The Alpha King's Heart novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: I Hope You Get a Mate

Macy goes back to work on a flayed back, snaps at the gate guard, and calls her old friend Selma a wolf-lover until Selma wishes her a mate; at home her mother goes white at the crest and a notice announces the Alpha King's Reading at dawn.

I woke up face down on the nurse's table with a neck so stiff I could not turn it.

Gray light was coming through the window.

My back felt like it was still being whipped.

Emmett was asleep in a chair by the door with his boots on the rungs and his mouth open.

The nurse put a cup of water in my hand.

I drank all of it.

"Where's the coat?" I asked.

"Folded on the shelf. You're not wearing it out of here."

"Who brought it?"

She looked at the window instead of me.

"Nobody did. Two men carried you in, and one of them left it. The tall one in black paid for the whole bottle of painkiller and was gone before I turned around."

"Paid with what?" I said. "Humans can't have money."

"Real cash, folded flat," she said. "More than I've held in five years."

I sat up slowly and swore at the pain.

Then I remembered I had a shift.

"Absolutely not," the nurse said.

"If I'm late again they dock Mom's ration card."

She wrapped my ribs in a thick bandage and buttoned me into my gray uniform herself, because I could not lift my arms.

Emmett woke up and said, "Don't you dare," and then walked me to the cannery anyway.

He talked the whole way about the one-eyed cat that lived on the loading dock, to keep me from thinking about my back.

It almost worked.

At the human gate a wolf in a black vest was checking names off a tablet.

He did not look up.

"Name."

"Macy Davenport."

His head came up then, and he grinned.

"The flogged one," he said. "Look at that, still walking."

He grabbed my arm and drove the needle in.

The wolfsbane serum burned all the way to my shoulder.

They do it every morning, in case one of us is hiding a poison.

"You're late," he said.

"I was bleeding," I said.

I should have kept my mouth shut.

His smile went away.

"One more smart answer and I'll walk you over to the gym yard myself. The wolf cubs need a bag to hit."

Emmett's hand closed on my good elbow.

"Sorry, sir," Emmett said. "She's been awake a day and a half. She doesn't know what she's saying."

"Then teach her," the wolf said, and waved us through.

On the other side of the gate, the sidewalk split in two.

The left side was for the mated humans.

They don't wear gray.

They wear nice things, bright things, and they walk into the same cannery by the front door.

Each of them has a wolf's bite mark healed into the side of the neck, and that mark is all the pass they need.

Selma Lund came down that left path in a green silk blouse.

I had known her since kindergarten.

She used to sleep over at my house every Friday and steal the good pillow.

Four months ago a wolf from Strake's pack had stopped her in the hall of the old school, spoken a single word to her, and by Sunday there was a mark on her neck.

Now she lifted her chin when she saw me, and her eyes went to the blood coming through my shirt.

"Macy," she said quietly. "I heard. I'm so sorry."

"Don't talk to me."

"I wanted to come to the square. They wouldn't let any of us."

"You eat at their table," I said. "You can't get in to watch a flogging?"

Her face went red.

"Macy, please."

"A wolf can't mark a human without a yes," I said, loud enough for the whole line to hear. "It kills them. Everybody knows it. So you said yes. You sold us for a silk shirt."

"That's not how it was."

"Wolf-lover."

The word cracked across the yard.

A few of the mated humans looked away.

One of the girls behind her was crying.

Selma did not wipe her eyes.

She stepped closer, close enough that I smelled the soap she used to borrow from my mother.

"I hope you get a mate," she said, very softly.

"I'd rather be dead."

"I hope you do," she said. "Then you'll learn what it is to be chosen by something you can't say no to."

She walked into the cannery with her back straight.

My own back burned, and for the first time it was not only from the whip.

I worked the line until the bell.

The cans came by and I stacked them, and every time I raised my arms the bandage tore away from a fresh cut.

Emmett stood at the end of the belt and slid water bottles to me when no one was looking.

When I got home at dusk, Toby threw himself at my legs.

He looked at my face and cried, and then he made me promise that I would never ever be hit again.

I promised.

It was the first lie I told that week.

Mom was standing in the hall under Dad's framed blasting license, with my gray work coat over her arm.

She had found the Alpha King's coat in my bag.

It hung from her other hand, with the silver crest turned up.

She did not say a word.

Her whole face went white, and her hand holding the collar started to shake.

"Burn it," she said at last.

"Mom, it's only a coat."

"Burn it tonight. Don't ask me why."

I took it from her.

I did not burn it.

I hid it under my mattress and told myself it was evidence.

I was lying again.

At the door, someone knocked three times.

When I opened it, a wolf warrior stood on the porch with a hammer and a sheet of paper.

He nailed the paper to our doorframe, right beside the mailbox, and walked on to the next house.

I read it by the porch light.

BY ORDER OF THE ALPHA KING: THE READING IS HELD AT DAWN IN THE TOWN SQUARE. EVERY HUMAN OF AGE WILL ATTEND.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend