TW: Mentions of suicide

☾☾SASKIA☽☽

He has a stubble now—wiry blond hairs that feel coarse when he pushes his face into the crook of my shoulder. I try not to show displeasure at how they graze my skin. My fingers knot in the silky strands of his hair, trying not to rip them off his scalp. Ironically, he prefers when I tug hard enough while he forces his kiss on me.

He thinks I'm his doll now. I walk when he says to. Talk when he says to. Smile when he says to. He thinks he has full control. I am supposed to obey him. My opinions do not matter—he's made that clear. Apparently, he's my one true love; he claims I belong to him. I've never belonged to anyone. I'm no man's property. I don't think he's realised that.

He forces me to dress to his taste. But I think he simply wishes to humiliate me. I don't know where he finds the bright eyesores that always have budding patterns scattered on them. Perhaps he is trying to make me seem more cheerful than I am. It's all part of the story he's selling the pack.

I wish I didn't hate wearing the burlap sacks. Wish I didn't know he'd grow irate if I didn't. Wish I hadn't seen my people suffer. It does make me wonder... has he always been this way? It's weird. He's the first creature I fear was born a monster.

"Why do you stand so far from your groom, brídeach?" He's grinning. I want to escape. The days are worst when he's happy.

Yet, I don't skip a beat before answering. There's too much at stake. "Pardon me, Alpha. I got lost in my head for a moment."

The hard crystals in his cold blues catch a wicked glint in them. I hold my spine as straight as a ramrod, not shuddering or cringing as I wind my way upward to him. "Ah, are you back to your illness? I thought you were cured, love."

I flinch. A vein ticks. He noticed. He always does. He'll take me back there. Dread, as frigid as a wintry gust, whips at me. I can't go back there. I can't pull through that darkness again. I won't survive it. It'll crush me. Ruin me.

Steady. Steady, Saskia.

I can't let him doubt that I'm fine. I need to turn this conversation away from this issue. "I am cured, lord. You were the one who made sure of my health. I've been well ever since." I sound so stupid. What is it, the Middle Ages? I couldn't be more repulsed.

It's all on his orders. He prefers that I speak formally to him. Of course, I detest it. The list of things I hate has protracted and extended past the distance of Guttenbrieg's meeting hall. I still have further to elongate it, and it's all because of him.

Cillian Breathnach.

Mikael's brother. It took me longer than I'd like to admit before I could make the connection together. The half-brothers do not share the same last name. Surprisingly, Maggie does. Her last name is the same as Cillian's. I know because he said so. Right before he revealed that he had her captured and in his custody.

He hasn't permitted me to see her yet. I can't tell why. He probably doesn't trust me. I don't know... All I'm sure of is he isn't lying. Maggie's room is still a mess. Her tables are broken. Her curtains are torn. Angry claws mark every space and alcove. Not a single thing is in place.

It makes me queasy to envision the fight that must have taken place. How hurt she must have been by the time they'd weakened her to the point of being able to take her prisoner.

Even without Cillian telling me he'd been the perpetrator of the hideous kidnapping, I would have been able to tell at one glance that an intruder had gained access into her house and that there'd been an awful scuffle to ensue. Her absence was the rest of the story told.

"I expect you are ready for the ball this evening?" He encapsulates my hand in his. An outsider might deem this a sweet gesture, but I know better. His grasp is almost capable of disintegrating my bones into dust. The first time he'd ordered me to keep shut with that terror hold of his, I'd shed tears at the agony of a finger bone snapping at its joint.

"Without a doubt, Alpha." I sit beside him on the lower chair that appears to have been set aside for a lesser creature to him. It makes sense since he doesn't consider me an equal. I'm lower, beneath him as his supposed betrothed. The notion makes me laugh though nothing about it is amusing.

It churns my guts to imagine being shackled to him through marriage. I'd sell my soul to not become his wife. It's too unfortunate that no one would be interested in buying. Except for him, maybe. He'd rip out every piece of me unseen to the eye if he could without taking my life.

Even while seated below him, our hands are connected. He doesn't give a shit that the angle at which they are causes my arm to lose feeling in minutes. The thought that Mikael would never have been this inconsiderate punches me in the gut. I choke on the sob that rises in my throat as discreetly as I can manage. But his cursed supernatural hearing trumps again. "What was that sound?"

"Nothing." My left hand jitters on my lap as I scramble to make up a stupid excuse. "I thought I could feel a cough coming up as a sore throat." I do have an itchy throat, but that's far from the reason I'm choking on my very breath.

His brow twitches up as a frown erodes every other expression on his face. I feel his gaze hot on my profile. "Might you be sick, brídeach?"

