Bled By My Alpha Parents Adopted By The Lycan King Chapter 03
The Wisteria Court
I dragged myself up on shaking arms.
My legs wouldn’t hold at first. I had to brace against the wall, one hand at a time, until I made it across the room to the old bronze mirror on the far wall.
Tarnished. Half-blackened. They hung it there for reasons I never understood, and no one had ever bothered to take it down.
I looked at myself for the first time in eight years.
The figure in the glass was eighteen. But eight years of drainings had left her looking twelve. Thirteen at most. Bones under grey skin. Hair thin as dead grass.
But if I looked carefully, past the hollow eyes and the sickness, I could see it.
The line of my brow. The shape of my jaw.
I looked like the Luna.
The corner of my mouth pulled into something that wasn’t quite a smile.
Of course. Of course they had never let me be seen. Of course they had kept me hidden in a black room three halls from the sunlight. If anyone had ever looked at me next to Marissa Ashborne, they would have known.
…
I turned my face toward the door and squinted at the thin line of light along the frame.
The sun was up. Warm. Bright.
I don’t remember opening the door.
I don’t remember walking out.
The hallway was empty. Everyone was busy with Vera, three courts away, fussing over her wedding gown. No one thought to watch the blood bag.
I don’t know how long I walked. The Ashborne Estate was big, and I had never seen any of it.
I turned a corner into a courtyard I had never seen before, and everything in me went still.
Wisteria. Long thick curtains of purple flowers hanging from a wooden trellis. A little swing moving in the breeze, like someone had just gotten off it.
Something in my chest ached.
I didn’t remember this place But I knew it, the way a pup knows her own mother’s scent in a crowd.
Then I heard her laugh.
“Mama, Rowan, do I look pretty in this?”
Vera was standing in the middle of the courtyard, twirling. Crimson silk. Silver stitching. Pearls the size of songbird eggs braided through her hair.
I had bled into her for eight years and I had never seen her face.
She was beautiful. Radiant. Not a shadow of sickness on her. Her cheeks were pink. Her eyes shone. She stood the way healthy wolves stood.
Beside her stood a tall young Alpha in a dark green coat. Broad-shouldered. Same jaw as the Luna. Rowan Ashborne.
My brother.
His face was soft with love. “You’re the prettiest she-wolf in the capital, Ver. You’d look like a moon bride in a flour sack.”
Vera pouted. “You’re useless, Rowan! The only words you know are the words that means I’m pretty. Mama, tell me! Which one is better?”
The Luna was kneeling at Vera’s feet, fussing with the hem of the gown, laughing softly. “He’s useless, my darling. But you really are the prettiest thing in the capital.”
If I had never been taken, I would be the one in that dress.
I would be the one being fussed over.
I would be the one laughing.
Instead I was the one at the gate. Skin grey. Bones sharp. Arms crawling with half-healed wounds.
“Oh — who’s that?”
Vera’s voice cut through the air.
She said it the way you’d say it about a rat in the pantry.
Her face crumpled. She ducked behind Rowan’s shoulder, small hands clutching his sleeve. “Rowan, she’s scary. Is she one of the servants? Why is she looking at us like that?”
Rowan turned around, and his face went white.
For one long second, his eyes locked on mine. And I saw something crack open behind them.
Recognition. Guilt. Something old and buried.
Then it was gone.
“Who let you out here?” His voice was ice. “Get back to your room. Now.”
I took a step forward.
Some memory I didn’t have anymore was clawing its way up my throat.
“Ro—”
“Out.”
He was in front of me before I could finish the word, and he shoved.
I went down hard.
Something wet spread down my forearm. The old wound had split open. Dark red seeped through the thin cloth of my sleeve.
Rowan’s eyes went to the blood, and his whole face changed.
“Goddess, she’s bleeding out.” He whipped around at the two maids frozen at the edge of the courtyard. “You. You. Salve. Now. Don’t let a drop of it hit the ground.”
For one insane second, I thought he was afraid for me.
Then he snarled it.
“That blood is worth more than your whole family. Don’t waste it.”
Rowan didn’t look at me. He had already turned back to Vera, crouching in front of her, cupping her face in his hands.
“Hey. Hey, sweetheart. It’s okay. She’s just a servant. She’s going away tomorrow with you, remember? You’re safe. Look at me, Ver. You’re safe.”
He pulled her into his chest and she buried her face against his shoulder. Over the top of her head, his eyes flicked to me for half a second.
Then a maid clapped a hand over my mouth and dragged me backward through the gate.
They had never told Vera where her medicine came from. They had built a soft, gentle world around her, and every wall of it was made of me.
I wanted to laugh.
But tears ran down instead.