Claimed By Alpha Ceaser Cursed To Be His

Ava's POV

No one sat beside the Cursed Alpha. Until I did.

I still don't know how it happened, exactly. One minute, I was scrubbing a stubborn stain out of the white marble floor in the Grand Hall-a rogue streak of wine left over from the royal mating celebration-and the next minute, a frantic, red-faced attendant had grabbed my arm, yanking me up so fast my head spun.

"You! Get in there, now! The Alpha King is about to arrive, and we're short three girls for the honor guard!"

Before I could even stammer out, "I'm just Ava, the scullery girl," she had shoved me through the massive, oak doors and into the ritual hall.

It was chaotic, but a silent kind of chaos. Everything glittered.

The hall was massive, stretching farther than any room I'd ever been allowed inside, with high ceilings painted with scenes of the Moon Goddess and ancient wolves.

My ragged tunic and bare, dirt-stained feet stood out like a blight on the pristine white carpet that led to the raised thrones.

I froze, heart hammering against my ribs hard enough to rattle my teeth. I was supposed to be in the kitchens, invisible.

Here, I was a mistake. A stench of poverty and weakness in a room full of powerful, well-bred wolves.

Calm down, Ava. Just pretend you belong. Just for a minute.

The attendant who pushed me must have mistaken my worn, ill-fitting clothes for the plain uniform of a lower-level palace maid.

The true attendants, all sleek hair and silk uniforms, were already kneeling in perfect, staggered lines on either side of the royal thrones. I scrambled to join the closest line, dropping to my knees and trying to mimic their rigid, heads-down posture.

I could feel the stares. They didn't even need to look; their noses were enough. They knew my scent-the faint, lingering smell of bleach, old sweat, and whatever meager food scraps I'd managed to sneak.

I was a slave here, a servant at best, and my very presence was an insult to their pure-blood ceremony. A heavy-set wolf near me, wearing the silver crest of the Alpha Guard, subtly shifted, pulling his knee away from mine as if I carried a plague.

Just keep your head down. Don't speak. Don't breathe too loud.

Then the air changed. It wasn't a scent; it was a physical shift in the room's energy, like the moment before a massive thunderstorm hits.

The heavy tension that had been present since I entered snapped tight, turning into a low, deep thrum that vibrated in my chest. The very stone floor seemed to tremble.

He was here. Caesar Varyn, the new Alpha King. The one they called the Broken Alpha. The Cursed Alpha.

I risked a glance, a tiny flick of my eyes under my lashes.

He wasn't even fully in the room yet, but the collective reaction of the wolves around me was sickening.

Terror. Pure, unadulterated fear. A young female attendant across the aisle actually gasped, stifling it instantly with a trembling hand clamped over her mouth.

The sound of his heavy, slow steps on the marble amplified the terror.

When he appeared in the doorway, he was massive, a silhouette against the sunlit corridor outside. He wore no crown, no elaborate Alpha robes, only a simple tunic of dark, heavy fabric that made him look less like a king and more like a predator.

And the scars.

They were everywhere. They didn't just cross his face; they seemed to mar him, pulling his lips into a permanent, harsh line and crinkling the skin around one eye, giving him an expression of perpetual, dangerous contempt. He was rumored to have survived an ancient, devastating attack that had killed his entire bloodline, leaving him the last of his kind and, supposedly, irreparably damaged.

He didn't look broken to me though. He looked like an apocalypse waiting to happen.

He walked past the bowing wolves, and the tension was so thick I felt faint. It was so true-everyone, even the elite warriors, was physically pulling away from his path.

It almost felt like he was death, and they were trying to give him a wide berth to pass by. He didn't acknowledge them, didn't look right or left. His gaze was fixed on the twin thrones at the end of the hall.

He reached the raised platform and stepped up to his seat. It was the moment I should have stayed perfectly still, but my own body betrayed me. My knees were starting to ache from the rigid posture.

I tried to subtly shift my weight, and the slight movement disturbed the fabric of my cheap, thin tunic. A corner of the hem had been resting over the small pebble I had found outside-my one pathetic attempt at keeping a good luck charm.

As I shifted, the pebble rolled.

