by River Ramsey
Throne of Wolves
A Reverse Harem Romance Series
River Ramsey
Copyright © 2018 by River Ramsey
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Note: This book is part of a continuing series, and will get progressively steamier as the story develops. 18+ audiences only. Contains some violence, and revolves around a reverse harem romance.
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
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Chapter 1
"Stop complaining, Dani. You're wasting your breath."
One of my maids yanks the cords of my blood red corset, tightening it to punish me for having trouble standing still. My breath whooshes out of my lungs in a hollow gasp. At this rate, I won't have any breath to waste.
I shoot her a vicious look that has no effect whatsoever. And why should it? I'm an omega. My maids might be glorified servants of the pack, but they're betas and they’re still above me in ranks no matter how rare I am. I'm lucky I don't get a slap to the face for my bad attitude.
Another maid wipes hard at my eyes with a wet cloth that reeks of alcohol suspension and mineral water. "I don't know why she wears eyeliner like that," she huffs, as if I'm not even worth addressing directly. "With these long lashes, she really only needs a little mascara to bring out that lovely honey color."
I'm nothing more than an object to these maids. To the whole pack, even, with the exception of one lone wolf. There’s always Christopher, my childhood best friend who would surely be here now to try to bail me out if he weren’t away on a mission. I guess there’s always hope that the baby-faced alpha will return at the last second and pull off some trick to put off the Trials.
I’m starting to worry that he’s running out of tricks, though. He’s an alpha, and all alphas are driven to eventually lead the pack. He can’t skirt his looming duties forever even if he does respect me too much to take part in the ceremonial bloodbath that’s going to forever stain the dirt of the pack’s arena tonight.
I force myself to stop thinking about him. He won’t be back to rescue me. Running away together so we could get out of our fates was just a silly childhood dream, and he’s made that abundantly clear with his latest trend of ignoring me and flirting with every she-wolf in the pack that so much as glances at him.
No, we were never romantic outside of my one-sided crush, but she-wolves generally want to settle down and would never agree to taking off to a secluded cabin in the woods to hide a starry-eyed omega. The dream was doomed from the start. I’m an omega, a rare creature necessary for the long-term survival of the pack. Even if we did try, we’d be tracked down, I’d be given to the most suited mate and Christopher would be killed.
“Be still, Dani.”
“I am being still,” I growl through gritted teeth as my arms are forced into unbearably tight sleeves for the third time. I wish these maids would just pick a top and stick with it instead of changing my outfit every five minutes like I’m their dress-up doll.
“No, you’re distracted and floppy,” she snaps back. “When you let your mind wander like that, your limbs get loose and this becomes more of a pain in the ass for everyone, yourself included. Focus on letting us get you ready and it’ll be easier.”
I roll my eyes and stifle the angry words roiling in my throat, if only because lashing out at her will just make things worse for me. I learned a long time ago that the best way to handle maids is to not even try. Keep quiet and calm and let them do their thing, or get pinched or jabbed with a safety pin or get stuffed into even less comfortable clothes.
“Are you excited about the Trials?” another asks in a bored tone, clearly just trying to keep me tethered to reality so I don’t let my mind drift again. She holds up a necklace and I dip my head to make it easier for her to drape it around my neck.
“Very,” I lie quietly. Part of getting along with the maids definitely includes not going off on a rant about how dehumanizing it is to be fought over like a scrap of meat, and how I’m against anyone mauling each other in an arena like gladiators—yes, even alphas.
“Do you know who the competing men are?” she asks me.
“No.”
“I know of two of them,” she says in a baiting tone that suggests she thinks I care. “Better hope the dangerous one doesn’t win.” She purses her bright red painted lips like she just let go of a big secret.
I can only assume she means James, the vampire-shifter hybrid whose very existence was so controversial that the pack nearly split when he was born. He terrifies the other wolves just by being alive, which has always seemed silly to me; as far as alphas go, he actually seems like a decent person. Just… tremendously violent. I almost hope he does win. Maybe he’ll go on a bloodlust rampage and I’ll get torn apart before I’m forced to marry anyone.
The maids lead me out of the dressing room at a clip I'm unprepared for in the high-heeled shoes I've only worn for ten minutes. I stumble after the maids as they press in around me, like they think I might be stupid enough to make a run for it. They walk me down a long hall that seems like it might go on forever, and the closer we get to the brightly lit entrance, the louder the roar of the crowd is.
I know the fight isn't commencing just yet--I have to meet the alphas first--but the shouting and cheering still makes my heart plummet into my stomach. Is that how they'll sound when the first blow is landed? When the first bite tears the flesh off a living creature's bone? When the first alpha succumbs to knife or tooth or claw?
