The Alpha King's Broken Silent Tribute

Elara's POV:

"The five-year term isn't up yet, and you're already this desperate to leave?" This was the first time the tyrant Kaelen had ever spoken to me about the contract.

My body was shoved onto the silk sheets, the impact jarring through every bone. My head snapped back, cracking against the ornate headboard, and a blinding pain exploded behind my eyes before everything spun into darkness. When my vision cleared, Kaelen was already over me, his broad shoulders swallowing the candlelight until only his silhouette remained.

His fingers found my jaw-thumb and forefinger closing on the hinge of the bone, the black obsidian ring he never removed pressing its flat face into my skin like a brand. He forced my head up until looking at him was the only thing left to do.

The Beaumont eyes had been that same pale blue since the first of them took the throne of Vorrath, and four centuries of rule had never put any warmth into them. But tonight there was something burning in them-pure rage, and beneath it that flat, patient ownership that had nothing to do with wanting a person and everything to do with keeping one.

Then his Dominion came off him and filled the room.

Among his own kind, it was both courtesy and weapon-the weight an Alpha's blood laid on everything weaker than it, the thing that made lesser wolves bare their throats without being asked. On a human, it did something worse. It seeped into my limbs and my chest until my arms and legs grew too heavy to lift, until breathing became a decision I had to keep making, over and over.

I shook my head frantically, but only a broken rasp escaped my throat. I couldn't say no aloud. I was mute. All I had were my hands-the silent speech I had built for myself in the dark of the servants' wing-and my hands were pinned somewhere in his shadow, where he would never bother to look. So I begged with my eyes. It was the last thing I still owned.

"You're that eager to leave," he repeated, his voice dropping lower, like a distant thunderclap. "Back to your human world, to marry that so-called lover of yours?"

My heart stopped. He couldn't know. I had never written the name down, never signed it anywhere there was light enough to read it. Donovan-my lover, the man I had a five-year pact with, the one my heart belonged to. Five years ago, the Empire had crushed the last three human kingdoms in the south, and my house, Kensington, had stood on the losing side. The terms of surrender demanded no silver or land-the victors had no use for those. They wanted people. From every human house that had resisted, a daughter was to be sent into Vorrath Keep for five years of service. When the term ended, the debt would be cleared, and the family name washed clean.

Kaelen might not have known about Donovan specifically. Perhaps he only knew that such a person existed, but not who.

Panic gave me strength I hadn't earned. I thrashed beneath him, but it was like a mouse struggling against a mountain. My resistance seemed to please him; a cold laugh rumbled through his chest.

"Look at you." His breath came warm against my ear, sickeningly close. "Just like that whore of a cousin of yours. Betrayal runs in the Kensington blood."

Eleonora. My cousin, who had gone into this empire six years ahead of me and married Prince Lucian Beaumont, and whose name my family had quietly stopped saying at table. And I was the one sent to fill the gap she had left behind.

So that was it. His hatred for me wasn't just because I was a tribute from a conquered nation. The rest of it had been meant for her, and I had simply been standing where she used to stand.

In that brief moment of his distraction, his grip slackened half a fraction. I seized the opening, summoning every ounce of strength five years of hauling wet linen had given me, and drove my knee upward into his abdomen.

He grunted. His hand slipped.

That was all I needed.

I scrambled backward across the vast bed on my hands and heels, graceless, like a terrified rabbit already feeling the snare. But I didn't get far before a hand clamped around my ankle like an iron vise.

He dragged me back without effort. Whatever patience he had been amusing himself with was gone. He put his full weight on me, crushing the air from my lungs.

Then he took hold of the front of my dress-plain grey servant's wool, the only thing in this fortress that belonged to me-and tore it open.

The sound of the fabric ripping was very loud in that room.

I shut my eyes. Five years. I had endured for five years, and I was only days away. Was I really not going to make it?

His lips crashed down on mine, brutal and punishing, devoid of any tenderness.

I twisted my face away, and his mouth landed on my cheek, as cold and hard as stone.

That small act of defiance undid him. The hand at my throat tightened until I could feel my own pulse beating against his fingers, and he forced my face back to his.

"You think you have a choice?" he snarled, his enraged Dominion surging so thickly that my head swam. "Everything about you is mine. Your body, your breath, your future!"

Tears I couldn't control streamed from my eyes, hot against my cold skin. Not fear anymore. Just the end of hoping. Donovan. My love. We would never see each other again.

Just as I gave up the fight, my body going slack beneath his, the chamber doors flew open.

A harsh slash of light cut through the gloom. A woman's furious, high-pitched voice shrieked, "Kaelen! How dare you-with this worthless slave-"

Kaelen froze. He lifted his head, a look of profound irritation crossing his face as he glared toward the doorway, at the richly dressed woman whose features were twisted with jealousy.

I couldn't see her clearly, but this intruder-this unexpected fury-was my only lifeline.

He pushed himself off me, smoothing down the front of his tunic. He didn't even glance my way, as if I were a toy he had just discarded. He strode to the door, blocking the woman's view of me with his body.

"Corinna," his voice was dangerously low, laced with impatience. "Who gave you permission to enter?"

Corinna Valgrave. Her family holds the eastern apartments and two council seats, and she is the High Sovereign's lover-enough to let her come and go as she pleases in this Keep.

I curled into a ball on the bed, pulling the torn remnants of my dress around myself, my entire body shaking uncontrollably.

Lady Corinna's voice came again, dripping with a venomous mix of hurt and accusation. "I was only concerned for you... only to find this mute slave trying to seduce you!"

Kaelen didn't bother to explain. He just said one word, cold as ice. "Out."

I lay there, listening to their argument spill into the hall, my heart hammering against my ribs. She had walked in on the worst night of my life and stopped it. She would never forgive me for that. Whatever Lady Corinna had come here wanting, she would be looking for me by morning.

A few more days. I only had to last a few more days.

Out in the hall, her voice was still sharp and ringing-and my name, repeated over and over.