It wasn't a loud noise, just a soft clack-clack on the marble, but in the echoing, terrified silence of the hall, it sounded like a thunderclap.

The pebble rolled straight to the foot of the throne. His foot. The one he was just lifting to settle into the seat.

In a panic, I forgot every instruction I'd ever been given about invisibility. I shot my hand out to catch it-a wild, desperate grab to silence the offending noise.

And I misjudged the distance. Horribly.

Instead of snagging the pebble, my outstretched hand smacked hard against the ornate, carved wood of his throne. It was a solid thud, right next to his hip.

The collective intake of breath from every wolf in the hall was deafening. It sounded like a massive, hungry beast inhaling.

I froze, my hand pressed flat against the wood, my knuckles white. My eyes shot up.

His head turned, slowly.

And then his eyes lifted.

They weren't the gold or amber of high-status wolves. They were a stunning, terrifying shade of silver, like molten metal, entirely devoid of warmth or human-like emotion.

They were cold, ancient, and they felt like they didn't just see me, but saw straight through me, into the pathetic, frightened core of my soul.

The air caught fire. Not literally, but the tension in the hall seemed to ignite, sparking into something primal. My lungs locked up. I couldn't breathe, couldn't move. I was paralyzed by the crushing weight of his attention.

Say something. Apologize. Get up. Run.

I couldn't do any of it. All I could do was stare back into those devastating silver eyes. I was just Ava, the slave, staring at a king who had the power to vaporize me with a single thought.

I felt a sudden, sharp heat on the inside of my left wrist. It was a burning sensation, starting low and building with impossible speed.

It was agonizing, like a brand being pressed to my skin. I instinctively winced, pulling my focus from Alpha Caeser's face down to my wrist.

It was impossible.

Emblazoned on my skin, where only dull, sun-faded skin had been moments before, was a symbol.

It was a perfect, intricate crescent moon, glowing with an unnatural, faint white light. The mark of the Moon Goddess. A Mating Mark.

The moment I looked at the mark, the air exploded.

A sound ripped through the ritual hall that wasn't human, wasn't wolf, but something so terrifying that rattled the very foundations of the palace.

It was a low, feral growl that started in the Cursed Alpha's chest and vibrated outward, a sound of profound rage and undeniable possession.

His silver eyes were no longer cold. They were burning, focused entirely on the pulsing mark on my wrist. The scar tissue around his mouth seemed to pull tighter as his lips barely parted.

And when his voice came, it sounded like a rasp of thunder, cutting through the silence.

"Mine."

Ava's POV

The silence that followed Alpha Caeser's devastating, single word-"Mine"-lasted only a heartbeat before the world erupted.

It wasn't the kind of chaos that came with fire or swords, but a much sharper, crueler chaos fueled by shock and outrage.

"Impossible!" someone shrieked. It was the King, Alpha Caeser's father, who had been sitting in the adjacent, larger throne, his face turning a mottled red. "The ritual is sacred! This... this servant, this scullery wolf cannot bear the Mark of the Moon, especially not for the Crown!"

Around me, wolves scrambled to their feet. The refined, perfect ceremony turned into a panicked stampede. I was still frozen on the floor, the crescent moon on my wrist pulsing with a white-hot ache. It felt like my very bone was being reforged.

"Abomination! She is a fraud!" A high-ranking noblewoman, glittering with jewels, pointed a trembling, manicured finger at me. "The mark must be false! Check her, Guards! Tear her clothes off if you must!"

Two large Alpha Guards, the same ones who had sneered at my scent earlier, lunged forward. They grabbed my arms, hauling me roughly to my feet and dragging me toward the dais. My knees were too weak to hold me, and I stumbled, my cheek scraping painfully against the carpet.

This is it. They're going to kill me. They'll say I tainted the ceremony. They'll say I tried to trick the King.

"Silence!" the King roared, though his voice was swallowed by the clamor of the nobles shouting contradictory orders-Chain her! Burn the Mark off! Put her in the dungeon!

The guards dragged me right up to the foot of the thrones. I was close enough now to smell the rich, dark spice and ancient power radiating off of Alpha Caeser. The scent was intoxicating, terrifying, and deeply familiar all at once.

My wolf, a tiny, terrified thing I barely acknowledged, let out a deep, shivering whimper of recognition.

