~ ROSELLE ~
Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire.
The word tears through my throat so violently, as the fire won’t stop and keeps expanding from the lantern. I had expected it to be like the usual ti, just the way it always caught when I lit it every night before Father would pull onto his lap and tell stories until my eyes grew heavy with sleep.
Instead, this ti, it’s expanding through the curtains, climbing the walls, and I’m standing in the middle of Father’s study watching it happen, and my legs won’t move and my voice is...
Dad.
I’m screaming. I can hear myself screaming, my voice as loud as a quake, bouncing off walls that are already beginning to blacken at the edges. I reach for him — he’s at his desk, slumped forward, and when he lifts his head, his eyes are wrong, bloodshot as though he is ill.
"Dad. Dad. DAD."
I keep screaming his na. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely see them through the smoke and the heat and the way my vision keeps blurring at the edges because I’m crying, I’m crying and screaming and reaching and he’s right there.
He’s right there and he won’t move and he won’t...
The door suddenly bursts open behind . Beta Noah, Warren’s father, his face masked with panic, grabs tightly.
"No!"
I fight him, kicking and thrashing. My arms stretch forward, reaching for Father, who is finally moving now, finally, finally pushing himself up from the desk, trying to stand, trying to get to the door, his legs barely holding him.
"Dad... DAD..."
Noah drags backward through the doorway and the heat follows us out. My fingers grasp at empty burning air.
Father’s eyes find mine for a second across the smoke and the flas. His bloodshot eyes lock onto my face and sothing moves through them, and suddenly the explosion swallows everything.
The force of it throws us backward, Noah’s grip the only thing keeping upright, and the sound of it is enormous and total, and then there is nothing.
"No!!!!" My voice screams his na into a silence that gives nothing back.
’I didn’t an to. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what the fire would do. I just lit the lantern. I always lit the lantern. That’s all I did. That’s all I did. I didn’t an...’
Noah’s hand cos to my shoulder, and when I look up at him, tear-blinded, smoke-choked, six years old and completely destroyed, he looks down at with those sober looks that tell I’m finally an orphan.
No. I shake my head. I refuse to believe that he’s dead. I refuse... no, he’s not. No, this isn’t happening. He’s going to tell my bedti story again. It’s just one of those fictional stories he tells , and I wish for a good ending instead of a sad one. No!!
My voice breaks on his na one final ti.
"Dad—"
My eyes fly open, and Ronan’s face is the first thing I see. My chest is heaving, my hands are clenched around the blanket, and the room is dark and completely without fire, and I’m here, I’m here, I’m...
It’s a dream, it’s my usual dream. I sign before I’m even fully conscious.
’I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
It’s instinct. It’s my survival mode. I’m trying to prevent the slashes of the whip that would accompany the fact that I was being woken up. And the fact that I’m a murderer and I had killed my parent. Mom died at birth after giving birth to , and Dad, I killed him. I can barely rember so other things, but the dream has lived with , has fed on , haunting as a daily reminder with Warren’s constant reminders.
When I’m fully back to reality, when it finally dawns on that he has no problem with dreaming, then it suddenly hits that I might have scread loud enough to bring his attention.
Is he going to send back? I know he’s been nice... which is actually suspicious because all I can think right now is that he’s not to be trusted either. As much as he’s been nice and all... all his brides end up dead, which ans there’s sothing.
Or maybe I’m overthinking, and since I’m not new to this, I’m just...
He had stood up for when Warren was hitting . He called his best pack doctor to attend to . I’ve been given food. His hospital room has been more than warm.
There’s enough reason to trust him.
After urging to sleep, with him promising to watch over , I can only think... has he always been this nice? Or is this all a fake cover? What did he want from ? Why is he being so overly nice to ? Why did he even agree for a mute like to be his bride?
Several questions keep filling my head as I finally drift off to sleep.
I wake up to the strange sensation of soone watching . My eyes prop open and right in my room is soone who is not Ronan.
A girl.
Black hair whipping down her side, she’s seated right on the chair Ronan was sitting on last night. My eyes take in the full bright morning. I blink my blurry eyes. Once. Twice.
She’s still sitting there, her eyes narrowing on mine, legs crossed, her hands folded against her chest.
"Hey, there," she greets, all teeth, flipping her hair to her side.
I wave, forcing a smile as I sit up, pushing the blanket away, wondering who she is. If there’s any female I was expecting, it should be Celeste or one of the nurses. But she isn’t. She’s not a face I recognize.
"You must be Ronan’s new bride-to-be, I see." She’s walking to the bed now.
I nod once, even though the position scares to the bone.
"I’m Mara, Alpha Ronan’s closest mistress," she boasts of her title, and I know I’m already eting another Nova.
"But oh well, I like you. You look so innocent, fragile, and..." She squats close to , grabbing my chin like she’ll do to a child, and pokes at my head. "Mute? Dumb." she cackles, leaning back. Her spine straightens.
"You must be brave, because I don’t know why you think you’re different. You’re his seventh bride, seventh fucking bride, and you know where the rest are? They’re six feet under, which ans you’re likely going to be there in a few. Let’s say most of his brides were very strong. We’ve gotten hybrids, vampires, Alpha bloodlines, Beta bloodlines, the strongest, and even humans, but they’re all dead and barely survived a year. And the rumors say you’re wolfless, which ans you’ll barely survive a week."
Fear seeps through . Her words ring through like a death bell, cold shivers racing down my spine as I freeze, processing every single syllable she just handed like a gift wrapped in poison.
You’ll barely survive a week. Would I die? Would I?
The question sits in my chest and just stays there. The truth is I’ve been asking myself the sa thing since the mont Warren signed that contract. Since the mont I heard the na Alpha of Death.
"I’m going to offer you a solution, which is to leave this pack and run, or else stay and die and be buried anyway. Either way, I’ll still have Ronan for myself."
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