Untouchable
Escaping the Mad King's bed was like trying to disarm a live bomb in the dark.
For the first time in days, Alpha Silas was in a deep, restorative sleep. His massive, heavily scarred chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm. But his iron grip around my waist hadn't loosened entirely. Even in his subconscious state, his inner wolf refused to let me go.
It took me twenty agonizing minutes of millimeter-by-millimeter movements to finally slide out from underneath his heavy, scorching arm.
The moment my bare feet hit the freezing stone floor, I didn't look back. I practically sprinted into my tiny adjoining room and locked the door.
My heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
I slept in his bed. The Supreme Alpha, the warlord who slaughtered entire packs for looking at him wrong, had held me like a lifeline.
If the Pack Council or the guards had walked in and seen a lowly servant pressed against their King, I would have been executed on the spot.
I stripped off my uniform and grabbed the harsh lye soap. I scrubbed my skin until it was bright red and burning, reapplying the blinding, chemical scent of bleach to kill any trace of my Omega pheromones. I swallowed another bitter wolfsbane pill, forcing my inner wolf back into the dark.
I threw on a fresh, coarse maid's dress and slipped out the servant's exit, hurrying down to the kitchens. I needed to blend in. I needed to disappear into the background before he woke up.
The kitchens were a chaotic blur of heat, shouting cooks, and clanking metal. I grabbed a heavy mop and immediately started scrubbing the stone floor near the massive hearth, keeping my head completely bowed.
"Where have you been, runt?"
A sharp, cruel voice sliced through the noise of the kitchen.
I froze, my grip tightening on the wooden handle of the mop. Standing above me was Madam Greta, the Head Housekeeper. She was a massive, bitter Beta woman who ruled the servants with an iron fist and a leather crop.
"I was cleaning the royal wing, Madam," I whispered, keeping my eyes fixed on her heavy boots.
"Liar," Greta spat, her face twisting in pure disgust. "The guards said you never came down for the morning shift. You think because the Alpha temporarily reassigned you, you can slack off? You smell like cheap bleach and dirt. You are nothing."
She raised her arm. I saw the thick leather crop in her hand snap backward, preparing to strike my shoulders.
I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the agonizing sting.
The blow never landed.
Instead, the entire kitchen—a massive room filled with over forty bustling servants and cooks—went completely, horrifyingly silent. The roaring fires in the hearths seemed to physically dim.
The temperature in the room plummeted to freezing. The air instantly thickened with a suffocating, violent Alpha aura that made my knees buckle.
"If that leather touches her," a low, demonic, vibrating voice echoed through the massive room, "I will peel the skin from your bones and feed it to the crows."
I gasped, my eyes flying open.
Alpha Silas was standing in the archway of the kitchen.
The Mad King never came down to the servant levels. Never. Yet, here he was. He was no longer wearing his sleep pants; he was fully dressed in his dark, intimidating combat leathers, his broadsword strapped to his back.
He looked absolutely livid. His golden eyes were burning with a terrifying, apocalyptic fury, fixed entirely on the Head Housekeeper.
Madam Greta dropped the leather crop instantly. The color completely drained from her face. She practically collapsed onto her knees, pressing her forehead to the dirty stone floor. Every single servant and cook in the room followed suit, dropping to the ground in absolute, trembling terror.
I was the only one left standing, clutching my mop, completely paralyzed.
Silas didn't look at the kneeling servants. He walked slowly across the kitchen, his heavy boots echoing off the walls. He stopped right in front of me.
The violent, murderous rage in his eyes completely vanished the second he looked down at my face. His chest heaved, and his feral inner beast visibly settled just by being in my proximity.
"You left," Silas murmured. His deep voice wasn't angry; it was laced with a dark, obsessive possessiveness that sent a terrifying shiver straight down my spine. "I woke up, and my little mouse was gone."
"I... I had to work, Alpha," I stammered, my voice barely a whisper. "I have duties in the kitchen—"
"Your only duty is to me," Silas interrupted softly, his massive hand reaching out.
He didn't care that forty people were watching. He didn't care that I was a lowly, bleach-scented servant. He gently wrapped his thick, calloused fingers around my small wrist, pulling me away from the mop.
Silas turned his head, his glowing golden eyes sweeping over the terrified, kneeling staff.
"Listen to me very carefully," the Mad King's voice boomed, an absolute, unbreakable Alpha command that vibrated in the marrow of my bones. "Aria is no longer a servant of this house. She is my personal ward. She answers only to me."
He paused, letting the heavy, terrifying silence stretch out.
"If anyone in this fortress asks her to lift a finger," Silas continued, his voice dropping to a lethal, freezing whisper, "if anyone speaks to her with disrespect... if anyone even looks at her too long... I will slaughter them and their entire bloodline. Is that understood?"
A chorus of terrified, shaking voices echoed from the floor. "Yes, Alpha!"
Silas didn't wait for Greta's response. He kept his gentle, unbreakable grip on my wrist and pulled me out of the kitchens, leading me back up the stone stairs toward the royal wing.
My heart felt like it was going to beat completely out of my chest.
I had spent my entire life trying to be invisible. I had swallowed poison to stay hidden in the shadows. But looking up at the massive, terrifying warlord who was currently dragging me back to his side, I realized the horrifying truth.
I wasn't in the shadows anymore.
The deadliest, most unhinged Alpha on the continent had just placed me directly in the center of his world. And the closer I was to him, the harder it would be to hide the Omega wolf screaming inside my soul.