The King pointed an accusing finger at Alpha Caeser. "Caeser! Tell them! This is a mistake! You are not bound to this creature. Break the connection immediately, before the High Council hears of this shame!"

Alpha Caeser remained perfectly still in his throne. He didn't move a muscle. He simply looked at the room. His silver eyes swept across the screaming nobles, the panicked guards, and finally, settled on his own father, the King.

Then, he spoke.

His voice wasn't loud. It wasn't a roar like his father's. It was a low, steady rumble, like grinding tectonic plates, that somehow cut through the deafening noise.

"Enough."

The effect was instantaneous. The shouting stopped. The frantic shuffling of feet ceased.

Even the heavy breathing of the guards holding me went silent. The whole hall, brimming with hundreds of powerful wolves, fell into a deep, chilling silence that swallowed every sound.

It was the silence of a packed stadium when a single shot is fired.

Alpha Caeser slowly leaned forward, resting his scarred forearms on his knees, his gaze never leaving his father.

"Father," Alpha Caeser's voice was laced with something colder and harder than ice. "You forget. The Moon Goddess selects the mates. Her choice is not dictated by your laws, your caste system, or your personal disgust." He inclined his head toward me, a tiny, devastating gesture of acknowledgment. "She has chosen. I am bound."

The King stammered, his face white with impotent fury. "But... but a slave! It's against the Edicts of the Founders! It will bring the fall of the Varyn Crown!"

"Then let it fall," Alpha Caeser said, his voice flat. It was the most shocking thing he could have possibly said-a casual dismissal of the very throne he sat upon. "But while I stand, she is Mine. And she is no longer a slave."

He stood up.

He didn't move fast, but the sheer size of him made the guards flanking me flinch back. He took one deliberate step off the dais and stood directly in front of me. I was trapped between him and the two heavy guards who still had a death grip on my arms.

"Release her," he ordered the guards.

They hesitated, looking to the King, who could only choke out: "Do as he commands! Foolish boys, don't provoke him!"

As soon as their hands lifted, I sagged, unable to bear the weight of the moment. I would have crumpled, but Caeser's hand shot out, catching my upper arm. His touch was burning hot through my thin tunic. It wasn't gentle, but it wasn't hurting me; it was simply a demand that I remain upright.

He looked down at me, and I finally got a good look at his eyes up close. The silver wasn't metallic anymore; it seemed to be churning with conflicting emotions-anger, certainty, and something that looked terrifyingly like possessiveness.

"What is your name?" he asked, his voice coming as a low, private rumble only for me.

My throat was dry. I had to force the word out. "Ava."

"Ava," he repeated, the name sounding foreign and heavy on his tongue. He didn't ask about my family, my status, or my work. He didn't care. "You will be my Luna. You will stand by my side. You will not refuse this bond."

I wanted to scream, to weep, to tell him I was just a girl who cleaned toilets and that I couldn't possibly be the Luna of the most powerful, feared Alpha in the territory. But the mark on my wrist throbbed, locking my tongue in place.

"This is madness!"

The new voice was piercing, sharp with a terrifying authority. The King's Seer-an ancient, wizened woman who served as the spiritual advisor to the crown-pushed through the crowd. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, entirely white, and she moved as if possessed.

She stopped several feet away, pointing a bony finger past Caeser and directly at me.

"The bond exists! But this union... this is the Curse fulfilled! The prophesy of the Dark Moon is upon us! This slave's blood is tainted, Alpha! Your love for her will be the key to your destruction, the poison in the heart of the crown! She will not bring life; she will bring the Fall! Kill her now! Break the bond by shedding her blood, before she drags you into the shadow!"

Her scream was pure terror, a sound that finally seemed to shake Caeser. For the first time, a flicker of doubt, or perhaps just cold fury, crossed his scarred face.

The seer's words gave the King the courage he needed. "You hear the Seer, Caeser! It is the will of the Ancestors! She must be executed! Guards! Seize the girl and purify the hall!"

The two guards, invigorated by the King's renewed authority and the Seer's pronouncement, rushed me again. One grabbed my arm, the other lunged, his intent clearly not just to hold me but to strike.

And he did.

