The Alpha’s Last Curse

And her father had promised her to an old man who collected beautiful and interesting brides as amusement.

She had three hours, perhaps less, before someone recognized her walk, her height, or the blue ribbon tied at her wrist.

She needed someone powerful enough to make her untouchable.

The thought came with its own bitterness. At Meanfield, power had always meant another hand closing around her throat.

A herald announced the arrival of the royal ruler.

Conversation thinned.

Romeo entered beneath the high archway.

Marshe had seen his portrait once, hidden in a book her mother had owned before she died. The portrait had shown a handsome young noble with a solemn mouth. The man approaching now looked carved from the years that followed. A dark stone clasped his throat, hair falling in untidy waves across his forehead. A thin scar crossed one brow.

But it was his shadow that made the room quiet.

It moved a fraction behind him, too dark for the candlelight, stretching along the floor like spilled ink. When Romeo passed beneath the chandeliers, it followed without obeying the direction of the flames.

Marshe’s breath caught.

His gaze swept over the gathering.

Then it stopped on her.

Not on the mask. On her.

The sensation was so immediate that her fingers tightened around her fan. Heat gathered beneath her gloves, prickling across her palms. Something inside her ribs stirred, not fear exactly, but recognition without a name.

Romeo looked away first.

Marshe hated that she noticed.

A servant offered her wine. She took a glass, though her hand trembled enough to ripple the red surface.

“Do not drink,” a voice murmured beside her.

She turned.

A broad-shouldered man stood with his hands clasped behind his back. Matthew, if she remembered the court introductions correctly. He served Romeo closely, though whether as adviser, guard, or something more dangerous, she could not tell.

“Why?” Marshe asked.

“Because you are holding it like a weapon.”

She glanced down. Her fingers had tightened around the stem.

“I may need one.”

Matthew’s mouth shifted, almost a smile. “Then choose something with a heavier base.”

Before she could answer, movement flashed near the entrance.

Melissa.

Marshe knew her stepmother’s daughter even beneath a veil of black lace. Melissa wore Meanfield silver at her throat and a smile bright enough to deceive anyone who had never watched it form before a cruelty. Her gaze moved across the hall.

Behind her came Marshe’s father.

Alpha of the Meanfield Pack. A respected wolf lord. A man who could make an entire room bow by lifting his chin.

Marshe turned away.

“Do you know them?” Matthew asked.

“No.”

The lie came too quickly.

His eyes sharpened. “You should improve that.”

“They are looking for someone.”

“Are they looking for you?”

Marshe set down her wine. “If you intend to announce me, do it loudly. I have spent the evening trying not to be found.”

That earned his full attention.

He leaned nearer, lowering his voice. “You are in Romeo’s hall. Hiding here will not make you invisible.”

“I do not need invisible. I need three minutes.”

“For what?”

“To reach the western gallery.”

“That passage is guarded.”

“Then I need two minutes and a distraction.”

Matthew studied her mask. “You came to court without an escort, wearing a face no one can read, and expect mercy from the most dangerous man in the kingdoms?”

“I expect nothing from him.”

“Wise.”

“Is it?”

“No.” His gaze moved toward Romeo. “But it may keep you alive.”

A dance began. Couples arranged themselves across the floor, forcing the crowd to shift. Marshe used the movement to step backward, but someone caught her wrist.

Her father.

His grip closed over her glove.

The scent of cedar and iron filled her nose. She felt the old pressure of his fingers, the warning before the blow.

“There you are,” he said.

Marshe looked up at him through the mask.

His eyes narrowed. “Take it off.”

“I am a guest at a masked reception.”

“You are my daughter.”

His grip tightened. Pain sparked up her arm.

Across the hall, Romeo had turned toward them.

Marshe saw him watching. His expression remained unreadable, but the shadow at his feet had lifted along the marble like a living stain.

Her father noticed the attention and released her with a shove disguised as a courteous gesture.

“Come with me,” he said. “Your future husband is waiting.”

The words made the hall tilt.

Marshe’s fear broke through the careful walls she had built around it. Not because of the old man himself. Because she knew what happened when a woman was handed over and everyone called it a marriage.

“I will not go.”

Her father’s face hardened. “You will not embarrass me before the royal court.”

“I have been doing that since the day I was born, apparently.”

His hand rose.

The movement was small. Familiar.

Before it could reach her, a black-gloved hand caught his wrist.

Romeo stood between them.

No one had seen him cross the floor.

“Alpha,” he said.

Her father bowed, though his anger remained visible in the line of his mouth. “My lord.”

“You seem to have mistaken my reception for your household.”

“This is a family matter.”

“Then resolve it somewhere your family can hear you.”

The words were quiet. They carried farther than a shout.

Her father glanced toward the nobles watching them. “Marshe is promised.”

The name struck her like a bell.

