The Cursed Alpha's Substitute Bride

He found me in the library.

Of course he did. The library was the one place in Ironveil I had claimed as mine by default.

The servants didn't clean it until afternoon, Reva preferred the upper sitting rooms, and Kael was always elsewhere doing whatever Betas did when they weren't appearing silently in dark corridors.

Dorian Vex walked in at mid-morning with that silver-haired ease and a book already in his hand. Performance - I noted, because he hadn't been here long enough to know where anything was, which meant he'd grabbed whatever was closest to the door.

He sat across from me at the reading table without asking. I kept reading.

"You're calmer than I expected," he said.

"I'm reading," I replied.

He smiled. Up close he was handsome in the way that things designed to catch you were handsome - compelling and slightly too perfect.

"Sera Ashveil," he said. "Second daughter. No recorded gifts. No ranked position. Sent in place of her elder sister." He tilted his head. "Nothing in that history explains what you are to the curse."

I turned a page. "Alpha Zoran is a generous man," Vex said. "He takes care of the people under his protection. Lirien - the previous candidate is comfortable. Safe. Studied, yes, but comfortable."

"Studied," I repeated.

"He's trying to understand the curse," Vex said. "Break it, perhaps. Free Caius from it."

"By collecting the people connected to it." I said. "Like objects."

Vex smiled again. This smile was different - acknowledging, almost respectful.

"You're not what they sent us," he said.

"No," I said. "I'm not. And I'm not going to Greyveil. Tell Zoran the substitute bride sends her regards and her decline."

Vex studied me for a moment with those pale grey eyes that held considerably more

intelligence than his easy manner suggested.

"He won't stop," Vex said. Quiet. Almost like a warning rather than a threat.

"Neither will I," I replied coldly.

He left the library without the book. Maybe out of anger or contempt.

I sat with the silence after he was gone and let my hands unclench from where they had been gripping my own book hard enough to leave marks in the cover.

"Steady. Stay steady." I told myself.

Caius was in the corridor outside.

I nearly walked into him - he was standing still, close to the wall, and I came through the

library door too fast and had to stop hard to avoid collision.

For one suspended second we were close enough that I could see the curse markings on his jaw pulsing with that slow living rhythm.

The burning on my neck surged.

His eyes dropped to my collar. Back up to my face.

"Vex," he said plainly. One word. A question without a question mark.

"He introduced himself," I replied. "I declined his employer's invitation. It's handled."

His expression went still.

"You don't need to handle anything," he said. Low. Something in his voice that hadn't

been there before.

"I know," I said. "I did it anyway."

He looked at me. The curse markings on his hand stilled - that brief quiet I was learning

to recognize. The eye of the storm of whatever was consuming him.

"Stay away from Vex," he shot back.

"I intend to," I said.

He nodded. Moved past me down the corridor.

I watched him go - that slow uneven walk that cost him something every time and felt the burning on my neck chase after him like a compass needle finding north.

He had been outside that door the whole time.

He had listened to me refuse Zoran's envoy.

And something about that had changed something in him.

I just didn't know what yet.