Just when I'm sure I'm going to be pushed out into the light and forced to face the crowd prematurely, the maids usher me down a side passageway. Even as a human without a wolf's finely tuned senses, I can smell alphas already and know I must be about to meet my doomed potential suitors. I can definitely smell vampire. The hybrid must be one of the competitors after all.
I tell my fluttering heart to take it down a few notches. Tonight isn't the beginning of the Trials, just the precursor. We, the Marok Pack, are the only pack left in the outlands region that hasn't abandoned the scenting ceremony or the other archaic traditions that accompany it. Most of the others have all banded together under the protection of the Eternus League, a pack system that prefers greater separation between the dinner table and the battlefield. Their soldiers are expected to act like gentlemen when they come home, alphas or not, and their omegas are protected but given freedoms I and the others can only dream of.
That's why Christopher and I always talked of running away to the outskirts of their lands, the only t
rue sanctuary we could ever hope to find where the Marok pack would be unwilling to follow us.
As the doors open and I catch sight of the three alphas gathered before the crowd to take stock of the goods up for grabs, I recognize that childish hope for what it was: a pipe dream.
I'm a woman now. My nineteenth birthday was just last month, and the only reason it took them that long to auction me off is the scandal surrounding my father's wrongful banishment. Sometimes I wonder if the real reason Mace framed him is because he knew my father would never let him take my hand as long as he was here.
I suppose I should be grateful that he's still alive somewhere out there, even if I'll never see him again. My father is far from a gentle man, or even a kind one, but he has far more moments than any alpha gathered here today.
In a way, I'm glad he isn't here. My mother, too. Losing her when I was so young was painful, but at least I got to enjoy my time with her as a child, before the role of indoctrinating me as an omega fell to her. It's more comforting to live in the fantasy that she and my father both would have tried to protect me from this fate, even if I know the truth.
In the Marok Pack, the only law is tradition and there is no escaping it. Not for them, not for me, not for anyone.
The crowd roars like a crashing wave as soon as I make my entrance into the arena that will be soaked in blood in less than a day's time. The night of the new moon.
This new beginning for our pack will mean the beginning of the end for me, and as an omega, I'm not even permitted to face my fate with my head held high. Intentionally meeting an alpha's gaze would be scandalous, the defiance of a harlot. An omega is supposed to be soft, demure, barely existent.
Despite not being able to look directly at them, I feel the three alphas' eyes on me like coal burning through ice. My hatred for the one burns just as deeply, but for the others, I can only muster apathy and a modicum of pity. They're all wearing suits tonight, but tomorrow, they'll be wearing fur and fangs.
Rowan isn't much older than me, just a couple of years with the clean shaven face to go with his youthful good looks and short sun-bleached hair. His cold silver eyes are the windows that reveal just how many of those few years have been spent shedding blood on the battlefield and grappling for power at home. In any other pack, it would be his by birthright, but the only blood that matters here is the blood you spill—and Rowan must spill his share of it if he wants to stake the same claim his father did so many years ago. His presence is no surprise at all.
Then there's James. I'm already having second thoughts about my hope that he would be among the contenders vying for my hand. He's undeniably handsome. They all are in their own way, but his rakish good looks and dark, unruly locks are the guilty pleasure of every she-wolf in the pack. I venture a quick glance to sate my curiosity, but the reddish-brown gaze that meets mine in that split instant is so full of wrath and darkness that I immediately regret it.
There's something more than terror in the thrill that surges through my body and makes my spine tingle, but that response frightens me even more than he does. Shifters are conditioned to fear vampires, both by nature and by nurture. They are the monsters we tell stories about by firelight, and as we age, we learn that the reality of them is far more gruesome than the fables.
Our kind have been at war for as long as anyone can remember, and it makes the decades-long strife between the Eternus wolves and the few packs that have resisted their conquest seem like the petty squabbling of siblings. James is the living incarnation of all that hatred and turmoil, and the chaotic energy pulsing off him in waves makes him seem every bit as volatile, ready to explode at any moment.
I've only ever encountered him at a distance, with two or more guards between us, but his energy is beyond intimidating in person. It's chaotic and the scent of his vampire blood is triggering my instinct to run even more than this whole sordid affair already has. It's an unwelcome reminder that despite the fact that I can take a lupine shape like any other member of the pack, I'm still prey and tonight, they're all looking at me like I'm dinner.
And finally, Mace. I know his face well, because it haunts my worst dreams, and its masculine beauty makes it all the more sinister knowing what lurks beneath. He has long hair, black as his soul, and pale skin that makes him look even more like a vampire than James does. His vivid green eyes flicker over me, casually surveying what he already thinks is his.
