Marked by the Alpha I was sold to

r me, I was folding la

's face. My mother had stopped speaking to me three days before, the moment the papers were signed, like silence could put distance between her and what she'd let happen.

ensive, the kind of quiet that means someone paid extra for it. I set the shirt down. My hands were steady. I want that on record somewher

ning down the length of me the way you'd check a shipment against a manifest, making sure nothing had been damaged i

pressed against the window with my forehead cold on the glass, was a city that breathed. Lights strung through trees older than any building I'd ever lived in. Stone walls with ivy grown so thi

t me twice, which told me more than if they'd stared. I wasn't a no

n. I tested the latch anyway, just to feel it refuse me, then sat on the edge of the mattress with my hands f

n without

a second before and now wouldn't stop, a pull low in my chest like a hook sinking into muscle. I turned and there he was, filling the do

ouldn't parse, some sentence in a language he used to speak and had forced himself to forget. His jaw worked

ot a question. A ver

decided to lift it. "I'm

ng close enough that I had to tip my head back to hold his gaze. This close I could feel heat coming off him that had nothing to do wit

Whatever he found there made his whole body go still in a way that scared me more

uage I didn't recognize but somehow still understood a

e out steadier than

r one unguarded second I saw something in his face that looked almost like fear - real fear, the kind that doesn't

had gone flat again, officia

own voice, hated that he'd hea

lders were a rigid line against the frame, like he w

thi

I caught him in. It

on the too-soft bed with my heart still hammering from something that had nothing to do with

oment he walked into that room, some lock turning open that I hadn't known was there, buried so deep I'd never once felt it rattle. I was furious at myself for it. Furious that my body had betrayed me to the very sy

ouldn't leave, belonging - on paper, if nowhere else yet - to a man who'd lo

at wouldn't open, the moon

part of me was already counting down, already dreading and