Broken by the Alpha, Reborn as Queen

Janette POV:

The scream that tore from my throat didn't sound human. It was the raw, guttural sound of a wounded animal dying in a trap.

I found her in the herb garden.

She wasn't planting. She was lying face down in the dirt, her basket overturned like a spilled omen.

"Mom!" I fell to my knees, skidding through the mud, grabbing her shoulders to turn her over.

Her skin was gray. Her lips were stained a dark, unnatural violet. The smell of Wolfsbane was so potent it made my eyes water and my throat close up.

"No, no, no," I sobbed, shaking her limp form. "Wake up. Please, Mom, wake up!"

I pressed my ear to her chest. Silence. The heart that had loved me when no one else did had stopped beating.

"What is this racket?" Garrison’s voice cut through my grief like a lash.

He stood on the patio, coffee cup in hand, looking down at me as if I were a pest.

Keyla was beside him, wrapped in a silk robe that I recognized. It was mine. The one I had worn on my wedding night.

"She's dead!" I screamed at him, my voice cracking. "My mother is dead!"

Garrison walked down the steps, his face pale but irritatingly composed. He knelt beside the body, checking for a pulse with clinical detachment.

"Wolfsbane," Keyla said, covering her nose with a delicate hand. "Disgusting. Why would the Pack Healer have such a dangerous poison on her? Unless..."

She let the sentence hang in the air, poisonous and sweet.

"Unless what?" I snarled, my vision blurring with red rage. "You did this! She found out about you!"

"Janette!" Garrison snapped. "Control yourself."

"She killed her!" I lunged at Keyla, my fingers curling into claws, ready to tear that stolen robe from her skin.

"Enough!"

Garrison used the Alpha Voice. It hit me like a physical blow to the chest, a crushing weight that slammed me into the earth, knocking the air out of my lungs. I collapsed into the dirt beside my mother’s body, gasping, unable to lift my head against the sheer gravity of his command.

"Look at this," Keyla said, pointing to my mother’s apron pocket. She reached in and pulled out a small vial with theatrical precision. "Pure Wolfsbane extract. It looks like she was brewing it. Maybe she made a mistake. Or maybe... she was planning to use it on the Alpha."

"Liar!" I tried to scream, but the Alpha Command held my throat shut like an iron collar. I could only make a strangled whimpering sound.

"This is serious," Garrison said, looking at the vial. He looked at my mother’s corpse with a cold detachment that broke whatever was left of my heart. "We cannot have a scandal. If the Council finds out the Healer was brewing poison..."

"We should bury her quickly," Keyla suggested softly, leaning into him. "To protect the pack's reputation. And Janette's."

"Do it," Garrison said. He stood up, wiping his hands on his pants as if to clean off the contagion of my grief. He looked down at me. "Get her out of here. She's hysterical."

Two warriors dragged me away. I watched my mother’s body get smaller and smaller, leaving trails in the dirt until she was gone.

*

The funeral was a sham. No honors. No pack howl. Just a quick burial in the corner of the cemetery reserved for traitors and outcasts.

I stood by the grave, rain soaking my black dress to my skin. I felt hollow. The pain was so great it had transcended suffering and become a numb void.

Keyla walked up to me as the last shovel of dirt was thrown onto the cheap pine box.

"She shouldn't have gone to the cabin," Keyla whispered, staring at the headstone. "Curiosity kills the cat. Or the wolf, in this case."

I didn't look at her. I stared straight ahead. Inside me, something was burning. A heat that started in my marrow and spread outward. It wasn't the fever of sickness. It was the cold, hard steel of hatred.

"You will pay," I said. My voice was flat, dead.

Keyla laughed. "With what army? You have no allies. You have no family. And soon, you will have no mate."

She was right.

Two days later, I was summoned to the Alpha’s office.

Garrison sat behind his desk. The Elders were lined up against the wall like a firing squad. Keyla was sitting in the corner, looking triumphant.

"Janette," Garrison began, not meeting my eyes. "The pack is in a fragile state. The merger with the Dixon pack is the only way to secure our borders and our economy."

"I know," I said.

"Keyla's father has made... conditions," Garrison continued, shuffling papers to avoid looking at me. "He will not merge with a pack whose Luna is... weak. And whose mother was a suspected poisoner."

"So you're casting me out," I said.

"It's for the good of the pack," Garrison said, trying to sound noble. "But I am not heartless. I have arranged a marriage for you."

I blinked, the absurdity of it stinging. "A marriage?"

"Alpha Sterling of the Black Rock Pack has agreed to take you," Garrison said. "In exchange for mining rights."

Alpha Sterling. He was sixty years old. He had buried four wives, all of whom died under "mysterious circumstances." He was known for his cruelty and his perversions.

Garrison wasn't just rejecting me. He was selling me to a butcher to buy mining rights. I was nothing more than currency to him.

The heat inside me flared. It was agonizing. My bones felt like they were vibrating against my skin.

"I see," I said. I didn't cry. I didn't beg. The Janette who begged for crumbs of affection had died in the garden with her mother.

"You accept?" Garrison looked surprised. He had expected a scene, tears, pleading.

"I accept my fate," I lied.

Because I wasn't going to Black Rock. And I wasn't staying here.

I looked at Garrison, really looked at him, and realized the bond was already dead. He had killed it with a thousand cuts of indifference.

"Set the ceremony," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "Let's get it over with."