The Alpha Who Knelt Too Late

"Shameless liar," Silas Thorne spat. "You know the price for deceiving me."

He ordered me to be hung by silver chains in the center of their territory for three days and three nights.

Every day, I begged the messenger to take one more message.

Not a single one was answered.

On the morning of the fourth day, as the first rays of sunlight touched my face, he gave the order. My head was severed from my body with a silver blade.

They placed it in an exquisite silver box and gave it to the messenger.

"Deliver this to Alpha Lachlan personally. Tell him we've disposed of the liar who tried to deceive us."

My body was thrown into the barren borderlands.

My family's old steward, who had been searching for me relentlessly, finally found my headless corpse there and brought me back to the Sinclair manor.

After Lachlan deleted my ninety-ninth distress message, no more came.

The Full Moon Celebration was approaching. Every year, I would make him a gift with my own hands.

This year, his gift for me was ready.

Mine would never be delivered.

He grew restless.

He believed I had shoved Cora onto a silver-laced dagger—all for a moonstone necklace meant exclusively for a mate. In a fit of rage, he had sent me back to my family's territory.

He felt no guilt. In fact, he even considered himself merciful for sending his most elite guards to escort me home.

Now his subordinates were saying it was Cora who had dismissed that guard in his name.

He must have been thinking: Ridiculous. Cora might be bold, trading on my favor, but she's gentle by nature. She'd never do something like that.

In his eyes, I was petty and jealous. The kind of woman who would fake ninety-nine messages just to get his attention.

Lachlan threw the gift he had prepared for me onto the table, his face dark. "Rhiannon, Rhiannon… when will you ever grow up?"

My soul hovered above him. My body was long gone, but the pain remained.

Cora resented me. She loved to take what was mine. Lachlan would only say she was young—that I should indulge her.

So I did.

Time and time again.

I never thought she would reach for the sigil meant for his mate.

I refused her, and she snatched the moonstone necklace—then threw herself onto the silver dagger.