A heavy, open-handed smack caught me across the cheek. It wasn't a killing blow, but it hurt so bad. My head snapped back, the sharp pain blinding me for a second, and a metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth.

The world seemed to slow to a crawl. I heard the gasps, but they sounded distant, watery. I barely registered the heat and fury of the mark on my wrist. I only felt the sting and the cold, crushing realization that this was my life-I'd moved from one master's boot heel to another's fist.

But before the guard could even draw his hand back, Caeser moved.

No one saw it. It wasn't a blur; it was a cessation of motion and then a sudden, terrifying presence. One moment, he was holding my arm; the next, he had shifted, his entire body a wall between me and the guard.

The Cursed Alpha didn't use a claw or a weapon. He simply used the back of his hand-a lightning-fast, brutal strike that connected with the guard's temple.

A sickening crunch echoed through the silent hall. Blood sprayed, a fine red mist against the white of the royal carpet. The guard dropped instantly, hitting the marble with a dull, heavy thud. He wasn't just unconscious; he was out cold.

Caeser stood over the downed man, his chest rising and falling in shallow, controlled breaths. The scent of raw, unrestrained Alpha power rolled off him, making every wolf in the room drop their heads in submission.

He looked down at the bleeding, unconscious guard, and then, slowly, he lifted his gaze to the King. The silver in his eyes seemed to have swallowed the light.

He straightened to his full, devastating height, his voice a low, terrifying vibration that carried nothing but pure menace.

"Try that again," he whispered, "and I'll start with your King."

Ava's POV

The kingdom has one rule: no one defies the Moon Court and lives.

The blood of the unconscious guard was still glistening on the marble. Caeser had just threatened the life of the King, his own father, and the silence that followed was a deep, pregnant hush before a massacre.

"High Treason!" the King shrieked, finally finding his voice. He scrambled off his throne, robes rustling, and pointed a shaking finger at Alpha Caeser. "You have defied the sacred Mating Rites, rejected the Edicts, and threatened the Crown! Guards! Surround him! He is no longer your Alpha King-he is a traitor! Seize them both!"

Dozens of elite Alpha Guards, the warriors who had been paralyzed by Caeser's sheer power, finally overcame their fear and surged forward. They didn't rush in blindly; they formed a tight, armed semi-circle around Caeser and me, their blades drawn and catching the light. We were completely trapped on the dais. The nobles, realizing a genuine fight was imminent, were retreating, scrambling over each other to get to the doors.

I could feel the rising heat radiating from Caeser's body. His grip on my arm tightened in a way that said, 'don't move'. The air was thick with the metallic scent of tension and a dangerous, forbidden magic.

"Do you really think you can defeat them all, Caeser?" the King taunted, standing safely behind his wall of soldiers. "You are one wolf against the entire Alpha Guard. You are tired. You are wounded. Give up the girl. Your defiance stops now."

Caeser didn't even look at his father. His silver eyes were scanning the circle of guards, calculating angles, weak points, and the precise moment they would attack.

"They will die," Caeser stated, his voice calm, chillingly matter-of-fact. "Every one of them. For a crime that is not worth the life of a single wolf."

The King scoffed. "A crime? No, Caeser. The crime is her existence! Look at her! She is nothing! A street-rat who will bring the curse upon us all!"

The words finally broke through the terror and hit me with a cold, sickening clarity.

He was right. I was nothing. A servant.

I was dragging the future Alpha King-this terrifying, powerful, lonely man-into an execution just because of a mark I didn't ask for. My fault. All my fault.

I tugged gently at Caeser's sleeve, whispering, "You have to let me go. I'm not worth this. Don't fight them. I'll... I'll tell them the Mark is fake, I'll take the blame..."

He didn't turn his head, but his grip instantly became an iron clamp. "Silence. Do not insult the Moon Goddess with your doubt, Ava. You are my mate. That is all that matters."

Then, in the face of the armed guard and the screaming King, Alpha Caeser Varyn began to lower himself to the ground.

He didn't kneel in submission to his father. He didn't bow to the guards.

He knelt for me.

He dropped to one knee on the blood-splattered carpet, his massive frame folding gracefully. His silver eyes, which were minutes ago filled with the pure threat of Alpha power, now focused entirely on my face, searching, demanding.

