Bled By My Alpha Parents Adopted By The Lycan King Chapter 05
The Ceremony
Two of the maids dragged me up like a sack of grain. Someone picked the dagger off the floor and pressed the blade against my forearm. Slow. Deliberate. Opening a long red line across the skin.
Then they hauled me across the room and shoved me toward a large redwood chest.
Vera’s mating tribute chest.
The lid was already open. Empty. Lined in dark silk.
I understood then, and terror shot up my spine so cold I lost my breath.
I fought like the sick, drained little thing I was. I clawed. I begged. My voice came out cracked and thin.
“Please. Please, my lady. I won’t say a word to Kade Vaughn. I won’t say a word to anyone. Please don’t put me in there!”
Luna Marissa didn’t look at me. She was smoothing Vera’s hair, murmuring to her.
“Mother. Please. Look at me.”
Nothing.
Rowan wouldn’t meet my eyes either.
The maids shoved me down into the chest.
My knees folded. My head hit the silk lining. A key turned in the lock above me.
I pressed my palms up against the wood.
I pushed.
It didn’t move.
I turned onto my back and drove my knees into the lid. Nothing. The chest was built to hold gold and jade. Built to never give.
My breath came shorter. The air went thin.
I closed my eyes in the dark, and I let the tears come, and I let them go.
…
Vera was radiant on her mating day.
The pack watched her in her crimson robes and her river of pearls, and every Ashborne wolf standing in that courtyard felt their eyes sting. She was so beautiful. So healed. So loved.
Marissa Ashborne stood at the front and pressed a hand to her chest.
Her heart was pounding, and she didn’t know why.
‘It’s just Vera. Just the mating ceremony. You’re overwhelmed.’
That’s what she told herself.
Then a servant came running.
The girl was pale. Her hands shook as she leaned in to whisper in the Luna’s ear.
The Luna’s whole face went white.
“What did you say? That courtyard? Which one? What do you mean fire, why didn’t anyone put it out—”
“My Luna, the flames are too high. We tried—”
Marissa didn’t wait for the rest.
She picked up the hem of her gown and ran.
She could smell it before she saw it. Smoke. Thick and black, curling up over the estate walls. She ran through the servant halls, through the back garden, and when she rounded the corner of the far wing, her legs gave out under her.
The dark room was gone.
The whole outbuilding was a column of fire. Roof caved in. Walls charred. The heat pushed against her face like a slap.
She sank down in the dirt and began to whisper.
“No. No, no. Nova. Nova, my Nova, I never wanted you dead. I never wanted you dead.”
The Alpha found her there. Rowan two steps behind him.
Alpha Cassius’s voice cut through her sobbing like a blade.
“Marissa. Get up. The pack is waiting. Vera is waiting to be walked to her mate.”
“Cassius—” she reached for him, clutching his sleeve, hands black with soot. “Our daughter. Our real daughter. She’s in there! She’s in there!!!!”
Rowan went still.
“…Mother. You’re talking about—”
“Nova, Rowan. Nova is in there!”