Forced To Bear The Alpha's Son novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Intruder
Sorrel is run down on the Alpha's land and wakes chained in his dungeon, where Matvei threatens to kill her unless she bears him a son; she bargains and signs the oath.
The first shot split the bark beside my ear, and I ran harder.
It was my ninth day on the road since I had climbed out of the breeding house's laundry window.
My feet were bare and bleeding.
My knee had been open since I fell on the second day.
Behind me men shouted, "Intruder!" and "Stop, human!"
Under the shouting came the thud of paws, a lot of them.
Another shot went wide, and another.
None of them hit me.
I put it down to the dark and the trees and did not stop to wonder.
I had crossed the border on purpose.
The Madam's map in our library had ended three miles back.
Across the blank space she had written in her own hand: Wolf country. Do not cross.
The Alpha who ruled it was the only man on earth I wanted to find.
I had seen him once, at eighteen, from behind a pillar in the front hall of the breeding house.
That night my sister Delphine whispered in my ear that he was gentle, and that he had given her his word.
Then she died, and he never came.
A black wolf broke through the trees on my left, bigger than a horse, with green eyes that caught the moonlight.
I looked back at it, and that was my mistake.
My foot found a root and I went down hard on my open knee.
My chin hit the dirt.
I rolled onto my back, and the wolf stood over me with the moon behind its head.
Its teeth were bared and I could smell its breath.
Delphine, I thought. I'm sorry.
Then everything went dark.
*
I woke on a stone floor with a chain on my wrist.
The cell was damp and cold.
A bar ran from the ceiling to the floor, and the only window was too small for my hand.
Someone had wrapped my knee in clean linen while I was out.
A folded blanket and a jug of water sat on the floor, a step beyond where my chain ended.
I was still pulling at the iron when a man said, "Good. You're awake."
He stood at the edge of the torchlight, so tall that he stooped under the lintel.
His hair was black, his skin was tan, and a scar cut through his left eyebrow.
His eyes were pale mint green, and I knew them at once.
"You're human," Matvei Dragunov said.
"And you're the Alpha," I said. "Now we've both said the obvious."
He crossed the cell in two steps.
His hand closed around my throat and he lifted me until my toes scraped the floor.
My chain rang against the stone.
He pushed me flat to the wall, and I clawed at his wrist and got nothing.
"Which House?" he said.
"House Lark," I choked. "Eastern border."
He let go.
I dropped to my knees and dragged in air.
"You crossed my land," he said. "You know what that costs."
"Death."
His eyes went to my shoulder, where the dress had torn.
The little B burned into my skin when I was a year old showed there for anyone to read.
I tried to cover it, but he caught my hand and held it away.
His thumb passed over the scar once.
"A breeder," he said. "Whose?"
"Nobody's."
It was the worst lie I had ever told, and he let it stand.
"I have an offer," he said. "Refuse it, and I break your neck here."
I believed him, because the whole continent knew he never went back on his word.
"Bear me a son," he said. "When he is born, you walk out of Greywater free."
I looked at the man my sister had loved.
He did not know me.
He had seen a red-haired girl behind a pillar for the length of a breath, and nothing in his face said he remembered.
Good, I thought. Then he can't see what I came for.
"Fine," I said. "I have terms."
One of his eyebrows went up.
"A witness swears the oath," I said. "Nothing happens in your bed unless I walk to it. And you tell me what became of my sister."
"Your sister."
"Delphine Ashgrove. She died at House Lark eight years ago. I'm Sorrel."
He did not ask who Delphine was.
He did not ask how she died.
"Agreed," he said.
I took it for a man who didn't care enough to ask.
He called for his Beta, and Anselm Garrow came down the stairs with a bowl of water he had held up to the window to catch the moon.
Matvei cut my palm and his own with one claw.
We pressed the cuts together over the water.
Anselm read the oath in a flat voice.
The Alpha would be given a son, and the mother would stay in his house until the child was born.
"At the first snow after the birth," he read, "she leaves Greywater free. The child stays with the Alpha's line."
My hand went cold in Matvei's grip.
He felt it, and he did not let go.
I signed. I said the words.
I had come to make him answer for my sister, and he had just given me a key to his house.
I would use it.
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