The Fallen Alpha's Forbidden Mate

Milley Pov

The slap sent me crashing into the kitchen counter.

"Look at the mess you've made, you useless Omega."

Garrick grabbed a fistful of my hair before I could straighten. Broken porcelain lay scattered across the floor, tea soaking into the hem of my dress, and a shard had sliced my palm. I kept my eyes on the mess.

"I'll clean it up."

"Did I ask what you'd do?"

"No."

"Then shut your mouth."

He shoved me to my knees, and pain jolted through them as they hit the tiles. Around us the kitchen carried on as though nothing had happened. Pots clanged, servants hurried between the ovens, and someone complained that the bread was overdone. Nobody looked at me.

Garrick nudged a piece of the cup with his boot. "Every last piece. Miss one and you can scrub the stables tonight." He let go of my hair and walked away.

I waited until he was gone before touching my cheek. It was already swelling. Wonderful. Another bruise for the collection.

I gathered the porcelain carefully, but a second shard bit into my finger and blood welled up bright against my skin. I wiped it on my apron and kept working.

By the time I carried the breakfast tray into the dining room, the meal was over. Again. I stared at the crumbs left on the nearest plate and thought about stealing one, but servants who ate before their work was done got punished, so I swallowed my hunger and carried the tray away.

One day, I promised myself, I would eat when I wanted to. It wasn't a grand dream. I didn't want a throne or a palace. I wanted to wake up without bracing for someone's hand, read a book without hiding it, and decide for myself what happened to my own life.

Apparently even that was too much to ask.

Our Packhouse was twice as busy as usual. The All-Alpha Meeting was scheduled for that afternoon, and everyone was desperate to impress our guests. Guards polished their weapons, servants scrubbed floors that were already clean, and the good dishes had been hauled out of storage. Important wolves were coming, which meant the rest of us would be working twice as hard.

I carried a basket of fresh linens toward the guest wing, taking a short detour past the storage room. Beneath a loose floorboard there, I kept my most precious possession: a book. The cover was torn and several pages had come loose, but it held lessons in history, arithmetic, and Pack law. I'd found it months ago in a box of discarded belongings and had been reading it in stolen minutes ever since.

I slipped inside, lifted the floorboard, and took it out. Four minutes was all I needed. I opened to the page I'd marked with a thread. The passage explained how Pack laws were meant to limit an Alpha's authority, and I read the sentence twice. If the law could limit an Alpha, why did ours behave as though he owned every wolf beneath him?

Footsteps stopped outside. I barely hid the book under my apron before the door swung open.

Mara, one of the senior servants, stood there, staring. "What are you doing?"

"Checking the linens."

Her gaze dropped to the empty basket. "What linens?"

I said nothing. Then she spotted the corner of the book sticking out from under my apron and snatched it away.

"Still playing scholar?" She flipped through the pages, laughing. "You can't even shift without permission, and now you want to study Pack law?"

"Give it back." The words escaped before I could stop them.

Her smile vanished. She shoved me into the shelves hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. "What did you say?"

I should have apologized. Instead I looked at the book in her hand. She threw it on the floor, and when I bent to pick it up, her shoe came down on my fingers. I gasped.

"Know your place." She pressed her heel into my knuckles a moment longer, then stepped back and shoved the basket into my chest. "Guest wing. You're already behind."

My fingers throbbed. The book lay open on the floor, one page torn near the spine. For a second I imagined grabbing Mara by the hair and making her feel even half of what she'd made me feel. Instead I picked up my book. I couldn't afford to lose the one thing that made me believe my life could be different.

My mother found me behind the servants' quarters just before noon. She took one look at my face and reached for my hand, and I pulled away.

"It's nothing."

"Then let me see."

She didn't raise her voice or demand an explanation. She only waited until I held it out. Her expression tightened at my swollen knuckles. In her room she washed the blood from my palm and wrapped it in a clean strip of cloth, and when she touched my cheek, I flinched.

"Sorry, sweetheart."

"You didn't do it."

Her hands stilled. I wished I could take the words back, not because they were untrue, but because I hated the helplessness that crossed her face. She pressed a piece of bread into my hand. "Eat."

"Did you save this for me?"

"I wasn't hungry."

I broke it in half and gave her a piece. She looked ready to argue, but she ate it anyway.

My father came in as she was tying the bandage, and his eyes went straight to my face. "Who did this?"

"Father—"

"Who?"

"Garrick. And Mara took my book."

His jaw set, and he turned for the door. I caught his wrist. "Don't."

"He can't keep putting his hands on you."

"He can, and you know it." It came out harsher than I meant.

He looked down at my fingers around his wrist, and slowly the anger drained from his face. He sat beside me. "I should be able to protect you."

I leaned against his shoulder. He smelled of soil and wood shavings, the scent of all the years I'd believed he could fix anything: a broken chair, a leaking roof, my torn shoes. I'd been too young to understand that some things were beyond his reach. My parents wanted a better life for me, I knew that, but they had spent their own lives obeying the same rules that trapped me, and wanting something different wasn't the same as knowing how to get it.

My mother tucked my hair behind my ear. "Stay out of trouble today. Important guests are coming. Please don't give anyone a reason to punish you."

I nodded. I wanted to tell her I hadn't been looking for trouble, that I'd only wanted to read a book without hiding from people who believed knowledge belonged to wolves born above me. But she was already worrying about the work waiting outside, so I kissed her cheek, squeezed my father's hand, and went back to the Packhouse.

I was carrying a tray of clean glasses toward the meeting hall when one of the guards stopped me. "You. The Alpha wants you."

My stomach tightened. "What for?"

His look warned me not to ask again. I set down the tray and followed him.

The meeting hall doors stood open, servants rushing through the final preparations. The long table gleamed beneath the chandeliers, each seat marked with the crest of a different Pack. Our Alpha stood at the head of it, talking with his Beta, and glanced up as I approached.

"Milley. You'll serve the guests today."

"Yes, Alpha."

"Eyes down. Speak only when spoken to. And don't embarrass this Pack."

"I understand."

He studied me a moment, his gaze lingering on the bandage around my hand. "Then make yourself useful."

I bowed my head and stepped toward the table. Beyond the doors, the first arriving Alphas were being announced, their voices deep and unhurried, the voices of wolves who had never needed permission to walk into a room.

I picked up the wine pitcher. Whatever happened today, I would get through it. I always did.

But as the doors swung wide and the Alphas began to file in, a cold weight settled in my stomach, the kind that comes before a storm.