Kidnapped by The Alpha King

Chapter 1 – The Embrace of the Void

The rain fell without violence, an icy drizzle that clung to lashes and drowned the world in a dirty silver sizzle.

Annabelle stood at the edge of the curb, her toes inches from the rolling void of the wet asphalt, and she watched the trucks rumbling in the distance.

Her heart beat so slowly she thought it would stop before she even had to take a step.

The familiar pain twisted deep in her bones, that dull bite of sickle cell disease that never left her, but that morning, another suffering, colder and deeper, commanded her to end it.

Anaïs was nothing but dust beneath a stone she hadn’t had the strength to flower.

Her parents wept in secret, doctors looked away, and every breath reminded her she was nothing but a countdown.

She stepped forward, then another, her face lifted to the starless sky.

The roar of a heavy truck swelled amid the city’s murmur, the bellow of a mechanical beast promising deliverance.

Annabelle closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of diesel, of cold asphalt, of the end.

She felt the ground tremble beneath her soles, the gust of wind that slapped her when the truck was a few meters away, and she threw herself forward.

What followed held no shock. It was an absence.

An iron grip closed around her waist, lifted her off the ground with terrifying ease, and hurled her backward in a whirl of movements too swift to be human.

Her back slammed against a chest hard as stone, a wall of heat that stole her breath.

The truck blared all its horns as it brushed past her, and the wind of its passing slapped her wet cheeks.

She had no time to scream.

A huge hand clamped over her mouth, another encircled her waist without gentleness, and a deep voice, utterly calm, whispered against her ear:

“Not yet, little human. Not yet.”

The scent of forest, musk, and something older than night itself enveloped her.

Her eyelids grew heavy as lead.

She wanted to struggle, scratch, scream, but a sweet torpor invaded her, as if the voice itself had the power to extinguish her will.

Darkness fell, deep and soft.

When she opened her eyes, she knew she was no longer in the world of men.

The light filtering through heavy burgundy velvet drapes caressed her face with an unreal gentleness.

The ceiling, vaulted like that of a chapel, vanished into shadows painted with dark frescoes where wolves hunted beneath a full moon.

The air smelled of beeswax, ancient wood, and a peppery, heady fragrance that immediately reminded her of the stranger from the sidewalk.

Annabelle turned her head with effort.

She lay on an immense bed, draped in black silk sheets that slid against her bare skin.

Terror bit her throat: who had undressed her?

Her rain-soaked clothes had vanished, and she wore only a thin nightgown of virginal white, sheer at the shoulders, which felt like an insult.

She sat up abruptly, and the searing pain in her hips, her ribs, her knees reminded her that the disease would never grant her respite.

Every movement was a punishment.

She clenched her teeth and scanned the unfamiliar room: chests of drawers carved with wolf motifs and runes, a mirror in a blackened silver frame, a monumental fireplace where a fire crackled far too cheerfully for the occasion.

No visible window, except a tall bay hidden by the drapes. A gilded cage.

The door opened silently, and he entered.

Kevin. Before he spoke a word, she knew he was the man who had torn her from death.

He was far too tall, his shoulders filled the doorway, and his face seemed carved from cruel marble that the firelight struggled to soften.

His black hair fell in loose strands over a high forehead, and his eyes, the gray of frozen rain, fixed on her with an intensity that pinned her to the mattress.

He wore only a dark shirt, open over a chest laced with old scars, and leather pants that concealed nothing of a wild power.

The air around him vibrated, as if the whole room held its breath.

“You are awake,” he stated, his voice low, inflectionless. “Good. I detest waste.”

Annabelle tried to speak, but her lips only produced a trembling thread of air.

He stepped forward, and each footfall echoed on the massive floorboards, a predator’s pulse.

He stopped at the foot of the bed, looming over her effortlessly.

“Who… who are you? Where am I?” she finally managed, her heart in her throat.

“You are in my home. In the fortress of the Northern Pack. And I am your King… and your destiny.”

The word “destiny” fell like a sentence of ice. She shook her head, incredulous, tears welling up despite herself.

“This is a mistake. I am nothing. I am sick, I am going to die, let me go, I have no business here…”

He tilted his head slightly, and for an instant, a glint split his stony gaze—something painful, almost tender.

“You will not die. Not if I do not wish it. The disease eating away at you will soon be nothing but a memory. The Moon destined you for me, Annabelle. You are my betrothed.”

Her name on those lips, spoken with a heartbreaking familiarity, made her shiver to her very soul.

She did not know how he knew it, how any of this was possible, but a primal terror urged her not to ask questions.

