GRACE

I should have known something was wrong the moment Father summoned me to the dining hall.

He never gathered me with his real family unless it was to allow his wife shame me. To make me the spectacle, the bastard mistake who carried the blood of a woman whose name was forbidden to be spoken.

The air was thick with roasted meat and sour wine, but it wasn’t a meal. it was judgment.

We stood when he entered. The crows embedded in the blood claw pack seal in his sword, glinted in the moonlight as he walked to his seat.

He gave a little grunt of satisfaction. He had always liked these little rituals. It reminded me he was untouchable. My head bowed, though my spine screamed against it.

“There has been a request for your hand in marriage,” Father said, his tone smug and self-satisfied.

My chest hollowed. Marriage?

For a minute, I let my mind rejoice that it could be me. That my father after 18 years of allowing my step mother physically abuse me that he would finally let me go since I was mute with a stunted wolf.

But from the corner of my eye, Lily, my stepsister, straightened like a queen already crowned. Her smile bloomed, sharp and sweet, as though she’d been waiting for this moment her whole life.

My eyes burned with unshed tears. I knew I could never be the chosen one. Not when I had my stepsister and my stepmother.

“Damon Croft.” He said and my head snapped up in shock.

My throat seized, a useless sound clawed inside me but never reached my lips.

From my side, my sister had gone stiff and my mother’s fork clattered to her plate, the silence hunting each of us.

Father couldn’t be serious…right?

Damon Croft? the legendary monster? My mother’s killer!?

Father’s gaze slid right past me, onto Lily, as if I were smoke. “Your mother will make the arrangements.”

The silence shattered instantly.

“No!” My stepmother shrieked, slamming her fist on the table, her chair toppling behind her. “Not Lily! What kind of father sells his daughter to that beast?!”

Her face twisted, and then her gaze cut to me. Sharp and merciless. I averted my eyes.

What use were the angry tears that leaked from the sides of my eyes if I couldn’t voice out my hatred?

My step family has been nothing but cruel towards me but even this was too much!

“What about Grace?” she spat, pointing at me like I was filth on the floor.

My gaze snapped up at her, rage filtering my blood. “She’s useless. She’s mute. Let her marry him!” She argued.

“After all, she looks like my lily. I can even make it work,” she said and attempted to touch my hair in contrast.

I slapped her hands away, my lips trembled as a sound burst out of me, an attempted snarl. Pathetic. My mother’s daughter, yet powerless and voiceless.

The room stilled. Her eyes widened at the audacity, then narrowed to slits. She moved fast, her hand struck my cheeks, the sting exploding like fire beneath my skin.

I stumbled. Father didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t even flicker. The snarl came back, biting even harder.

Her hand raised to hit me again but my father made a sound and she stiffened. Then something spread across her face that caused me to blink.

“Since you won’t make her a bride…” her voice had a malicious bite, “make her a maid at the wedding. Let her scrub the floors while her betters dine.”

I looked to my father in shock. He wouldn’t. But instead my father nodded once. “So be it.”

My stomach sank into an endless pit.

She pulled Lily with one hand and dragged her out of the room leaving me like a bitter disappointment alone with my father.

My eyes zeroed on him. A question burned in my throat — why? What could he have possibly done to warrant such a union? Had he forgotten that Damon killed his wife? My mother?

But my throat was sealed. He slowly stood up and for a minute, I saw something flash in his eyes. Regret….or was it anger?

I couldn’t figure it out before he dismissed me.

I hated this family but I hated Damon more for creating so much chaos when he stole my mother from me. I had barely had time to change out of my attire into the maid’s uniform when rough hands clamped over my mouth, another twisted my arms and steel kissed my throat.

I thrashed, but my cries died useless in my chest. Panic flooded my veins and my eyes widened with horror as I could hear my heart thunder in my ears.

Something moved in the shadows and suddenly I was forced to my knees . My stepmother emerged, calm and venomous, like she’d been waiting for me all along.

The air grew thick. What was she doing?

“You think I’ll watch my only child be thrown to the butcher?” Her smile was thin, cruel. She lifted a small vial, black liquid swirled like smoke.

I recognized it instantly and attempted to move but the guard’s nails bit into my shoulders.

“Nightshade. One drop, and you and your useless wolf will burn alive. Unless…” Her gaze cut through me like a blade. “You take Lily’s place at the altar.”

She couldn’t be serious!

I shook my head violently, angry tears streamed down my face, but the guard’s grip pressed harder, slicing skin. I winced as the metallic scent of blood wafted to my nose.

I was still struggling with the guard when she suddenly grabbed my chin and forced the vial to my lips.

I violently recoiled as poison scorched down my throat. My body convulsed, every vein set ablaze. Blood spilled from my nose, my ears, my pores. My wolf shrieked inside me, writhing, breaking.

I collapsed, clawing at her skirts, praying for death. My mind was in chaos but my throat was sealed.

She crouched low, cupping my chin. “Agree.”

How could I agree to marry my mother’s killer!? I clenched the chain locket that sat lazily around my neck. The last thing mother left to me.

Her eyes went to the locket and before I could phantom what was about to happen, she snatched it from my neck.

Something instantly whizzed out of me. I reached out instantly fighting the pain building up in my veins.

“Agree! Or I’ll turn this little trinket to ashes,” she spat. Tears burned my eyes.

I couldn’t let her take the only thing I had left. Rage flowed freely as my wolf whimpered and gritted her teeth in pain. I would not let her desecrate the last memories I have of my mother.

Slowly. Weakly. I nodded my head sealing my fate. A viscious smile stretched over her lips as she poured the antidote on my lips and threw my locket at me.

I stood up, the fire had ebbed away in my veins but rage burned brighter than any venom of death. I stared dead at her eyes.

I was going to make her pay.

Twenty minutes later, a veil suffocated my face, my body dragged forward like a corpse toward the altar.

People whispered and their eyes pierced gazes at me but I remained stoic. I have never met Damon before but every tale carried a beast for a man.

Yet, as I walked towards the aisle, something strong pulled at my chest. At one point, my legs were moving on their own. When I got to the aisle, four men turned to me but somehow the man at the center…called out to me.

His aura swallowed the room whole, every man shrinking back while he stood tall, carved from stone and shadow.

His jaw was brutal, his eyes merciless, but it was the way the air bent around him that made my wolf stir despite the residual poison still burning in my veins.

I was taken aback by his beauty but he couldn’t be Damon Croft. He was rumored to be a beast in every way. My eyes scanned the environment for an ugly beast but suddenly he reached for me. Just a brush of his hand under the veil, tilting my chin up.

My eyes widened in shock.

Fire shot through me and my wolf purred.

No.

It couldn’t be.

The veil lifted.

Damon’s crimson eyes swept over me, his lips curling.

“Is this the best they could do?”

Disgust burned in his words, yet his stare clung to me hungry, furious and dangerous.

And in that moment, I knew two things with terrifying certainty:

The man who killed my mother was now my husband.

And the cursed pull in my chest whispered the one truth I dreaded most—

He was my mate.