The Alpha's Cursed Mate

Chapter 1

I watched my mother die in childbirth. She had been trying for a third child — a second boy — for years. A trail of tragedies followed behind her as pregnancies escaped her like water through fingers. My mother nearly gave up by the time her last pregnancy stuck; it was a miracle gifted by the Goddess herself until my mother sought out a witch to give her the truth about her unborn baby.

Her belly grew still, so my mother had Tabitha palm her bloated stomach with pungent oils to see through her skin. Our kind is not too fond of witches, but my mother was desperate. Tabitha felt her for four seconds before telling my mother that her baby was dead.

I stood at my mother's bedside as her face soured, as her eyes became red and glassy. It was too far along; she had to give birth to the baby anyway, and in the following days, Tabitha beckoned her to. I knelt at her head and petted her yellow hair. The veins in her face bulged like rivers drawn on father's maps, and her grip ground the bones in my hand. I didn't dare complain even though she was hurting me. It was clear that my pain wasn't even a fraction of hers.

The silent, unmoving baby was born, but the blood did not stop pouring from my mother. Tabitha can do many things, but she cannot stop death, not without the victim's help. My mother faded quickly. Her head settled against her pillow and she watched the ceiling as if the heavens were peeling open for her. I grabbed at her and begged her to say what Tabitha urged her to say, but there was no energy left in her body for incantations.

I told my father and brother of her and the baby's passing with blood smeared on my hands. My father loved her, truly. They were mated by the Goddess and had never wavered in their loyalty, but when I said the baby was a girl, it seemed to make the devastation much worse.

I believe my father thought that the Goddess had betrayed him. This infuriated me because it was my mother who had lost everything — she was betrayed.

When my father died — I hate to admit — a part of me felt as though something wrong had been made right.

"We're out of men," Tabitha says, "but we're too far gone to retreat."

I sit at the head of the table. The council room is only occupied by the two of us these days, yet very few know this. It used to take a team of advisors and seasoned warriors to direct a war under my father's rule, but so much more has been accomplished with a witch and a cursed, she-wolf Alpha. "We'll have the men," I assure.

Tabitha smooths a long lock of her coarse black hair as if soothing a cat. "We will now?"

"They won't change from their wolf form, but they'll fight. In time they'll emerge from the south-eastern forest and join our remaining warriors. Tophet won't see it coming."

"How can he when they rise from the dirt under his feet?"

I stand from my heavy wooden chair and shift my gaze from the map. "He'll be furious."

"The war has to end sometime."

"And even after we conspire with the God, his men never seem to run out."

Tabitha joins me, walking through the parted double doors and onto the balcony. "He's been winning a war your father fought for decades. His pack is large, his pockets are deep — he could get more men easily."

"So we keep fighting with the God's power until he runs out of gold and men? Won't people grow curious as to how exactly we recruited so many foreign warriors? And when they ask where our wolves came from?"

"Does it matter? Let them theorize."

I clench my jaw and face the icy valley below. "I know that we need Him, but you were wrong; nearly a year has passed, and my hate of using Him hasn't subsided."