My Alpha Forced Me to Watch My Mother Die

I walked through the side door of the pack house with dried rogue blood caked to my neck and my shredded jacket clinging to open flesh.

The foyer was warm and brightly lit. Half a dozen pack members were gathered near the hearth, murmuring in low, sympathetic tones. In the center of the room sat Jolene, clutching a mug of chamomile tea with both hands. Her eyes were red, her lashes wet with tears.

The moment she saw me, she let out a small, trembling gasp and shrank back against the sofa.

"She’s back," Jolene whispered, voice shaking. "Marcellus, please... don't let her near me. When I went to oversee Helen’s natural release beyond the river, Penelope attacked me. She was screaming like a wild animal. She tried to tear my throat out."

Every eye in the room turned on me. Cold, hostile, accusing.

Marcellus stepped out from his study. He looked at my torn clothes, the red dirt smeared across my face, and the blood soaking through my sleeves. He didn't ask what happened. He didn't ask whose blood it was. He never even glanced toward the southern river where my mother had been fed to scavengers.

He walked over to Jolene, resting a large, protective hand on her shoulder.

"You're safe now," he told her softly. Then he looked up at me, his jaw hard. "You traumatized her, Penelope. Attacking a pack member over a natural passing is unacceptable. You will accompany us to Quinton Ruiz’s gathering tonight as penance. You will carry our coats, sit where you are told, and show this pack you still understand respect."

I understood exactly what he was doing. Delivering an unmarked, wolfless woman into the lawless den of a Rogue King was a public humiliation. It was appeasement.

"Understood," I said. My voice was level, almost hollow.

Behind Marcellus, on the deep mahogany windowsill, sat a small ceramic dish of crushed rue and mountain sage. For ten years, I had replaced those ward-herbs every evening at dusk to keep rogue tracking scents from drifting through the glass. The leaves were already turning brittle and gray around the edges.

I looked at them, then walked past. I didn't touch them.

***

In the back of the armored SUV, the silence was suffocating.

I sat alone on the bench opposite Marcellus and Jolene. The deep claw marks on my collarbone burned with every jolt of the suspension, but I kept my back straight against the leather. Marcellus didn't look at me once. He was reviewing supply manifests that Jolene had printed—sloppy sheets with missing inventory tallies. Every few miles, when the cold mountain air leaked through the vent, he leaned over and gently pulled her cream-colored cashmere shawl tighter around her shoulders.

I watched the yellow reflectors of the Shadowmere border markers flash by in the dark.

With each mile, I took inventory.

The morning wolfsbane tonic down the sink.

The dying ward-herbs on the windowsills.

The master pantry rotations no one else knew how to manage.

The healer's dried winter reserves that only I harvested from the high cliffs.

The rogue border patrol schedules that I quietly corrected every Tuesday midnight.

Five pillars. Five invisible threads that kept his life seamless and safe.

I counted them down one by one, the way a prisoner counts the locks on the exit doors.

***

Quinton Ruiz’s compound was a sprawling, half-gutted concrete warehouse deep in the neutral pines. It smelled of stale beer, wet rust, and the rank, pungent musk of unmated rogues.

As we stepped out into the gravel yard, three of Quinton’s lieutenants moved forward. They were massive, scarred men with cold, yellowed eyes. Their gazes swept over Marcellus’s polished leather jacket, flicked past Jolene, and locked instantly on me. They scented the air. Unmarked. Wolfless. Unprotected.

Quinton met us at the double iron doors. He was a broad, jagged man with a silver hoop in his ear and the arrogant posture of someone who bowed to no Alpha.

"Marcellus," Quinton said, smiling with too many teeth. "Brought a peace offering?"

His gaze dragged slowly down my bruised throat, lingering on the dried blood on my collar. A slow, greasy smirk touched his mouth.

"She's a pack member," Marcellus replied curtly, brushing past him with Jolene tucked securely under his arm.

Not his mate. Not his Luna. Just a nameless, disposable body.

Near a rusted steel barrel, three rogue fighters watched the exchange. When Marcellus spoke those four words, they glanced at one another, their lips pulling back from sharp, gray teeth.

***

The main hall was deafening. Bass rattled the concrete floor, mixed with the roar of drunken brawls and clinking liquor bottles.

Within twenty minutes, Jolene turned to me with a delicate, helpless frown.

"Penelope, darling," she said over the music, pointing toward a dark corridor near the back. "Marcellus’s throat is dry, and the main bar is so vulgar. Quinton said there’s a cooler of bottled spring water down that hall. Go fetch one."

Marcellus was deep in conversation with a rogue arms dealer. He didn't even turn his head.

I turned and walked down the narrow, dimly lit hallway. The pounding music faded behind me, swallowed by damp, peeling drywall. At the end of the hall, there was no cooler. Only a heavy iron door with a deadbolt.

Behind me, rubber soles scuffed against the concrete.

I spun around just as a heavy metal latch slammed into place with a sharp, final *click*.

The three rogues from the yard were standing in the narrow space, blocking the only way out. The largest one took a slow, heavy step toward me, his shoulders rolling under a grimy leather vest.

"Alpha threw away some pretty trash tonight," he rasped, his eyes flashing yellow in the dim bulb light.

My wounds throbbed, my breath catching in my bruised ribs. I backed up until the cold iron door pressed hard against my shoulder blades. I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I lifted my chin and stared directly into his filthy face.

He grinned, lifted a heavy, calloused hand, and his black claws slid out, reaching straight for my throat.