Sold to Three Alpha Kings (Star Island Wolf #1)

Chapter 1 - Charlize

The kitchen floor is always cold. Today it gets into my bones, settling right into the hollow where a wolf’s warmth is supposed to live.

I scrub the heavy iron pot with sand and dry heather, my knuckles split from the winter water. Scrub, rinse. Scrub, rinse, escape. That’s the rhythm I’ve built out of it, the one I run in my head so my hands keep moving even when the rest of me wants to stop.

In the dark water, my reflection swims back at me, red hair and round, pale cheeks.

I’m a twenty-four-year-old grown woman with a body the pack elders like to call wasteful.

Too much softness, they say. Too much fat.

Not one drop of the sharp wolf spirit that runs through everyone else on this island.

I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand, my heart filled with resentment for this pathetic life of mine.

“Faster, you useless thing!” Elena doesn’t even look at me when she says it. She sweeps past with her nose in the air, her gray-wolf coat tucked under a woolen shawl I paid for with last week’s floor-scrubbing wages.

I should be used to being treated like trash by now. But somehow, for some reason, it still hurts like hell.

“Bread needs to be in the oven before the sun hits the pine tops. If Ricky’s breakfast is late again, I’ll have your father thrash you.”

I’m tempted to yell at her, and in my head I’ve grabbed her neck twice already. But in reality I’m as weak as they come. I don’t have the guts to raise my voice at the woman who literally has my life in her hands. One word from her and my father would end me in a heartbeat.

Maybe that wouldn’t be such a terrible idea. I mean death beats living like this. Like a rat in my own father’s house.

“Hey, did you hear what I said?” Elena demands, her voice laced with disdain. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

I raise my head and swallow hard. “Yes, Mother.”

Her brows arch as her scowl deepens. “What did you call me?” She closes the distance between us and grabs a handful of my hair.

I wince when she pulls hard against my scalp.

“I am not your mother,” she says, holding my gaze so I’d see the hatred in her eyes. “I would never birth such a disgrace and a burden like you. Never call me that again, do you understand?”

I nod, squinting at the pain of my hair being tugged at.

“Who am I to you?”

I swallow. “You’re my stepmother.”

“Good.” She lets go of my hair and withdraws from me with a grimace on her face. “Be sure to remember that next time.”

I keep my eyes down. “Yes, Stepmother.”

My compliance is a mask; thin and wearing out, but it’s the only shield I’ve got. Beneath the submissive bend of my neck, my chest burns with a quiet, blackened rage.

My birth mother bled out bringing me into the world.

Maybe if she were still alive, my life wouldn’t be so miserable.

There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about her—that I don’t imagine what it’s like living with someone who loves and cares for me.

Sometimes, my reality makes me so sad I cry myself to sleep.

The pack healer had pitied me once, whispering that my wolf wasn’t truly dead, only dormant. According to him, its life force had run completely dry, leaving a hollow, starved husk where a fierce beast should have been.

But pity doesn’t buy bread, and it certainly doesn’t stop my family from treating me like a gloriously free slave.

My heart skips a beat when I hear heavy footsteps behind me. I don’t have to turn around to know who it is. I recognize his scent.

It’s Ricky. Elena’s son and her pride.

The arrogant nitwit is my half-brother. Golden boy, true-born Alpha, spoiled so thoroughly the rot shows in his scent now. He drops onto the bench and slams a fist on the table.

“Where’s the tea, fat fuck?”

I clench my jaw tight, bruised by his constant insults.

“Mother, tell her to move her fat legs. I’m seeing Chloe today, and I won’t go there on an empty stomach.”

Elena’s whole voice changes to pure syrup. “Of course, my darling.” She shoots her head in my direction, and her expression darkens. “Charlize, get the tea, now.”

“Yes, Stepmother,” I whisper.

“It’s high time you began to accord me some respect in this house, young lady,” Ricky says to me.

“It’s high time you stopped being such an asshole all the time,” I mumble under my breath.

“What was that?” he barks, glaring at me.

It’s obvious that neither he nor his mother had heard what I said. They would’ve pounced on me already.

I want to repeat myself more audibly this time. I want to lash out at him and finally put him in his place. But that’s not a good idea. Triggering these people isn’t in my best interest right now. It would only thwart my plan to escape from this place for good.

