Bound to the Pack- Breeder for the Triplets Alpha's

Sarah dressed me for dinner as though she were preparing a sacrifice. The gown she chose was emerald silk, cut low at the shoulders and tight through the ribs, and it made my skin look like candle wax against the dark green. She pinned my hair into a heavy knot at the back of my head, carefully exposing the faded bruise at my throat, then stepped back and studied her work with an expression I could not read.

"Eat only what the footmen carry to both plates," she murmured while she fastened a thin silver bracelet around my wrist. "Drink only what you have seen poured with your own eyes, and do not argue with him tonight, no matter what he says."

"Which one of them will be at the table?" I asked.

Her fingers froze on the clasp. "I am sure I do not understand the question, Luna." She left the room faster than I had ever seen her move.

The great hall turned out to be an enormous chamber with a vaulted ceiling and a table long enough to seat fifty people, though only one end had been laid. Candles burned in silver candelabras, a fire roared in a hearth tall enough to stand in, and the rest of the room dissolved into shadow beyond their reach. At the head of the table, in a high-backed chair carved with wolves, sat a man in a black shirt with the collar open at his throat.

He rose the moment I entered. Then he smiled.

It was a warm, easy, devastating smile, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes and softened every hard line in his face, and it transformed my husband into a stranger. My stomach dropped as the first note flashed across my mind in blocky capitals.

"There she is," he said, pulling out the chair beside him with a flourish. "I was beginning to worry that you had climbed out of a window."

"I was told that attendance was not optional," I answered stiffly.

"Everything is optional when you ask nicely." He winked at me, and I sat down because my knees refused to hold me any longer.

Footmen hurried in with platters of roast duck, glazed carrots, and bread still steaming from the oven. The man beside me reached for a decanter of dark red wine, and my entire body went rigid as he filled both glasses with his left hand. Only that morning, the husband in the study had signed documents with his right. I remembered how rigidly he had held his left fist against the blotter, and a cold finger traced down my spine.

"You look pale," he said, sliding my glass toward me. "Is the wine not to your liking?"

"I prefer not to drink tonight."

"Of course you do." He laughed softly, picked up my glass, and drank from it himself before setting it back down. "There, now you have proof that I have not poisoned it. I am far more creative than that, I promise."

I should have stayed silent. Instead the hunger and the exhaustion and the loneliness of two endless days made me reckless, and I let a small, helpless laugh escape before I could swallow it. His eyes brightened with such pleasure that I felt ashamed of myself.

For nearly an hour, he was the most charming man I had ever met. He asked about my favorite books and listened to my answers as if they were precious. He teased me about my habit of straightening the cutlery whenever I felt nervous, a habit I had never mentioned to anyone, and he described the elders as a flock of vultures wearing expensive waistcoats until I was biting my lip to keep from smiling. When I finally relaxed enough to take a sip of water, he leaned his elbow on the table and gazed at me with open, appreciative curiosity.

"You carry six plates along your forearm without spilling a drop," he said, "and you can recite the seating order of every dinner you ever served in that miserable pack house. I find that remarkable."

A chill dragged through me despite the heat of the fire. I had never told anyone in the King manor what I did in my father's house. "Who told you about my work?" I asked slowly.

"I make it my business to know my property," he replied, still smiling.

The word hung between us, and the warmth in the room drained away. He sipped his wine, and when he lowered the glass, his smile had sharpened into something much colder. "You hid something yesterday, little wolf, when you believed that the cameras could not see. A square of paper, folded very small, pushed into the seam of your mattress."

My blood turned to ice. "I do not know what you mean."

"Poor Mara never could keep a secret." He cut into his duck with the knife in his left hand, as unhurried as a man discussing the weather. "She will not carry any more messages for a while. I only wanted you to understand how quickly kindness gets punished in this house."

"You dragged an innocent woman into the rain," I whispered, "just to prove a point?"

"I did it because it was educational." He chewed, swallowed, and gestured with his fork toward my untouched plate. "Eat. A starving wife is no use to anyone."

I pushed my chair back and stood up. My hands were shaking, but my voice came out steadier than I expected. "I want to read the contract that sold me to you. I have a right to know what my life is worth."

His hand shot across the table and closed around mine. The pressure began gently, almost tenderly, and then he squeezed until the bones of my fingers ground together and white sparks burst across my vision. A cry tore from my throat, and I tried to pull away, but he held me there with the patience of a man who had all night.

"Your rights," he said softly, "are whatever I decide they are, and the contract says exactly what I tell you it says." He lifted my crushed hand to his mouth and pressed a slow, mocking kiss against my knuckles. "Now sit down, finish your dinner, and thank me for being so merciful."

I sat down. I did not thank him. I ate three bites of duck that tasted like ash, and when the footmen finally cleared the plates, he dismissed me with a lazy wave of his fingers and a smile that I would see behind my eyelids for the rest of the night.

Harlan walked me back to my room without speaking, and he did not meet my eyes when he locked the door behind me. I sank onto the edge of the bed and examined my hand under the lamplight. Three fingers had already turned a deep, ugly purple, and every beat of my heart throbbed through them like a drum. I thought of the two notes folded in the mattress, and I understood with sickening clarity that both of them had been right. The man at dinner had smiled, and he had broken me. The man in the study had frowned, and he had somehow been frightened.

A knock sounded at the door.

I seized the heavy brass candlestick from the nightstand and held it like a club. The lock clicked, the door opened, and the same face I had been trying to escape all day looked in at me, with the same silver eyes and the same sharp jaw. This time, however, his expression was soft and anxious, and he carried a small tray with a teapot and two cups balanced carefully in his hands.

He smiled at me gently, and that smile was the exact one the first note had warned me about.