Reborn To Claim The Ruthless Alpha King

Adrienne POV:

The kiss was brutal and desperate, full of bitter whiskey and runaway cedar pheromones.

Benjamin crushed my lips almost as if biting, one hand pinning me hard to the mattress until the air in my lungs was nearly wrung out. The silver fever had reduced him to a beast ruled entirely by instinct, and I was his only prey tonight.

I had dared to come here, and not because I was stupid.

That line the head maid had said when she pushed the white dress at me—"someone wants to see"—was my card to play. Someone wanted an heir. Someone wanted a woman who could make her grandson break his rule. My face, which looked like Serena, was the reason I had been chosen. If Benjamin really killed me, that person would investigate, and the head maid would testify. However violent he was, once sober he would not openly defy that person's arrangement.

But the premise was that he had to stay unclear first.

A shrill alarm suddenly cut through the courtyard, and red warning light swept through the gap in the curtains into the dim bedroom. Right after, urgent pounding came at the door from the corridor.

"Alpha!" The Gamma guard's voice outside was anxious. "Border breach at sector four! Rogues have broken in!"

Benjamin's movement stopped. The dark gold glow of the beast in his eyes flickered uncertainly. He propped his upper body up and narrowed his eyes at me. The self-control of a high-ranking Alpha was forcing down his instinct; the haze of the silver fever was receding.

If he sobered up now, I was dead. A wolfless "defective" shoved onto him by his family, appearing in his bed while he was in the grip of the fever—with the violence he showed when clear-headed, he would snap my neck without a thought.

But I was betting on something else.

I immediately arched my back, let the tears slide into my temples on cue, and put on the most fragile, helpless look. I reached out with a trembling hand and touched his taut jaw, stepping precisely on the forbidden ground deep in his heart.

"Ben..." I whimpered, my voice shaking. "Please... don't leave me alone in the dark again. I'm so cold."

That sentence was the last straw that broke his reason. The shadow of that tragedy five years ago instantly shattered his defenses, and the sliver of clarity that had just surfaced in his eyes was swallowed whole by violent possessiveness.

"Damn the border." He growled, and ripped apart my silk nightgown, his scalding body pressing down again with the force to destroy everything.

The terrifying pressure of a pureblood Alpha made my whole body tremble. His lips traveled to the side of my neck, searching for the position of the gland, his sharp canines brushing dangerously against that fragile skin.

My heart stopped. If he bit down now and forced a mark, I, with no wolf nature at all, could not withstand the rejection of a pureblood soul link—I would die on the spot.

"Ben, look at me." I gasped, seizing his black hair and forcing his head up. Then I tilted my neck back and bit down on his Adam's apple, pressing a feverish, desperate kiss there.

The distraction worked. The touch on that vital spot stirred a more primitive conquest in him. He let out a heavy, low growl, abandoned the marking, and drove into me instead, hard.

The storm outside beat against the bulletproof glass, covering the sounds in the master bedroom. Like a beast completely out of control, using the silver fever as his excuse, he vented the madness and hatred he had suppressed over these five years of being forced into a bond with me. I closed my eyes and endured the tearing pain in silence, my mind unnaturally clear.

This was nothing more than the price I had to pay to survive in this wolf pack that eats people. I was betting that he would not recognize who I was while the fever had him, betting that once sober he would not dare to dig deeper because of the name "Serena," betting that the old matriarch would protect me.

It was not until the first faint light of dawn came through the curtains that the long torment finally subsided. Benjamin collapsed heavily onto my shoulder, his breathing gradually evening out, sinking completely into sleep.

I carefully moved aside his dead-heavy arm, endured the pain of a body falling apart, and slipped out of bed. On the nightstand lay a silver letter opener.

I picked up the knife and did not touch my arm—I aimed the blade at the inside of my thigh. An Alpha's sense of smell is too sharp; if the position of the blood scent were wrong, he would suspect immediately. Last night had been brutal enough, but the body of a defective like me still had a faint ability to heal itself, and the real tearing wounds had long stopped bleeding.

I gritted my teeth and cut a shallow line, then smeared the fresh blood onto the tangled white sheets. A wound on the inner thigh could pass perfectly as the blood of a first night, and with the thick sweat and Alpha pheromones filling the room as cover, it would be seamless.

The King Pack's rules had always been strict, and as the matriarch, Matriarch Eleanor required "evidence" of the consummation. Without this pool of blood proving I had become his mate in substance, the moment Benjamin woke would be the death sentence that sent me to the dungeons.

I wiped the blade clean, put it back where it had been, and climbed back into bed.

The instant I lay down, Benjamin instinctively pulled me back into his burning arms. I stared at the sun gradually rising outside the window, felt his powerful heartbeat, and quietly waited for the executioner beside me to wake.

An hour later, the air in the room seemed to freeze solid in an instant.

A terrifying killing intent locked onto my throat and stripped away my breath. I opened my eyes and met Benjamin's cobalt-blue eyes—fully awake, cold as ice. His large hand was clamped hard on my windpipe, and the black-gold signet ring that symbolized the leader's power bit deep into my flesh.

"Who gave you the nerve," his voice was very low, every word steeped in poison, as if the madness of last night had never happened, "to climb into my bed?"