My throat bobbles. “I said you’re right. I should be more respectful to you. You are, of course, an Alpha.”

Pride flashes across his face, and he adjusts on the bench. The idiot is pleased by my response.

I wipe my hands on my apron and pour the pine-needle tea into his mug. His mother sits beside him, and the two start to talk about the Omega he wants to marry. Chloe.

The family is struggling to get enough money so the golden boy can settle down with the Omega of his choice. And by family, I mean me. I’m the one doing all the hard labor. I’m the one working day and night to earn some money while the others sit back and boss me around.

“You and Chloe look so good together,” Elena says to him, her lips curling into a smile. “Your father and I will stop at nothing until you marry her.”

“Then what’s taking so long?” he asks, his voice higher than hers. “Time’s running out and we still don’t have the money.” A pause. “Chloe’s father is an impatient man. He could give her out to the next Alpha with the complete money.”

Ricky is so spoiled he doesn’t even realize he’s supposed to go out there and work for his money. And they call me disgraceful. How ironic.

When I set the tea down before him, he shoves my arm—on purpose. I know it’s on purpose because he laughs when the hot liquid splashes across my wrist. I bite down on the sound that wants to come out.

“Get out of my sight, you clumsy cow.” He happily drinks what’s left of it after burning my skin.

My chest heaves quietly, and my hands tremble at my sides. Not from the pain of the hot tea, but the anger and a mix of other emotions coursing through me.

“It’s a miracle you haven’t starved us all by now,” he adds. “No wonder nobody wants you. An extra mouth, that’s all you are.”

My fingers clench into fists as I watch him laugh. His mother does the same.

“Well, if you worked half as hard as she does, we wouldn’t be staring down ruin.” My father fills the doorway, scowl already carved into his face. He looks at me the way a man looks at a bad investment.

This is the closest thing to a compliment he’s said to or about me. Even though I know he didn’t mean it as a compliment.

My father, Charles Abernathy, glares at me in a way that makes my knees buckle. He’s never liked me, never truly accepted me as his daughter. One time, he even said that I killed my mother, that I’m the reason he lost her. He still blames me for her death to this day.

“What’re you looking at?” he barks at me. “Get back to work.”

I turn away at the sound of his thunderous voice, ignoring the mother and son laughing at me.

“How are you, son?” he asks Ricky, his voice soft and gentle.

“I’m losing my mind, Father,” comes the reply.

“Is this about the Omega, Chloe?”

“Yes!” He raises his voice. “Every day that goes by and we don’t pay is a reminder that I’m slowly losing my chances of being with her.”

Hearing them talk about Chloe like she’s some piece of furniture they want to purchase makes my stomach turn. They don’t deserve her—at all.

Ricky claims he loves her and that’s why he wants to marry her. And maybe that’s true, but I still believe she deserves better.

Chloe is the only Omega left of marrying age in our small, miserable pack, and her father knows exactly what leverage that gives him. The man wants a heavy bride-price, and our family is flat out broke.

Every coin I bring in doing back-breaking chores for the villagers—washing linens, hauling wood, gutting fish until my hands stink of it for days—goes straight into my father’s palm the second I’m through the door.

It’s never enough because these people don’t know how to manage money. And when it isn’t enough, somebody’s temper finds my skin.

“Fifty more silver by the next moon. That’s what we need,” Charles mutters, pacing the narrow room. “Or Chloe’s father will hand her to the merchants instead.” He looks at Ricky. “An Alpha of your standing deserves the best Omega. We cannot let those low-born bastards have her.”

“Then she should work more! Look how big she is—she eats more than all of us combined.” Ricky jabs a finger at me without even looking up.

That’s not true. I barely even eat twice a day.

“More shifts at the tannery,” he adds. “Who cares if she drops dead—she’s shiftless. Hardly even a wolf.”

Something old and dangerous flares behind my ribs. I look at the floor instead of at him and let my hand drift, casual, to the folds of my skirt.

Stitched into a hidden pocket under the wool is the only thing in this house that actually belongs to me: a small leather pouch. Fifteen silver. Forty copper. Nothing, against what they need. Everything, against what I need.

