The Poisoned Wolf
Being Alpha Silas's personal ward wasn't a job. It was a captivity disguised as privilege.
For five agonizing days, I hadn't scrubbed a single floor or washed a single tunic.
Instead, Silas forced me to remain entirely within his line of sight.
If he was in his study reviewing border patrols, I was sitting in a plush velvet armchair in the corner.
If he was eating in the dining hall, I was seated at his right side, completely ignoring the shocked, disdainful stares of his Pack Council.
He didn't make me speak. He rarely spoke to me himself. But his feral inner beast was constantly, obsessively monitoring my every breath.
Right now, we were in the war room. Silas was leaning over a massive map of the western territories, flanked by his Beta and three massive Generals.
I was sitting in my usual armchair in the shadows, but something was horribly, terrifyingly wrong.
My hands were shaking so violently I had to grip the armrests to hide the tremors. A thick, cold sweat slicked the back of my neck, and a blinding, searing pain was stabbing directly behind my eyes.
The wolfsbane. I had taken my daily pill that morning, but my body was staging a violent rebellion.
The proximity to my true mate—being constantly bathed in Silas's heavy, intoxicating scent of dark pine and ozone—was waking my dormant Omega wolf.
She was fighting the poison, desperately trying to claw her way to the surface, and the internal battle was physically tearing me apart.
"The southern rogues are massing near the river," General Vance growled, pointing a thick finger at the map. "We need to send a strike team to wipe out their camps before they cross into our territory."
"No," Silas replied, his deep voice an effortless, vibrating rumble of authority. "They are baiting us. We reinforce the riverbanks and wait for them to make the first mistake."
A sharp, agonizing cramp suddenly ripped through my stomach.
I couldn't stop it. A soft, breathless whimper slipped from my lips as I bent forward, wrapping my arms tightly around my waist.
The sound was barely louder than a whisper, but to an Alpha's ears, it might as well have been a gunshot.
Silas stopped speaking mid-sentence.
He didn't just turn around; he practically teleported. In a blur of dark leather and terrifying speed, the Mad King crossed the war room and dropped heavily onto one knee directly in front of my chair.
General Vance blinked, completely bewildered by his King abandoning a war strategy for a bleach-scented servant. "Alpha? The southern border—"
"Shut your mouth, Vance," Silas snarled, not even looking back at the massive General. The demonic, vibrating threat in his voice made the entire Council physically step backward.
Silas turned his glowing, golden eyes back to me. His massive hands reached out, gently gripping my trembling knees.
"Aria," Silas murmured, his voice dropping an entire octave, thick with a dark, suffocating panic. "What's wrong? You're shaking."
"I'm fine," I lied through chattering teeth, keeping my eyes glued to the dark wood of the floor. "Just... a headache, Alpha. May I please be excused to my room?"
"Look at me," he commanded softly.
When I couldn't find the strength to lift my head, Silas reached up. He didn't use his claws; he used the soft pads of his thumbs, gently framing my jaw and tilting my face up to meet his gaze.
The moment his bare skin touched mine, a violent, electric spark shot straight through my nervous system.
My suppressed Omega wolf howled in response to her mate's touch. The chemical blockers in my blood completely short-circuited. A wave of nauseating, blinding dizziness hit me like a freight train.
"You're burning up," Silas breathed, his golden eyes widening in alarm as he felt the unnatural, feverish heat radiating from my skin. The feral beast inside him immediately began to panic at the sight of my distress.
"Alpha, she is just a maid," Beta Kael spoke up hesitantly from the map table. "Send her to the servant's infirmary. We have a war to plan."
Silas's head snapped toward his Second-in-Command. The sheer, apocalyptic violence that flooded the King's face was so absolute it made the air in the room physically difficult to breathe.
"If you ever refer to her as 'just a maid' again," Silas growled, his voice echoing with the ancient, terrifying resonance of a Supreme Alpha command, "I will rip your throat out and feed it to the hounds. Get out. All of you. Now."
The Generals didn't hesitate. They practically sprinted out of the heavy oak doors, the terrifying sound of the locks clicking shut echoing behind them.
We were completely alone.
I couldn't hold myself up anymore. The room spun wildly out of control, and my vision faded to black at the edges. I slumped forward, falling directly out of the velvet chair.
I never hit the ground.
Silas caught me effortlessly. His massive, muscular arms wrapped securely around my back and under my knees, lifting my burning body completely against his hard, armored chest.
"I've got you, little mouse," Silas swore, his chest heaving with a mixture of terror and an overwhelming, obsessive need to protect. He buried his face in my hair, completely ignoring the harsh scent of bleach. "I'm going to call Elara. The Healer will fix this."
"No!" I gasped, a surge of pure adrenaline piercing through the fever.
If the Healer took my blood, she would find the wolfsbane. She would know I was suppressing a wolf. She would know I was an Omega.
I grabbed the lapels of Silas's dark leather armor with trembling, desperate fingers. I looked up into his frantic golden eyes, tears of absolute terror blurring my vision.
"Please, Silas," I begged, accidentally using his name instead of his title. "No healers. Please. Just take me to my room. Just let me sleep. Please don't let anyone touch me."
Silas went completely still. Hearing his own name fall from my lips seemed to shatter the last remaining walls of his sanity.
His massive jaw clenched, his eyes burning with a fierce, uncompromising devotion. He didn't care about logic; he only cared about the desperate, pleading look in my eyes.
"No healers," the Mad King vowed softly, tightening his grip on my waist as he carried me toward the private royal chambers. "No one touches you but me."