He knows I hate him, and I doubt it matters. A man like him feels nothing, let alone offense. Mace entered our pack when he was already a teenager, and while I know about as little about his past as anyone else seems to, he wasted no time getting in good with the Alpha Lord. He’s the pack doctor, and one of Adam’s closest confidantes. Conveniently, he replaced my father in that role when he framed him for betraying the pack, and he’ll do whatever it takes to get what he wants. I’d be shocked if the man even knew how to fight fair.
There was supposed to be a fourth among them, but I'm not about to remind anyone of that. The fewer deaths, the better. At the end of the Trials, I'll still be bound to the victor for the rest of my days. The look on the face of Rowan's mother, a frail and pallid woman who's eclipsed in both the physical and metaphorical shadow of her mate, tells me everything my mother never got the chance to warn me of.
"Let us begin," the Alpha Lord announces. Adam is a broad and imposing man who's ruled with fear and zero opposition ever since he tore his only challenger limb from limb. The fact that he's about to step down of his own volition is a first in recent pack history, but I guess he wants to go out on a high note. I can tell from the complacent look on his face that he's confident his son is going to win the Trials. "The contenders may approach the omega.”
And why not? Rowan is easily the largest of the three, and that's saying something. Mace is almost lithe, but no less of an imposing figure. I'm surprised the he even needs an X-ray machine in his office, since his sharp eyes seem to see through everything. Then again, he's far more interested in breaking bones than mending them. James is a bit broader, but it's his vampire nature that makes him both an asset and a liability to the pack. The only reason they haven't killed him is that he's shed more enemy blood than the average combat unit combined.
Rowan steps forward without hesitation. I flinch at his sudden movement and the sound of his heavy footfalls approaching me. He comes to a stop right in front of me and I swallow instinctively as his large hand reaches out to cup the right side of my face. His touch is surprisingly gentle, even if his hand is rough and callused from years of battle. His hand sweeps down the side of my neck and he pulls me toward him abruptly enough that I'm forced to throw my hands up against his chest to keep from falling. His skin is burning hot, even beneath the thick wool of a suit I've never seen him wear before. Alphas usually have a higher body temperature than omegas, with one seasonal exception, and the thought of how inconvenient it would be to enter heat right now makes my cheeks flush.
The gruff alpha lowers his head and leans in to sniff the left side of my neck, his lips brushing the sensitive flesh over my jugular vein. I was bathed in soaps of only the faintest scent and forbidden to wear any fragrance for this humiliating occasion. Each of the three alphas will be permitted to scent me like this, even though only one of them will have the privilege of hunting me once the Trials have concluded.
While I'd have nothing against the idea of running if it actually meant the possibility of escape, there's nothing fair or sporting about the mating hunt. It's nothing more than a victory lap for the alpha who emerges supreme, and a way of putting the conquered omega in her place and reminding her that there is nowhere she could possibly run in order to escape her fate—or her mate.
Rowan flashes me a smile I’m sure he thinks is seductive as he steps back. It probably would be, if I had any patience for him or any of the other contenders. There’s one I simply hate, and he’s the next to step up.
Mace’s eyes are cold as usual, but the way he’s looking at me makes
it clear he knows his mere presence is unwelcome. To his credit, and there’s not much of it, he makes it quick. As he leans in to scent me, his close proximity makes me shiver even though he only touches my arm, rather than my neck. The fact that he acts like such a gentleman makes me resent him all the more.
I know what’s underneath, and it’s far from civil.
The feeling of his breath against my neck makes my omega instincts flare up, in spite of myself. I keep my head turned, refusing to give him the pleasure of eye contact. He steps away to allow the next in line to take his turn.
James steps up last, his gaze far more intense than I’ve ever seen before. He doesn’t bother to smile or even make eye contact. His hand slips into my hair to cradle my head as he pulls me closer. I feel his breath graze my neck and goosebumps raise up all over my skin.
He’s the one I should fear the most, especially with his fangs so dangerously close to my neck, and yet… There’s something about him that I respond to instinctively, even if I know better logically. The man is danger incarnate, and I should stay away, but I find myself thinking that he’s the only one I wouldn’t hate being given to.
The ceremony is over and as the alphas depart, I’m whisked away by my maids. Have to make sure the doll gets back on her shelf before she gets scratched.
Tomorrow evening, the Trials will begin, and so ends the limited freedom I’ve known up until this point. I look around as I’m led back into the compound, desperate for one last glimpse of Christopher, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