I’ve been skimming it for months. A coin here, a coin there, from villagers who felt sorry enough to overpay me, hidden away before my father can turn my pockets out.

The plan is simple. But also a dangerous one. I’m leaving this island.

Not just leaving—going to the humans. I want a world where scent doesn’t matter, where the word shiftless has no meaning.

I know what it costs. I’ll never find love or get married.

Never have children of my own—the wolf blood in me runs deep enough that even shiftless, a child of mine could be born a wolf.

And dropping a wolf pup into a world that doesn’t know what that means would be creating an inverse of my problem.

I’m human in a wolf world. My kid would be the opposite and would still struggle to fit in. But that aside, the biggest issue would be that the wolves would hunt me down and murder me for it. This is because deserters are killed.

If I leave shiftless, they won’t be able to find me because there’s no scent to mark. I’m basically human. With a wolf child, however, I’d be easy to track. All they’d have to do is follow my kid’s wolf scent.

I made peace with that a long time ago. Better a quiet ghost in the human world than a slave in this one.

“You!” My father’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts. “Go to the market. Trade ships come into the southern docks tomorrow for the winter exports. See if the merchants need extra hands hauling crates. And don’t come back without silver.”

My heart slams once, hard, against my ribs.

The trade ships.

“Yes, Father.” I keep my voice flat. I don’t let my glimmer of hope show.

“Don’t spend a copper on yourself, you greedy pig,” Ricky calls after me as I grab my shawl and duck out the back.

The cold outside hits my face like a slap. I pull the faded red shawl over my hair against the wind and start down the steep path toward the village. Towering pines line the path, their branches sagging under their load of snow on either side of me.

This whole island is one massive star-shaped stretch of rock and forest. We live in one region—one leg of the star ruled by the leaders of the three largest Packs in the region. To everyone else, the fifteen Alpha Kings that rule the different regions are something close to gods.

To me they’re just bigger versions of my father and my brother.

The market square is loud by the time I reach it. Roasted chestnuts, wet fur, cheap ale, the whole mess of smells fighting for space in the cold air.

Merchants are still setting up stalls, getting ready for the traders. I drift through the crowd the way I always do—unnoticed.

No scent of my own, nothing that reads as beta or the pull of an Omega, so most wolves look straight through me. A ghost among beasts, more or less.

I stop at a stall of withered winter apples and pretend to inspect them, ears working harder than my eyes. I need to know which ship sails farthest from this island, which captain might take silver for silence, when the dock guards change shifts.

“Did you hear?”

A cluster of Beta girls from our pack, huddled by a ribbon stall, cheeks pink from cold and something like excitement.

“The elders put out a decree.” One of them is clutching a length of blue silk to her chest as if it might run away. “The Alpha Kings of our region are looking for a mate. A shared mate—all three of them, together. Can you imagine being claimed by three Kings at once?”

“Oh, to be an Omega,” another sighs. “King Chris never smiles, but I’d bet he’s magnificent in bed. Ruthless. Dominant.”

“You can have him. I want Wayne.” Laughter. “He’d drink you under the table and then carry you off into the woods himself. Man’s built like a tree.”

“You’re both insane,” the first one says. “Sinth’s the youngest and the only one who’s actually kind. He wouldn’t treat an Omega like meat. But still—all three? That kind of power, that kind of luxury—”

I turn away before I hear the rest.

Hot wolf kings. I nearly laugh. They talk about the three of them like something to be worshiped, and maybe on this island that’s exactly what they are.

But I know what’s underneath the worship. Cold or wild or gentle, it doesn’t matter which—they’re still Alphas. Still men who look at women, especially Omegas, and see something to claim, breed, and keep.

No different from my father sizing up a daughter as currency, or my brother treating a woman like property he hasn’t collected yet.

Being the shared mate of three men just like my brother must be hell. All those egos propped on one woman’s back.

I want no part of it.

I slip away from the girls and back into the crowd, one hand finding the hidden pouch through my skirt without me even meaning to.

Tomorrow the ships come in.

Tomorrow, while my family sits around dreaming about silver they’ll never see, I’m going to walk onto one of those ships, hand over everything I’ve saved, and disappear off this cursed island for good.

One more night. That’s all I have to survive.