The Alpha Heir’s Candle Game Chapter 01
The Seventh Candle
My future mate made me play a game I could never win: stay quiet while he fucked me until the candle burns out, or lose my only chance to see my dying mother.
***
The seventh time I fought for a spot on the pass-out list, Ethan lit a candle.
“Stay silent while I’m on you. Hold out till the flame dies, and your name goes on the list this time.”
He had too many tricks. I bit through my lip and took what he gave me, praying the wick would burn faster.
One breath from the finish, he sank his teeth into my shoulder.
The pain punched a cry out of me before I could stop it.
He blew the candle out.
“You couldn’t hold on. Stop fighting Clara for the spot.”
I just stared at the two candles.
Clara’s was thinner and shorter than mine. It would burn out in minutes.
The game was rigged from the start.
…
Ethan was already done.
His hand moved for me on instinct, the way it always did after, ready to carry me to the wash basin.
I moved out of reach.
He arched an eyebrow. Candlelight softened those cold pale eyes, still lazy with what he’d just taken from me. “What. You mad? We agreed before we started, didn’t we? Whoever holds out gets the spot. I let you first. What’s there to be upset about?”
My mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
I didn’t know which to name first, the two different candles, or the bite he’d used to break me at the end.
The split on my lip stung when I moved.
Ethan kissed it.
“Come on. Clara only wanted this spot to hear the end of that story from the traveling teller. She’s been losing sleep over it. Just let her have it. Next time, I’ll let you win.”
But… my leaving the pack territory wasn’t about a story. My mother was dying. I was afraid I wouldn’t make it in time to see her face again.
I’d told Ethan this six times already.
And this time, I didn’t want to say it again.
I slid past his hand, pushed my aching body up, and put my slip back on. It covered the bite on my shoulder.
It wasn’t deep. But it hurt somewhere much lower than my skin.
“Don’t trouble yourself, Alpha heir. I’ll clean up in my own room.”
Two refusals in a row. Ethan’s eyes cooled. “Jade Whitmore. Stop being arrogant. We’re not mated yet. Right now you’re just a pack attendant in the heir’s wing. Clara’s had a hard life. Would it kill you to give her something?”
I lowered my head. Hid the sting rising behind my eyes.
Whatever he did with Clara, I never asked.
As long as I was his mate. As long as the Luna seat was mine. As long as I was in his heart. That was enough.
Ten years of growing up side by side, Ethan had been better to me than my own parents.
When I was little, I didn’t understand what it meant to be the Alpha heir. I only knew that pup was good-looking, and he had everything.
So I put my little paw out and asked for whatever I wanted.
Silk from the deep southern packs.
Pearls that came up out of the deep sea.
Fine porcelain that only the Pack Alpha’s household was supposed to own.
Anything I named, he made mine by nightfall.
My father scolded me for being spoiled and headstrong.
Ethan tucked me behind him and answered for me. “Jade is honest and direct. That’s rare. Don’t try to change her, Councilor Whitmore.”
My mother said I was rude, that I bounced around like a wild pup with no manners.
Ethan just smiled, eyes crinkling.”I like Little Jade this way. With me here, she doesn’t need to follow the rules.”
Ethan really did become the wall at my back.
Inside the pack house, outside it, no one dared touch me.
At sixteen, after I shifted, I entered the heir’s wing as a pack attendant, so we could grow closer before the mating.
When my five years were up, we would have the ceremony.
After I enter his wing, he even stopped hiding how good he was to me. He’d drag me to eat all three meals with him. If I didn’t want to go to a council feast, he’d fake illness and stay in his wing with me, not caring who saw and reported him to his father, the Pack Alpha.
Every time I left the main territory, he’d hold me close, unwilling to let go. Sighing into my hair. “Two, no, three days without you. How am I supposed to survive?”
He timed it to one candle’s burn.
Same as the game.
The candle that once meant love.
Now stood between me and my dying mother.