Melissa

In a matter of seconds Draven had cleared his plate. He pushed the plate forward and used the napkin to clean the sides of his mouth.

"Come with me Mel," he ordered in his deep baritone voice.

I didn't answer. Did he expect me to leave my food simply because he was done? Hell no. I kept on eating.

Draven walked farther from the table, maybe he thought I was behind, which made Briston laugh and nod his head.

It was at that moment I knew my day was going to be hell.

Draven turned back in anger, reached for my hair and held it, then drew me forward.

"Ahh ahh," I screamed.

"Didn't I say come with me? Didn't I fucking ask you to come?" he growled.

I could see the genuine concern in Briston's eyes but he didn't say a word.

Draven yanked me forward and off we went. I followed him behind and we walked into what looked like a council room.

Immediately Draven walked in, all of the council members bent their heads.

"All hail the Alpha," they all shouted in unison.

"Please sit," Draven commanded.

I walked to the chair beside my supposed mate and was just about to sit when he shouted.

"How dare you!" He growled and it was as though his wolf was going to leave his body and eat up my tiny wolf.

"How dare you sit in my council chamber?"

I got up in shock. Was I some guard? Did he expect me to stand?

I rose quickly and he gestured with his hand.

"You'll stand behind my seat, always, in every meeting. That is your position," he stated coldly.

I could see eyes glare at him in shock.

"But Alpha..." an old man tried to protest.

"Don't Alpha me, boy," Draven spoke rudely to him. "Let's begin with pack matters."

I felt more than anger boil in my chest. This man was more than the devil.

I stood behind Draven's chair and tried not to let my knees buckle under the weight of being invisible while every eye in the room tracked my presence. Beta Luther stood at the front with maps and reports spread across the table, and the council members sat in their high-backed chairs waiting for the meeting to begin.

"The rogue attacks have increased by thirty percent," Luther announced as he pointed to marks on the map. "They are testing our defenses."

"Then we eliminate the weakness," Draven replied without emotion. "Double the patrols and execute any rogue caught within five miles of our border."

The council members nodded in agreement and I felt my stomach turn at how casually they discussed killing wolves. I shifted my weight slightly to ease the ache in my lower back, and immediately a guard stepped forward and placed his hand on my shoulder. It wasn't a grip but it was a warning that I understood perfectly.

A younger council member glanced at me and cleared his throat.

"Alpha Draven, may I ask Melissa about her perspective on the alliance with her former pack?"

The room went silent and I felt Draven's body tense in the chair.

"You may ask the Luna," Draven corrected him coldly. "She is not Melissa to you or anyone else in this room."

"My apologies Alpha," the man stammered. "May I ask the Luna?"

"The Luna has nothing to say," Draven answered for me. "She belongs to Dark Moon Valley now and her past is irrelevant."

I stood there and swallowed the humiliation while my hands trembled at my sides. He had erased me completely and turned me into nothing more than a title that he controlled, but inside I was cataloging this moment along with all the others and storing it in the part of my mind that was building a map of how to destroy him.

The meeting dragged on for another hour and by the time it ended my legs were numb. The council members filed out while bowing to Draven and barely glancing at me, and when the last one left Draven stood and took my wrist in his hand.

"Come," he ordered as he pulled me toward the entrance hall.

I followed him without resistance and we walked through corridors lined with guards who bowed as we passed. When we reached the entrance hall I saw a group of visiting pack leaders waiting with their entourages, and Draven stopped in the center of the room and turned me by my shoulder to face them.

"This is Luna Melissa of Dark Moon Valley," Draven announced as he lifted my chin with one finger. "My mate and the mother of my future heir."

The visitors stared at me with expressions that ranged from curiosity to pity. I kept my hands still at my sides and my eyes level while I performed composure, but underneath the mask I was studying every face and listening to every name that was spoken.