Romeo’s gaze shifted to her. “Is that so?”

She could not speak. Her father’s hand had left a burning ring around her wrist. Her body remembered the kitchen floor, the locked doors, Melissa’s laughter while her stepmother packed her belongings into a trunk.

Romeo’s eyes lowered to the mark beneath her glove.

Something changed in his face.

Not tenderness. He did not look like a man who knew how to offer that.

Possession, perhaps. Or anger, colder and more controlled.

“Leave,” Romeo told her father.

Alpha Meanfield stared at him. “You cannot interfere with a lawful arrangement.”

“I can interfere with anything that occurs under my roof.”

“This girl belongs to my pack.”

Marshe flinched.

Romeo saw it.

The shadow at his heels slid across the marble, reaching toward her father’s polished boots. The candles nearest them guttered blue.

“Nothing living belongs to you,” Romeo said.

Her father went pale.

Melissa stepped forward, her smile gone. “My lord, Marshe has always been unstable. She ran from home and - ”

“Melissa,” Marshe said.

Her stepsister stopped.

The mask hid Marshe’s mouth, but not the heat in her voice. “Do not speak about what you did not survive.”

For one breath, the music faltered around them.

Melissa’s eyes sharpened with hatred.

Romeo looked at Marshe then, and the strange warmth beneath her skin flared. Her knees nearly weakened. The hall blurred at its edges. She heard a whisper beneath the music, something like wings beating inside a sealed room.

His gaze dropped to their hands.

Her glove had slipped. A thin line of blood showed where her father’s ring had cut her.

Romeo reached for her.

Marshe should have pulled away.

Instead, his fingers closed around hers.

Gold flashed between their joined hands.

It was not candlelight. It burned beneath their skin, a fine luminous thread twisting from his palm into hers. Heat rushed up Marshe’s arm. Romeo inhaled sharply, and for the first time his composure broke.

The gold vanished.

He released her.

The room had gone silent.

Matthew moved immediately, stepping between them and the watching court. “The dance,” he announced. “The next dance begins.”

The musicians, terrified enough to obey, struck up a faster measure.

Romeo did not look at her father again. “You will remain here tonight.”

Marshe stared at him. “That was not a request.”

“No.”

“Then I decline.”

A flicker crossed his eyes. “You are being hunted.”

“By my family. Not by you.”

“Not yet.”

The words should have frightened her. Instead, they settled between them with an unsettling honesty.

Romeo turned toward the nearest side passage. “Walk with me.”

Marshe stayed where she was.

He looked back. “If you remain in this room, your father will use the court’s etiquette against you. He will ask for a family audience. You will be obliged to attend. Once you leave with him, no one here will hear you refuse the sale.”

“Why help me?”

“Because your presence has already disrupted my reception.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only one you are getting.”

He moved away.

Marshe glanced at the doors. Her father stood there, surrounded by two pack guards. Melissa watched her with bright, poisonous patience. The western gallery was blocked.

The choice narrowed until only Romeo remained.

She followed.

The passage beyond the hall was quieter, lined with dark glass and stone statues whose faces had been worn smooth. Romeo walked quickly, but not so quickly that she had to run. He kept three steps between them.

A courtesy, perhaps.

Or a warning.

“You intend to imprison me?” she asked.

“If I intended that, you would already be locked in a room.”

“Your kindness is difficult to distinguish from threat.”

“I am not known for kindness.”

“No. I have heard what happened to the fairy kingdom.”

His stride stopped.

The silence around them changed.

Romeo turned slowly. The candlelight caught the scar above his brow and the hollows beneath his eyes.

“Have you?”

“Everyone has.”

“Then you have heard that fairies slaughtered my parents.”

“I have heard that you destroyed their kingdom afterward.”

“I did.”

There was no pride in the admission. No regret either. Only a terrible exhaustion.

Marshe looked away first. “Why tell me?”

“You asked why I might help you. I am telling you what I am.”

“A man who repays blood with blood.”

“A man who does not pretend his debts are love.”

The words struck closer than they should have.

He stepped toward her, stopping before the space between them disappeared. “I can prevent your father from taking you. I can place you under royal protection. But protection has a cost.”

“What cost?”

“Marriage.”

Marshe laughed once, though nothing was funny. “You do not even know my name.”

“I know it.”

“Then you know I am not worth a royal marriage.”

His jaw tightened. “Do not insult yourself to make refusing me easier.”

She went still.

Romeo’s gaze fell to the mask. “You need a husband powerful enough to challenge your father. I need a wife.”

“Why?”

“Political pressure. Noble houses believe I have ruled too long without an heir, an alliance, or an explanation. A contract marriage will quiet them.”

“And you chose a runaway woman in a mask?”

“I chose someone no faction can claim.”

“Except you.”

“Yes.”

