Rejected By My Betrothed, Claimed By The Warlord Alpha

Kalea POV:

The crowd parted instantly as the Luna Queen swept into the garden pavilion, flanked by four high court maidens and a dozen royal guards.

Her deep sapphire gown trailed across the stone, and the sheer authority radiating from her high-born Alpha bloodline made the surrounding nobles bow their heads in reverent silence.

Dessie saw her chance.

She dragged herself across the muddy flagstones, sobbing hysterically toward the Queen's feet.

"Your Majesty! Please, have mercy!" Dessie wept, intentionally letting her torn, soaked chemise slip from her shoulder to expose the curve of her neck to the cold air. "My virtue has been ruined in front of the entire court! I fell into the water with Knight Lambert... our bodies touched before all these witnesses! The ancient pack honor demands that he take me as his true, lawfully bound mate!"

She was trying to use the old modesty laws to force a marriage right then and there.

A dry scoff came from the pillar behind me.

"Threw herself in the water, botched the lie, and now she is selling her virtue like cheap meat," Gaines sneered loudly, crossing his thick arms over his chest. "The females of the Richmond Pack truly know how to haggle in the mud."

Dessie flinched as if struck, and Emory bowed his head in sheer humiliation.

The Luna Queen looked down at Dessie with cold, unyielding disgust.

"The royal gardens are sacred ground," the Queen said, her voice cutting through the frosty air like a steel blade. "You dare use cheap trickery to seduce your sister's betrothed and fabricate lies in our presence?"

The Queen flicked her golden folding fan, delivering her verdict without a second thought.

"Dessie Richmond has shown herself to be deceitful and lacking all honor. By royal decree, she is stripped of her right to attend tonight's Debutante Ball and is demoted to a Disgraced Omega, forever Unworthy of a Mate-Bond."

A strangled gasp ripped from Dessie's throat.

She collapsed entirely into the puddle.

To be branded a Disgraced Omega meant she was legally barred from ever becoming a recognized pack Luna or a knight's lawful wife.

Her grand ambitions had been gutted with a single sentence.

Before I could savor the look of despair on her face, a heavy weight dropped over my shoulders.

Gaines had stepped up beside me.

Without asking for permission, he wrapped his massive, dry black fur cloak around my shivering frame.

The thick pelt was radiating intense Alpha heat, saturated with the rich, intoxicating scent of pine and fresh cedar.

It drove away the bone-deep chill in an instant.

Gaines leaned down slightly, his lips brushing dangerously close to the tip of my cold ear.

"You have sharp claws, little bird," he murmured... "Shame your body is made of glass." My pulse jumped, but I did not pull the cloak away.

I forced myself to whisper so only he could hear: "Why help me, Lord Moss? I am wolfless, still betrothed, and a trouble that burns whoever touches it."

Gaines lowered his eyes to my frozen hands clutching his cloak.

"Because I hate men who abandon their own mate to save face," he said quietly.

He glanced toward the golden guards herding us to the throne room.

"Walk behind me into that hall, little bird. I give you my word—if Jaheim touches you again today, my spear will answer before the King does. Doubt me? Then watch."

I stared at him. I did not fully believe him—I have believed no one in two lifetimes—but his heat was real, and I needed a living shield to survive the throne. I chose to gamble on this mad dog once.

I held the thick fur closed over my chest, meeting his burning amber gaze with a steady nod.

"Silence!"

The sharp voice of Elder Silas Silas Foster echoed from the archway.

The king's personal golden guard formed two rigid lines along the path.

"By royal command of Alpha King Alistair," Foster announced, unrolling a gilded scroll. "The daughters of the Richmond Pack, Knight Lambert, and Lord Gaines Moss are summoned immediately to the High Throne Room!"

There was no room for argument.

Two handmaidens tossed a rough woolen blanket over the trembling Dessie, and our group was marched through the towering black iron corridors toward the central palace.

We stepped into the grand hall.

Massive black stone pillars carved in the likeness of howling dire wolves supported a vaulted ceiling lit by thousands of iron chandeliers.

Dozens of high elders and powerful Pack Alphas lined both sides of the throne room, their heavy Alpha auras saturating the air with suffocating tension.

At the far end, seated upon the colossal throne of white wolf bones, sat Alpha King Alistair in his golden battle armor.

And standing in the center of the hall, waiting with a face dark as thunder, was my father—Jaheim Richmond, Pack Alpha of the Richmond territory.

Jaheim's cruel eyes locked onto me the moment I walked in.

Seeing me wrapped in Gaines's cloak while Dessie shuffled behind in mud-stained rags made the veins in his neck bulge with fury.

Before I could even cross the marble threshold to bow before the throne, Jaheim broke rank and charged across the floor.

"You worthless, ungrateful mutt!" Jaheim roared, his mid-tier Alpha aura exploding in a violent shockwave. "You bring disgrace to our name and dare plot against your own sister?"

He did not wait for an explanation.

His heavy, leather-gauntleted hand swung through the air with brutal, bone-shattering force.

Crack!

The blow struck the side of my face so hard it sent me crashing sideways onto the freezing marble floor.

My head slammed against the stone, and the warm, metallic taste of blood instantly filled my mouth.