Alpha Vincent from the eastern territories. Alpha Kael from the mountain pack. I filed each one away and noted the flickers of doubt I saw in their eyes when they looked at Draven.

"She is very young," Alpha Vincent observed carefully.

"She is exactly what I need," Draven replied with finality.

I stood there and let them examine me while my wolf Mia growled with rage in the back of my mind. Information was the only thing in this fortress that truly belonged to me.

Mellisa

I spent an hour constructing the request in my head before dinner. I kept my voice low and my eyes down as I framed what I was thinking as modestly as I could.

I had already begun learning that the angle of approach mattered to him. The exhaustion from standing behind his chair all day had settled into my bones and the thought of food made my stomach turn, but I knew better than to skip dinner without permission.

"Alpha Draven," I began quietly as I looked down at my untouched plate. "May I be excused to rest? I'm not feeling well."

Draven put his glass on the table and the room went quiet in that specific way it always did when he shifted from eating to paying attention. I felt the change in the air before I saw him stand and my heart began to pound in my chest.

He came around the table and grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled until my face was pointed at the ceiling and my neck was stretched so tight I thought it might snap.

"Not feeling well?" he repeated in a voice that was low enough that only I could hear. "You think you can dictate when you eat and when you sleep in my castle?"

"I'm sorry," I whispered as tears pooled in the corners of my eyes from the pain. "I didn't mean..."

"You didn't mean what?" he hissed as he pulled harder. "You didn't mean to disrespect me at my own table?"

"Father, you've been pulling her hair since morning," Briston interrupted as he set his fork down with a deliberate clink. "Give the girl a break."

The room froze and I felt Draven's grip tighten even more before he released me with a forward push that sent me crashing into the table edge. The impact knocked the wind out of my lungs and I grabbed the table to keep from falling to the floor.

Draven turned to face his son with a rage that seemed to fill the entire room and his eyes began to glow with the gold of his wolf.

"What did you just say to me?" Draven demanded as he took a step toward Briston.

"I said give her a break," Briston repeated as he stood up and met his father's eyes without flinching. "She's exhausted and you've been treating her like a dog all day."

Draven moved faster than I could track and backhanded Briston across the face with enough force to send him stumbling backward into his chair. The sound of the impact echoed through the dining room and I gasped and covered my mouth with my hand.

"You dare defend her?" Draven shouted as he grabbed Briston by the collar and lifted him slightly off the ground. "You dare question how I treat my property in my own home?"

"She's not property," Briston shot back as blood began to trickle from the corner of his mouth. "She's a person."

Draven threw him back into the chair and the wood cracked under the impact. He stood there breathing heavily while his fists clenched and unclenched at his sides and I could see his wolf fighting to break free.

"Get out of my sight before I do something I regret," Draven growled.

Briston stood up slowly and wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand before he looked at me with something that might have been pity. He walked out of the dining room without another word and slammed the door behind him.

Draven turned back to me and I flinched and took a step backward.

"Sit down and finish your meal," he ordered as he pointed to my chair. "You will eat every single bite on that plate and you will thank me for feeding you when you're done."

I sat down with trembling hands and picked up my fork while my stomach churned with nausea. I forced myself to take a bite of the cold food and swallowed even though it felt like glass going down my throat.

Draven sat back down and resumed eating as if nothing had happened while I choked down my dinner one painful bite at a time. When I finally finished he stood up and dropped his napkin on the table.

"Guard," he called out.

A man appeared in the doorway immediately.

"Take her to her room and lock the door," Draven commanded. "She needs rest."

The guard nodded and gestured for me to follow him. I walked through the corridors in silence while my body ached and my mind raced with everything that had just happened. When we reached my room the guard opened the door and waited for me to enter before he closed it behind me and I heard the lock engage from outside.

I stood in the middle of the room and breathed. I was not going to cry. I noted what had failed in my approach and I revised it and I filed the revision away for next time and I went to bed knowing that tomorrow would bring new horrors.

