The Alpha King's Final Bride

The pungent stench of medicine and rotting wood immediately greeted Aria the moment she stepped inside her hovel. On a thin, worn-out mattress, her mother lay pale. Her breathing was shallow, interrupted by the bloody coughs that grew more frequent by the day.

"Aria..." her mother’s voice was barely a whisper in the wind. "You don't have to... work this late, my child."

Aria forced a smile, squeezing her mother’s ice-cold hand. "I’m fine, Mother. Rest now. I just got paid from the market."

Aria was lying. Her wages from washing clothes and hauling wheat all day weren't even enough to buy a single painkiller. The town physician had made it clear yesterday: "Your mother has contracted a mysterious black lung disease. The remedy is only available in the upper district, and it costs a hundred gold coins. If you don't bring it within three days, prepare to dig her grave."

A hundred gold coins. To a lower-class human like Aria, living on the fringes of the Bloodmoon werewolf pack territory, that amount was as impossible as reaching for the moon.

Suddenly, the blare of a bronze horn echoing from the city center shattered the silence of the night. Aria jolted. It was the announcement horn from the Alpha's Palace.

Driven by curiosity and sheer desperation, Aria stepped out of her hovel. In the torchlit town square, hundreds of residents—both humans and low-ranking werewolves—had already gathered around a massive bulletin board. A burly palace guard shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Hear ye, citizens of Bloodmoon! His Majesty, Lord Alpha Xavier, is once again opening the registry for a new bride! Whichever maiden is chosen and steps forward, her family will instantly receive an initial allowance of five hundred gold coins!"

A horrified murmur instantly rippled through the crowd. Five hundred gold coins was immense wealth, but the price to pay was far too terrifying.

"Another new bride? This is the sixth time this year!" whispered a woman next to Aria, her face deathly pale.

"Don't anyone dare volunteer! You all know what happened to the previous five brides, right? Every single one of them died horribly in the bridal chamber on their very first night! Their bodies were torn to shreds!" another chimed in with a shudder.

"Alpha Xavier’s curse is real. He is a cold-blooded monster who devours his own mates!"

Aria froze in her tracks. Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs. Five hundred gold coins. That money would not only cure her mother but also guarantee a comfortable life forever. However, the price was her own life. Even most noble werewolf maidens refused and hid their daughters out of sheer terror.

‘But Mother will die in two days if I do nothing,’ Aria thought. Her hands clenched into tight fists, her knuckles turning white. Terror choked her throat, but the vision of her dying mother's face eclipsed everything else.

The next morning, the palace courtyard—grand yet suffocating with an eerie, magical aura—was packed with dozens of maidens who were either forced or driven by circumstance to register. Most were weeping, their bodies trembling violently inside their finest gowns. Aria stood at the very back of the line, wearing a clean but frayed dress, trying to hide the trembling in her knees.

Suddenly, the entire courtyard fell dead silent. The air pressure around them abruptly grew so heavy that several human girls dropped to their knees, unable to withstand the stifling, oppressive energy.

The grand doors opened. Lord Alpha Xavier stepped out.

Aria caught her breath. The man—no, the monster—was breathtakingly handsome yet exuded a suffocating aura of death. He was tall and built, his hair as black as the midnight sky, and his jawline sharp and expressionless. But the most terrifying part was his eyes. They weren't brown or black, but a glowing, fiery red, radiating the aura of an apex predator ready to tear its prey apart at any moment.

Xavier walked slowly, passing the lines of noble maidens who bowed their heads low. He didn't even deign to glance at them. To him, they were nothing more than the next casualties destined to die by his curse.

Until the steady click of his black leather boots slowed down, then stopped right in front of Aria.

Aria felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. A masculine scent mixed with tobacco and rain-drenched forest washed over her from the Alpha. Aria forced herself not to look down. She stared directly into those lethal, crimson eyes, laying bare all her terror, yet anchoring it with unyielding resolve.

Xavier looked down at the human girl in the worn-out dress. The corner of his lips tugged upward into a cold, cruel smirk. Reaching out with a rough, calloused hand, he gripped Aria’s chin with a force that made her wince, forcing her face higher.

Xavier leaned in close, whispering in a deep, gravelly voice that vibrated right through Aria’s chest.

"You dare look into my eyes, little human? You do know you will die a gruesome death in my hands tomorrow night, don't you?"