The honesty should have made him easier to hate. Instead, it made her aware of the heat lingering where his fingers had touched hers.

“What would the contract say?”

“That you live in my household. That you appear beside me when required. That neither of us interferes with the other’s private affairs.”

“Convenient.”

“For both of us.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I return you to the reception hall.”

Her stomach twisted.

Romeo watched the answer form in her face. “I will not force you.”

“Your power makes refusal difficult.”

“I know.”

For the first time, something vulnerable showed beneath his coldness. Not softness. Recognition. He understood exactly what it meant to stand before a stronger person and be told a choice was yours.

Marshe’s anger faltered.

She touched the edge of her mask. “If I marry you, my father cannot sell me.”

“He cannot approach you without my permission.”

“And Melissa?”

“She will not enter this palace.”

“Your former companion might disagree.”

A woman’s name had been whispered earlier in the hall. Alexar. A former companion of Romeo’s, influential and beautiful, with a talent for making other women feel like trespassers.

Romeo’s expression hardened. “Alexar does not govern me.”

“Does she obey you?”

“No.”

“Then she is dangerous.”

“So are you.”

The words settled hotly between them.

Marshe lifted her chin. “What else?”

Romeo’s eyes held hers through the mask. “You will ask no questions about my curse, my magic, or my past.”

Her blood chilled.

“What curse?”

“Exactly the kind of question I forbid.”

“And if I ask?”

“The contract ends.”

“Then I lose your protection.”

“Yes.”

She looked down at their hands. Beneath the glove, her palm still burned where the gold had appeared. “You are asking me to trust a man who refuses to be known.”

“I am offering you a way to survive.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“No,” Romeo said. “It is not.”

The corridor seemed too narrow now. His scent - smoke, winter, and something darker - filled the space between them. Marshe could hear his breathing. Slow. Controlled.

Then his hand lifted toward her mask.

She caught his wrist.

The contact ignited the gold again.

Light raced between their joined hands, brighter this time, spilling over the stone walls. Romeo’s breath broke. His shadow recoiled, then curled around their feet.

Marshe felt something inside her open.

For one dazzling instant, she sensed the shape of him beyond flesh: wolf, darkness, old grief bound in iron. Beneath it all was a loneliness so vast it made her chest ache.

Romeo stared at her as if he had seen the same impossible thing.

“What are you?” he whispered.

Fear snapped the connection. Marshe pulled away.

The gold faded, but the warmth remained.

She had no answer. Her mother had died before explaining why silver made Marshe ill, why flowers sometimes opened beneath her hands, why wolves in Meanfield stared at her as though they smelled a secret.

Romeo’s face had gone pale.

“Say nothing,” he said.

“I was not planning to.”

“Good.”

The command restored the distance between them.

He reached inside his coat and withdrew a folded document sealed with black wax. He held it out.

Marshe did not take it immediately.

“If I sign,” she said, “you protect me from my father, my stepfamily, and the bride collector.”

“Yes.”

“You give me a room of my own.”

“Yes.”

“You do not touch me unless I agree.”

His gaze sharpened, then softened by the smallest degree. “Yes.”

“And you will not use the marriage to claim what I have not offered.”

“No.”

The answer came without hesitation.

Marshe took the contract.

The parchment was warm from his body. Her fingers brushed his, and the gold flickered once beneath their skin.

Romeo’s eyes lowered to it.

His voice became quieter. “I need a wife who asks no questions.”

Marshe looked at the black seal, then at the man who carried a curse built to erase her bloodline.

“Then you should not have chosen a woman who has spent her whole life surviving other people’s answers.”

For the first time, Romeo looked almost amused.

It vanished quickly.

Behind them, the reception hall erupted in noise. Her father had begun shouting. Melissa’s voice rose above his, calling for Marshe to be returned.

Romeo extended a pen.

Marshe held the contract against the stone wall. Her hand shook, but she made herself read every line. The words were precise, merciless, and safer than any promise she had ever received.

At the bottom, beneath Romeo’s signature, waited a blank space for hers.

She signed.

As soon as her signature dried, the old cut along her palm split open as if answering the contract’s seal.

Romeo’s blood appeared beneath his glove, though she had not seen him wounded. A thin line of red slipped down his hand. Their blood touched.

Gold burst across the parchment.

The contract vanished into flame without heat.

Somewhere deep within the palace, a bell began to ring.

Romeo caught her hand before she could step back. His grip was firm, but he waited until she met his eyes before closing his fingers around hers.

“You are under my protection now,” he said.

Marshe looked toward the hall, where her father was coming for her.

Then she looked at Romeo.

“And what am I under besides that?”

His shadow curled around their joined hands.

Romeo’s expression turned grim.

“That,” he said, “is the question neither of us is permitted to ask.”

End of chapter one. 56 more chapters and about 134,861 words in the full book.