Mellisa

I woke up to the sharp ache of swollen feet and a body that felt like it had been trampled by an entire pack. I tried to sit up but the pain shot through my legs and forced me back down onto the mattress with a gasp. I lay there for a moment and stared at the ceiling while I tried to gather enough strength to move.

The sound of voices outside my door pulled my attention away from the pain.

"The Alpha is gone now, we should rest," one guard said loudly.

"It's your turn to watch the Luna's door," another voice argued back.

"No, it's yours. I did it yesterday."

"You're lying. I was here yesterday."

I listened to them bicker back and forth like children and realized that this might be my only chance to do something for myself. I needed to know about the curse. What curse did Draven have and how was it going to affect me? The thought had been eating at me since Briston mentioned it the first night, and I couldn't just sit here and wait for answers that would never come.

I forced myself to sit up despite the pain and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My feet touched the cold floor and I winced as I stood up slowly and walked to the door. I pressed my ear against the wood and heard them still arguing about whose shift it was.

I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

The arguing stopped immediately and I heard fumbling on the other side before one of them opened it. He looked at me with surprise and then glanced back at his companion who was still scowling.

"Where are you going?" he asked halfheartedly.

"I need some air," I lied as I stepped past him into the hallway.

"Wait, you can't just..." the other guard started to protest.

"It's your job to stop her, not mine," the first guard cut him off.

"No, it's yours."

They went back to arguing and I walked away from them without looking back. I followed the hallway past the dining room and the council chamber and kept going until I found a corridor I had never been down before. At the end of it was a set of large wooden doors that looked old and forgotten.

I pushed them open and stepped into a library that was massive and dusty and completely empty. Rows of shelves stretched from floor to ceiling and the smell of old paper and leather filled the air. I walked between the shelves and ran my fingers along the spines of books while I searched for anything that might tell me about curses or Alpha bloodlines or Dark Moon Valley's history.

I pulled a thick leather-bound book from the shelf without reading the title and opened it to the first page. My wolf Mia growled slowly in the back of my mind and the sound was so low and unsettling that I froze.

What is it? I asked her silently.

Danger, she whispered back.

I placed the book on the nearest table and stared at it for a moment before I heard footsteps echoing through the library. I panicked and ducked behind the shelves and pressed my back against the wood while my heart pounded in my chest.

Briston walked into the library and passed me without stopping. I held my breath and watched him move toward the far end of the library. He stopped in front of a shelf and pulled out a book as if he had been looking for it specifically, and then he turned his head slightly and looked directly at where I was hiding.

Our eyes met and I felt my face burn with shame. He knew I was there. He had known the entire time.

He didn't say anything. He just turned away and walked to the desk in the center of the room and sat down with his back to me. He opened his book and began to read.

I stood there frozen for a long moment and debated whether I should run or stay, but something in the way he had looked at me told me that he wasn't going to report this to his father. I stepped out from behind the shelf and picked up the book I had placed on the table. I sat down on the floor with my back against the shelves because there was something about sitting on the floor that felt like a choice I was making for myself rather than a position assigned to me.

The book turned out to be a werewolf council legal text about ancient bloodline curses and pack law. I opened it and began to read while Briston sat at the desk and we did not speak for the rest of the hour.

The sound of running footsteps broke the silence and a guard burst through the library doors looking flustered and out of breath.

"Luna Melissa," he panted as he looked at me with wide eyes. "You can't just leave your room without permission."

Briston turned his head slightly without looking away from his book.

"Log library access on the household schedule going forward," he said in a tone that left no room for argument.

The guard hesitated and looked between us with confusion written all over his face.

Briston turned his head fully this time and met the guard's eyes with a stare that could have frozen water.

The guard pulled out a small notebook and wrote it down quickly before nodding and backing out of the room.

I kept reading and did not acknowledge any of it, but I felt something shift in the room that I could not name yet.