"Ava," he said, his voice dropping to a low, intimate murmur that only I could hear over the King's angry spluttering. "They will attack. I will fight. I will win, but it will be terrible. I have fought for my life a thousand times, but now I fight for us."

Us. I blinked.

He lifted a scarred hand and gently, almost reverently, touched the throbbing mark on my wrist. The connection flared, a sudden, blinding heat of belonging.

"I need to know one thing before this hall burns to the ground," he continued, the intensity in his gaze impossible to look away from. "Do you trust me?"

The question was insane.

I didn't know this man. He was the Cursed Alpha, a figure of nightmares and blood-soaked legends. He was threatening everyone I had ever known. I was a slave who cleaned up after him, and now he was asking for my faith.

Yet, when I looked into those silver eyes, past the scars and the fury, I saw a deep, profound loneliness-a reflection of my own.

I saw a man who had been cast out, feared, and left to survive alone, just as I had been. And he was choosing to fight the whole world for me. For the first time in my life, I wasn't invisible.

My voice was barely a breath, but the connection between us amplified the answer until it felt like a vow carved in stone.

"Yes," I whispered. "I trust you." I didn't know why. But it felt true. It felt like destiny.

A faint look of relief crossed his face. He nodded, looking kind of proud.

"Good."

He rose back to his full, towering height. His eyes were no longer silver; they were blazing white, pure light, like the heart of the moon itself. He lifted both hands, not to draw a weapon, but to gesture.

The binding circle. The royal ceremony had been performed within a massive, inlaid gold circle in the center of the hall, a relic meant to contain and purify the spiritual power of the mating rites.

Caeser Varyn focused on that circle.

"The Moon Goddess defied your laws first, King," Caeser snarled, his voice now layered, echoing with power that sounded like a thousand wolves howling at once. "You will not bind Her will!"

With a sickening, screeching sound, the entire gold inlay of the binding circle shattered.

It wasn't just metal; it was pure power. The energy containment failed instantly. A massive, deafening CRACK ripped through the room, followed by an explosive burst of blue and white light. The air was instantly sucked away, replaced by a suffocating pressure.

Then, the flames.

They erupted from the shattered circle, not ordinary fire, but a furious, ethereal blaze that consumed the sacred carpet and raced up the velvet drapes in seconds. The ceremony hall, built for permanence and status, was immediately engulfed in an impossible, terrifying inferno.

Guards screamed, dropping their weapons and scrambling to extinguish the magical flames that clung to their uniforms and their very skin. The King was shouting, his voice now a desperate plea for escape.

Caeser grabbed my waist, hauling me against his solid, unmoving body. "Hold on, Ava!"

He didn't run through the guards; he ran into them. He slammed his body into the nearest cluster of soldiers, sending them scattering like bowling pins, their armor useless against his possessed strength. He moved with a brutal, single-minded focus, using his power to blast open a path through the flames and the terror.

We reached the massive oak doors that led out of the burning hall. Caeser shouldered them open, the wood groaning and splitting under the force. He dragged me out into the cool, blessed air of the courtyard.

"Don't look back!" he commanded, already sprinting across the stone. He was fast, impossibly fast, and I had to fight to keep my footing. "The stables! We head for the deep woods!"

He threw me onto the back of a black warhorse tethered nearby and leaped up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, his body a shield against the cold night air. The horse reared, startled by the chaos, but Caeser's Alpha command instantly calmed it.

As we galloped out of the palace gates, past the frantic, shouting servants and panicking villagers, I couldn't resist. I twisted slightly in his powerful embrace and looked back at the burning palace.

Flames were licking at the roof of the ritual hall. Smoke billowed into the night sky, a dark signal of the destruction we'd caused.

And standing silhouetted against the inferno, utterly alone, was the King.

His face was a mask of cold, terrifying resolve. His lips didn't move, but a voice echoed directly in my mind, bypassing my ears entirely.

My heart seized in my chest as I saw his eyes. They were glowing, not with silver or white, but a dreadful, corrupted white. The light of the Moon, but the twisted version.

"Run all you want," the King's voice whispered in my head, chilling me to the bone.

"But I'll find you."