that?"

I chose my words carefully, knowing I was walking on a knife's edge. "I am a nobody. I am sure there are very attractive, powerful women in your own pack. You do not need to saddle yourself with a nineteen-year-old nobody. Please, be assured that you have the full loyalty of our pack. You do not need me to make them comply."

Killian’s imposing expression remained completely stone-cold and unmoved. He stood up from his chair, his massive frame towering over the desk.

"The pack isn't the issue," he methodically explained, his tone devoid of any emotion. "I need to be sure your father will behave himself."

I frowned, confused as to why he was so hyper-focused on my father.

"Your father is the former Alpha's biological brother," Killian stated, laying out his ruthless political logic. "That makes him an Alpha by blood. I only let him live because he surrendered to me. I have no personal qualms with him, but he inherently poses a potential threat. I do not intend to keep someone like him around without strict controlling."

He walked around the desk, stopping just a few feet away from me. He looked down at me, his eyes sweeping over my trembling frame with brutal detachment. He then verbally degraded me, his words hitting harder than a physical blow.

"You are right. You are not good enough for me and never will be," he stated ruthlessly. "You will only be a form of insurance. I do not fancy women like you, and someone like you cannot handle my desires."

The insult burned worse than the silver.

"The wedding will take place without fail," he laid down his absolute ultimatum, his voice vibrating with lethal promise. "And if you ever attempt to run away, I will mercilessly eliminate your father and slaughter your entire pack. I do not need them. Now leave my office."

Humiliation flushed my cheeks, hot and angry. But the humiliation quickly morphed into a fiercely defiant rage. I glared up at this arrogant, soulless monster.

"You are not my type either," I spat my own venom back at him, refusing to back down. "I only came here so I could spare myself the torture of being married to an old man."

I turned on my heel, intending to angrily march out of his office with my head held high.

Before I could take a second step, the brown-haired guard aggressively jerked me back by my shoulder. The sudden movement sent Lumina into an instant panic. My inner wolf roared, her fangs baring as she braced for a bloody physical fight. My muscles tensed, ready to strike back.

But Killian simply stared at me with a terrifying, unnerving calm. The sheer weight of his presence held me frozen in place.

"I believe you have never heard of me before," Killian warned, his face a mask of unyielding stone. "I will absolutely not tolerate any disrespect. The next time you speak to me in such a defiant manner, you will be dealt with mercilessly."

He did not raise his voice. He didn't need to. The lethal promise in his quiet tone sent a chill straight down my spine.

"Now leave my office," he commanded once again.

The guard released my shoulder. Shaken, but fueled by a heavy surge of adrenaline, I turned away. I walked out of the suffocating building, my heart hammering wildly against my ribs. The moment my bare feet crossed the courtyard and reached the dense cover of the forest, I let my wolf take over.

Bones cracking and reshaping, I shifted into my animal form. My paws hit the dirt, and I began to run wildly into the protective shadows of the trees.