"No, Alpha," I reply, ignoring the frantic thudding of my heart. He probably hears it, but it doesn't count as an error so long as my anxiety does not seep into my demeanour. "I don't believe I am. But I will visit the pack's doctor after for my sore throat. It might be a mere cold."

"Hmm," he grunts. "That might be so. You were out late with the women, preparing the game to be served tonight." He pauses for dramatic effect, and I imagine that my fist crushes his nose when he declares, "I've said time and time again that you are too weak."

It was all because of your fucking orders. I swear in the confinements of my head, the only place where my secrets are free to live and thrive. It's unbelievable that he has the guts to blame me for being affected by staying too long in the freezing outdoors as if it wasn't his idea.

To put it in mild words, last night was a hellish experience. Winter has quickly descended on the city, and temperatures were only too pleased to plummet below zero Celsius. According to the old rites of werewolf packs, the Luna or acting Luna is expected to help prepare the game caught by the pack's hunters before the dawn of the next day when it is delivered to the tribes. It's the most old-fashioned bullshit ever.

My fingers were frozen popsicles as I skinned and sawed at the carcasses from the last hunt. I loathed every minute I spent outside butchering deer meat. The other female wolves in the pack had assisted me in seeing that we were finished before daybreak. If it was just me, I might not have seen an end to that chore in days.

After the enervating work, I'd gone to bed with the stench of blood staining my nostrils and my bones rattling like shutters in a storm. Sleep came in two hours instead of after four or not at all on other nights.

Three months ago, I might have been counted as a deep sleeper. Not now. I rarely sleep anymore. Nothing I've done has succeeded in correcting my insomnia. I was prescribed melatonin and several other drugs, including Valium, to help me sleep, but it's been to no avail. All those attempts have resulted in nothing. How could they? It's not like I expected them to do a thing.

"I will do my best to get stronger, Alpha."

He scoffs cynically. At a time, his dismissal would have pissed me off. I don't have any energy to waste on that anymore. Moreover, I know what I am capable of doing. He doesn't. "Busy yourself with the domestic affairs of the pack and forget about gaining power. It is no such matter women should upset themselves over, brídeach."

I grip my knee with my free hand to keep from forming a fist. "Understood, Alpha." I'd momentarily forgotten Cillian is also a sexist asshole.

Most of the female captains and those holding influential statuses appointed by the last Alpha have been removed from their positions and replaced by males at his behest. I might have expressed rage at his actions if I hadn't been locked up in a dark dungeon—his attempt to shock me to my senses after Mikael's death became undeniable.

That day is still untouched in my head—an engraving chiselled into the pads of my soul. It's not faded even by a speck. The edge of that memory is crisp and brittle. It haunts me by the day.

Mikael.

Whenever I close my eyes, I see him lying on that table, pale and ghostly—lips dull and blue as the rest of his face. I recall putting my head to his chest and not hearing anything. Not a sigh or a murmur. I remember screaming out his name yet not getting a reply from him. He was already gone. Faded into nothingness. All that remained was the shell of the man I loved.

"The ministers will present themselves soon. Ready yourself." Cillian's gruff voice shatters my bubble of reverie. I sit up straight, feeling the familiar prickling, signalling the crawling of pins and needles down the hand still bridged to his. "Smile." He charges, and my lips quiver into a convincing grin. I clench my fingers tight where he can't see.

Seven council elders make their way into the meeting hall, and I do what the Alpha desires before he can remind me. Apparently, Lunas should stand and show respect to the elders of the tribes. Mikael never made me do so. I didn't even have to interact with the ancient misogynistic leaders. He never offended or humiliated me before his people. My eyes dampen as memories of him suffuse my being. Over again, I'm reminded of everything that once was and now isn't.

Cillian isn't Mikael. Mikael is dead. My husband is gone.

The Alpha's voice booms across the empty enclosure. "Elders of Guttenbrieg. Thank you for honouring my invitation." Invitation? My brows thread in confusion. I thought the elders were here to report on the pack's health and progress.

"It is our pleasure to heed our ruler's call." The oldest of the bunch—Elder Yardley—ululates, his hateful gaze centred on me. I tip my chin up, rolling my shoulders back and standing taller. They can all go to hell, for all I care.

"Then, heed me well, men of Guttenbrieg," Cillian's mouth stretches wide, a bow ready to release the arrow in its string. "The coming ball is one to be remembered! Go home and spread the word."

"What word, Alpha?"

"Tonight, I marry my bride, Saskia." A frosty chill sweeps through me like an icy wind cutting through a barren land. I can't. I won't. I'd rather do it again. I'd rather down those pills a second time than wed Cillian. I will not give myself to him. Even if it means my death.

"I am sorry, but I cannot marry you, Alpha Cillian."

•••

A/N: Hello, and welcome, lovelies! I hope you all enjoy reading the second season of ALFTPA. Do let me know what your thoughts are!<3