Bound to the Pack- Breeder for the Triplets Alpha's

I woke to the sound of rain tapping against a window I could not see, and for one merciful moment I did not remember where I was. The silk sheets felt cool against my skin, and the room smelled of cold stone and snuffed candles. The pillow beside mine still held the shallow dent of a head that had left long before morning.

Then the night returned all at once, and my body curled around the memory like a clenched fist.

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and made myself breathe slowly. Every muscle ached in its own particular way. A dull throb pulsed low in my stomach where Xiana's boot had landed, my wrists were raw from the ceremony, and something deeper than any bruise had cracked open beneath my ribs and refused to close again.

Derek had not stayed. He had walked into the bathroom after it was over, and by the time I stopped listening for running water, I understood that he had simply slipped out through some other door. The only proof he had ever been there was a faint scent of winter pine clinging to the pillowcase.

I sat up carefully. Heavy velvet curtains were drawn across the windows, and a thin grey seam of daylight sliced across the carpet like a blade. My wedding dress lay where it had fallen, a dark puddle of silk at the foot of the bed, and someone had folded a plain cotton nightgown on the nightstand while I slept. I did not want to imagine who had crept into the room to leave it there.

A mirror hung above the dressing table, and I made myself look into it. The girl staring back had swollen eyes, tangled hair, and a purple bruise the size of a plum at the base of her throat. When I touched it, my pulse jumped beneath my fingertips. Derek had sworn that he never made that mark, and yet I remembered the weight of a man above me, his mocking laughter, and his mouth pressed hard against my skin. I could not make those memories fit together, no matter how many times I turned them over.

My mother's silver locket rested against my collarbone, warm from my skin. Xiana had stolen my clothes, my savings, and my favorite books over the years, but she had never managed to pry that little locket from my neck. I closed my fist around it and drew a thin thread of courage from its familiar weight.

"Either he is lying to me," I whispered to the empty room, "or I am slowly losing my mind."

I crossed the carpet on unsteady legs and tried the handle of the heavy door. It refused to move. I tried again with both hands, and the brass rattled against its lock with a sound that echoed down the corridor beyond.

"The Alpha has ordered that you remain inside, Luna." The voice that answered was gruff and flat, and it came from the other side of the wood. "Someone will bring you food when the kitchen is ready."

"Who are you?" I asked, pressing my forehead against the door.

"Captain Harlan, head of the Alpha's personal guard." A long pause followed, and when he spoke again his voice had dropped to something close to a murmur. "I would advise you to cover that mark on your neck before anyone else sees it."

My hand flew to my throat. "Why would it matter to anyone besides me?"

He did not answer. I listened to the slow creak of his boots as he shifted his weight, and I understood that the conversation was over, though I had no idea what I had just been warned about.

I dragged back the curtains next. My room sat on the third floor of the manor, and beyond the rain-streaked glass I could see a cobbled courtyard, a high stone wall topped with iron spikes, and a dark line of pines pressed against the horizon like a held breath. Guards in black coats patrolled the wall in pairs. I counted eleven of them before I stopped, and I realized that every single one carried a rifle slung across his chest. This house had not been built to keep danger out. It had been built to keep things in.

Around nine o'clock, the lock clicked and the door opened just wide enough for a stout, grey-haired woman to shoulder through with a heavy tray. Flour dusted her forearms to the elbows. She kept her eyes fixed on the carpet, and her hands trembled so badly that the cutlery chattered against the china as she set the tray on the table by the window.

"Thank you for bringing this," I said gently.

Her gaze flicked upward for the barest instant, though not toward my face. It went to the ceiling behind my shoulder, where a tiny black dome sat half hidden in the plaster. Then she bowed her head and hurried out, and the lock turned behind her before I could ask her name.

A camera had been watching me all morning, and the realization settled over my skin like cold water. Whatever happened inside this room, someone was always paying attention.

I lifted the silver cover from the tray and found scrambled eggs, buttered toast, sliced pears, and a pot of steaming tea. My stomach clenched with hunger, but my mind replayed the sweet, heavy taste of Xiana's wine and the way my legs had turned to water within minutes. I sniffed every dish in turn. The tea smelled of chamomile and honey, and the eggs smelled only of butter.

"If they wanted me dead," I told myself, "leaving me in the rogue lands would have been far easier." The thought gave me very little comfort, yet it was enough to make me pick up the fork.

I had nearly finished the toast when my fingertips brushed something stiff beneath the rim of the plate. A square of paper had been folded into a tight knot and tucked where no lens in the ceiling could possibly have seen it. My heart pounded as I opened it with my back turned to the corner of the room. The message was written in blocky, careful capitals.

EAT EVERYTHING ON THIS TRAY, AND DO NOT TRUST THE ONE WHO SMILES.

I read the line three times before its meaning settled. The man who bound himself to me last night had not smiled once, not at the altar, not in the bedroom, and not even when he threatened me with the dungeon. The only man in this house who had smiled at me was the one who had laughed while he marked my throat, the one in the t-shirt, the one Derek swore had never existed.

I pushed the paper deep into a seam of the mattress and sat on the edge of the bed with my pulse roaring in my ears.

The second tray arrived at noon, carried by the same trembling woman. This time I waited until she bent over the table, and then I whispered, "Is somebody hurting you?" Her face drained of color. She shook her head so fast that her cloth cap slipped sideways, then she fled without a sound, and the guard outside slammed the door hard enough to shake the walls.

Under the napkin on the lunch tray lay a second square of paper. This one was folded differently, and the handwriting was tall, slanted, and hurried, as if the writer had been terrified of being seen.

IGNORE THE FIRST WARNING. IT IS THE ONE WHO FROWNS WHO WILL BREAK YOU.

My hands began to shake. Someone had read the first note before I ever did, which meant that whoever wrote this second message knew exactly where the first had been hidden. Two people in this house were passing me warnings about my husband, and each warning contradicted the other. Either two enemies were fighting over me from behind the walls, or the man I had married was somehow both of the men they described, and I could not decide which possibility frightened me more.

I spent the afternoon at the window, watching the rain fade into a bruised, purple dusk. The guards changed shifts at five, and lanterns flickered to life along the wall. Then the courtyard doors flew open directly beneath my room, and two guards dragged the grey-haired cook out into the downpour by her elbows.

She was not screaming, and that was the worst part. She hung between them with her head bowed, as though she had always known this moment was coming.

"Stop dragging her out there, she did nothing wrong!" I cried, slamming both fists against the glass.

No one below could hear me. Across the courtyard, on the stone balcony of the opposite wing, a tall man in a black shirt stood with his arms folded and watched the scene without the slightest expression. The lantern light caught his silver eyes and the hard line of his jaw. He had my husband's face.

I ran to the door and pounded on it until my palms stung. Harlan's voice came through the wood, and for the first time it sounded almost sorry. "Sit down, Luna. If you cause a scene tonight, the next person dragged into that courtyard will be someone you care about far more."

"I have no one here," I said, my voice breaking.

"Then you should be careful," he answered quietly, "not to make yourself someone's weakness."

I stumbled back to the window with tears burning my eyes. The guards had pushed the cook toward a low iron door at the base of the east tower, and the man on the balcony had finally moved. He lifted one hand in a lazy salute toward my window, as though he had known all along exactly where I was standing, and then, very slowly, he smiled.