She curled up in the sheets, seeking to disappear.

He gazed at her for a long moment, then called out without taking his eyes off Annabelle:

“Gisèle.”

A woman with neatly pinned gray hair, dressed in a simple woolen gown, appeared in the doorway.

Her eyes were gentle, but they did not meet Annabelle’s.

“Sire.”

“See that my betrothed is ready for dinner. Find her clean clothes. She must eat.”

The housekeeper bowed and approached the bed.

Kevin slipped away without a sound, leaving behind an imprint of electric emptiness.

Annabelle breathed as if surfacing from a drowning.

“Leave me alone,” she murmured.

“You must obey, miss,” Gisèle replied in an almost pleading voice. “The Alpha King is not patient. Come.”

She helped Annabelle to her feet.

Each step cost her a grimace of pain, but Gisèle’s hand was firm and strangely reassuring.

In an adjoining dressing room, a midnight blue velvet gown awaited her, laid over a chair like an offering.

Annabelle looked at it without understanding.

“Why such consideration if I am a prisoner?”

Gisèle looked away, but Annabelle caught in her reflection a flash of deep compassion.

“Wearing the clothes, dining with him… it is a ritual. You cannot refuse. Do it for yourself.”

Annabelle slipped on the gown without further protest, the fabric caressing her bruised skin with unexpected softness.

Gisèle simply styled her hair, baring her pale nape where a few beads of cold sweat pearled.

When she saw herself in the large mirror, she did not recognize herself: a young woman with purple-ringed eyes, an ashen complexion, dressed like a queen from a cruel fairy tale.

The dining hall was a cathedral of shadows.

The black oak table stretched beneath a wrought-iron chandelier where dozens of candles flickered, and the silver cutlery gleamed like blades.

Kevin awaited her, seated at the end of the table, even more imposing in that gilded half-light.

He did not look at her right away.

He stared at the flames, his face unreadable.

A place to his right was indicated to her. Annabelle sat down, back rigid, hands clenched on her knees.

Steaming dishes were placed before them: roasted meats, glazed vegetables, candied fruits.

The smell should have made her hungry, but her stomach was only a knot of revolt. She touched nothing.

“Eat,” he ordered without looking at her.

“I am not hungry.”

He slowly turned his head toward her, and a candle flame reflected in his gray irises.

“That was not a suggestion, Annabelle.”

She held his gaze, and for the first time, she saw something other than hardness in those stormy eyes.

A weariness, a buried plea, perhaps a glimpse of the loneliness that seeped from these walls.

“Why me?” she breathed.

“Because the Moon willed it. And because I have been waiting for you for three centuries.”

His answer, absurd yet pulsing with certainty, tightened her chest.

She pushed back her chair and stood, without thinking, driven by a survival instinct stronger than terror.

She ran toward what she hoped was an exit, a corridor, a window, anything.

She heard the crash of a silver tray behind her, then swift footsteps, but not Kevin’s.

Two guards emerged from the shadows, clad in black, faces half-human, half-wolf, and blocked her path.

She struggled, clawed at the air, screamed an insult broken by sobs.

“No! Let me die! I don’t want your destiny!”

A warm hand settled on her shoulder, and she froze. Kevin had not caught up to her by running.

He had simply advanced, unhurried, and yet he was there, behind her, like a rising tide.

His warmth enveloped her, and his scent of deep forest filled her nostrils.

“You can scream, scratch, flee a thousand times,” he said in a surprisingly soft voice against her temple. “I will always catch you. Death will not have your bones, Annabelle. It has taken enough from me.”

She turned around, cheeks streaming, and looked up at that stone face which, suddenly, no longer seemed that of an executioner.

Something ancient, fragile, flickered in his eyes.

He did not touch her further.

He stepped back, as if afraid of breaking her.

“Take her to her chambers. See that she lacks for nothing. And let her sleep.”

The guards stepped aside without touching her. Gisèle reappeared and guided Annabelle, shivering, to the black silk bed.

Before crossing the threshold, Annabelle cast one last glance at Kevin.

He stood motionless before the deserted banquet table, fists clenched, the silhouette of a fallen king in an empire of shadows.

The dying fire in the hearth drew glints of gold upon his face, and his lips moved, as if speaking to a ghost.

That night, lying in the darkness, Annabelle felt for the first time in months an unknown warmth flowing through her veins.

A soothing that did not come from her.

A presence, diffuse but tenacious, like an invisible fur mantle laid over her heart.

She fell asleep without understanding that it was him, Kevin, watching a few meters away, his gaze fixed on her closed door, ready to burn the world if the disease dared to approach again.