Bled By My Alpha Parents Adopted By The Lycan King Chapter 04
The Truth in the Dark
The maids dragged me back and threw me into the dark room.
“Behave! Don’t try any more of your little tricks!”
“A monster like you, showing your face in front of Lady Vera. You want to break her heart?”
One of them spat on the floor and slammed the door.
Every bone in my body ached. I curled onto my side and blacked out.
The sound of the door opening woke me.
I thought it was another maid coming to drain me.
It was Vera.
But this Vera didn’t look anything like the sweet, twirling she-wolf in the wisteria courtyard.
She kicked the door shut behind her.
“Eight years I’ve been drinking your blood.” Her voice was clean and bright, and it landed on my ears like a demon’s whisper. “Why aren’t you dead yet?”
I stared at her.
She laughed out loud.
“I thought for sure, if I asked them to drain you often enough, your body would give out. But no.” She kicked on my leg. “You’re a stubborn little thing. And now you’ve figured it out, haven’t you? That you’re the Alpha and Luna’s real blood?”
Something in my chest went cold.
“Poor Fifteen. Alpha, Luna, Rowan. They’ve known who you were from the day they bought you. And they still chose to keep you in the dark and bleed you dry. Every single day. For me.”
I couldn’t breathe.
She sank down onto the edge of my cot and told me the rest.
Seven years ago, her sickness had lifted. The healers had confirmed it. She’d been healthy the whole time.
What the Ashborne healers had first called a ‘wasting sickness’ was never anything of the sort. A misdiagnosis. My blood had bought her a cure she never actually needed.
But by then, she’d learned something more valuable than health.
She’d learned that being sick made them love her more.
“I heard the Alpha and Luna arguing about you once,” she said, almost dreamy. “Talking about how you were their real pup. How they wanted to bring you home someday. I couldn’t have that. So I kept getting sick. Fainting spells. Chest pains. And every time, they ran to me. And every time, they came and drained you.”
She smiled at me, sweet as poison.
“They never told me the medicine was your blood. They wanted to protect my innocence. Isn’t that touching? But I’ve known since I was thirteen.”
My lips shook. I could taste iron in the back of my throat.
Eight years of my life. A joke. Start to finish. A joke.
“Vera.” My voice came out cracked. “I don’t want their love. I don’t want your place. They’ll never claim me in front of the pack anyway. Please. Just let me go.”
She tilted her head. Her smile went strange.
“But you should have seen their faces when Rowan hurt you in the garden today. They looked sorry, Fifteen. That worries me.”
Her hand went to her sleeve.
I didn’t understand what was happening until I saw the flash of the blade.
She drew a dagger across her own palm, quick and shallow. Then she screamed and threw herself backward.
The door slammed open.
Luna Marissa. Rowan behind her.
“Vera!”
Vera pointed at me, sobbing prettily.
“Mama. Rowan. I only came to bring her salve for her wound. But she grabbed the dagger. She said I owed her back all the blood I’d taken. She said she was going to drain me. I was so scared—”
She held up her sliced palm.
Luna Marissa’s eyes went red. She scooped Vera into her arms, calling her precious, calling her heart.
Rowan turned on me. His face was terrible. “You bastard.”
His boot came down on my chest.
My vision blurred. Somewhere above me Vera was still sobbing, and he kicked me again, harder.
“Blood slave. You dare lay a hand on the Alpha’s daughter?”
“Rowan. Enough.” The Luna’s voice was ice. “Don’t kill her. She’s still useful. If she wants to hurt Vera so badly, we’ll make sure she never has the chance again.”