Page 16 of The Alpha's Fallen Spell
I stare into his eyes—green, flecked with gold—and find no threat there. Just patience. Concern.
“Fiona.” The word scratches its way out. My own voice sounds foreign to my ears, rough from disuse. “My name is Fiona.”
Relief washes over his face, softening the hard lines around his mouth. “Fiona,” he repeats, like he’s testing how it feels on his tongue. “That’s a beautiful name.”
Something warm blooms in my chest at his words. I can’t remember the last time someone spoke to me like I was a person instead of a specimen. Like I mattered.
“Where am I?” I ask, the words coming easier now. “Is this...another lab?” Fear creeps back into my voice despite my efforts to sound strong.
He shakes his head quickly. “No. You’re at the palace. My home. My brother, the king, came to us with a healer, to help you, and then brought us back here. You’re safe now.”
I blink at him, struggling to process his words. “King?” The term is familiar, but distant—from some half-remembered story, perhaps, from the time before. “What is a king?”
Erik’s expression shifts, surprise flickering across his features before he schools them back to calm. “A king is someone who rules a kingdom—a territory,” he explains carefully. “My brother Griffin is the king of the Human Wolf Kingdom.”
None of this makes sense to me. Human Wolf Kingdom? King? These are words without meaning, pieces of a puzzle I don’t have the frame for.
“Am I a prisoner here?” I ask, my voice smaller than I want it to be.
His response is immediate and firm. “No. Never again.” He reaches out slowly, and when I don’t flinch, he takes my hand in his. His palm is warm against mine, calloused and strong. “You’re free, Fiona. Free to stay, free to go. Free to choose.”
Choose. Another concept so foreign it makes my throat tight. In the facility, there were never choices. Only commands, consequences, and pain.
I look at his hand holding mine, at the way his thumb brushes lightly over my knuckles. The touch is gentle in a way I don’t know how to process. The creature inside me—my wolf—preens at the contact, wanting to press closer, to burrow into his warmth.
“I don’t know how to be free,” I whisper, the admission tearing something loose inside me. “I don’t know anything outside of my cell.”
His fingers tighten around mine. Not painfully, just reassuringly. “I’ll help you learn,” he says.
And he does. He tells me about the three wolf shifter kingdoms and the Veil that separates two of them from this one. He tells me about the Silver Ring Organization.
I listen. I absorb.
Hearing him speak eases the agitation within me. I like the sound of his voice. It makes me feel safe. I also like the way he caresses my palm. He doesn’t seem to know he’s doing it. I just want to sink into him and hide from the world and the darkness that I’ve known for far too long.
The sun is starting to rise, and I stare at it through the window, fascinated. When was the last time I saw a sunrise?
“The window—Can it really not open?”
“This one can’t,” Erik tells me, “but there’s another one on the other side of the bed. Come.”
He helps me to my feet, and his hands feel warm.
As he leads me to the window, I stare at the back of his head. He makes me feel safe. I don’t remember much of my childhood, but the only time I ever remember feeling safe was when my mother was alive. Before that monster she married sold her off like he did me.
Erik opens the window and steps aside. I draw in gulps of the cold air in a way I wasn’t able to when I was running away. I smell the freedom, I taste it, and my eyes burn.
“This is real, isn’t it?” I ask, my voice cracking. “I’m free? They’re not going to come for me anymore?”
He sighs. “They will not stop looking for you, Fiona, but as long as you’re here, they can’t touch you. And you can stay here as long as you want.”
Erik adjusts the neck of my sweater. I feel a strange emotion within me as he does so. For the first time, a man’s touch does not incite fear. He is gentle and careful with me, something I’ve never experienced before.
A soft knock at the door makes me stiffen. Erik squeezes my hand once before releasing it. He moves like someone who has never been afraid of being hunted.
“That’s probably breakfast,” he says, and the word stirs something in me—a distant memory of morning light and the smell of something sweet.
When he opens the door, a woman enters carrying a wooden tray. She’s young, with dark hair pulled back neatly, and when she sees me, her eyes widen slightly before quickly looking away. I wonder what she sees—a wild thing, perhaps, or something broken beyond repair.
