Cry Harder, Alpha: Your Luna Is The Lycan Queen Now! Chapter 02

Cry Harder, Alpha: Your Luna Is The Lycan Queen Now! Chapter 02

Three days. That is how long it takes the curse to go from killing me slowly to killing me fast. I wake before dawn with blood in my mouth. The pain rips through my chest and bends me in half on the floor of my cold little room. Black blood spills down my lips. My core is failing in real time, and only the silverleaf antidote kept in the Alpha’s first aid kit can ease my pain. I drag myself down to Aiden’s study, and every step brings immeasurable pain to my chest. It takes everything I have just to reach his door. It is left slightly open, and I push it. Aiden has Jasmine bent over his desk. Her dress is shoved up around her waist, and he is buried deep inside her, pounding into her hard, one hand fisted in her hair. She is shamelessly moaning his name. Neither of them stops. I stand in the doorway with my own blood on my chin and watch my mate finish inside my sister. Five years of loving him turns sour in my mouth. I cough violently, unable to hold back anymore. More black blood hits the floor. Aiden snaps his head up. His eyes are furious, glaring at me, and he has no decency to pull out from her. “What the hell are you doing in here?” he growls. “Medicine,” I whisper. “My core is failing. I need the silverleaf. Please.” Jasmine looks at me over her shoulder, flushed, and her eyes fill up with tears on command. “Sister, don’t look at us with such dirty eyes! You already have everything. Why must you barge in and begrudge me this one tiny piece of his affection? Can you not leave us any dignity?” “I really do not care,” I say, tasting the black blood coating my teeth. “You can tear at each other like wild dogs all night if you want to. Just let me get the medicine from the desk, and I will get out of your way.” I step toward the bottle, but Aiden snatches it first. His eyes are cold as he holds it out of my reach. “Are you completely heartless?” he demands. “She is going through a dangerous heat. I am only helping her soothe the pain because she has no mate to protect her. Only a vicious, jealous woman would compare her to a rabid dog for simply trying to survive.” He glares down at me with absolute shamelessness, acting as if I am the scoundrel caught ruining our mate bond. A bitter laugh escapes my lips. How incredibly generous my fated mate is, graciously sacrificing his own body to have sex with another woman just to save her life. Are there no other unmated males in our entire pack? But I rein in my temper. Fighting him is useless. “My mistake,” I say, my voice calm. “I did not realize I was interrupting a life-saving medical procedure. How incredibly selfless of you.” He sneers, grabbing the silverleaf from the desk and holding it just out of my reach. “You do not get to terrorize her and then demand my medicine. Give her a proper apology and a token of goodwill, and maybe I will spare you a dose.” I look at the man I married. Five years ago I agreed to this marriage to save his dying pack. I emptied my mother’s vaults to clear his debts. I took a silver arrow to the chest to keep him alive the day the rogues came, and that silver is the reason my core is rotting now. When a deadly plague came for the pack’s pups, I gave my blood to the healers again and again, until I could not stand, so that their children would live. I gave this man my money, my body, my blood, and my years. And he will not spare me a single dose of silverleaf. Footsteps come from the hallway, drawn by the noise, the pack elders begin to gather at the open door. Seeing her audience, Jasmine grows bolder and points at my chest. At my mother’s Luna crest, pinned over my heart. “That crest.” Her voice goes soft and sweet for the elders gathering in the doorway. “It’s always caught my eye. Won’t you let me have it? I’ll accept that in exchange for your drug.” The elders crowd the door. Not one of them looks at the blood on my chin. “Give the girl the crest,” one says, bored. “What does a dying woman want with a title?” “Five years our Luna, and now she’s bleeding on the Alpha’s floor like a sick dog,” another mutters. “Hand it over and go die with some dignity.” Aiden pulls his pants back on and looks at me with disdain. “Take it off and give it to her, Nara. Then get out. You’re bleeding on my floor.” My mother wore this crest until the day she died. It is the last piece of her I have left. I am sunken to my knees, drowning in my own blood, and not one wolf in this room is watching to see if I live. They are watching to see if I will hand it over. My fingers are slick with blood, but I unpin it slowly, so no one can call the shaking fear. “A crest is only a borrowed coat,” I say. My voice is calm. “If my sister is so cold without it, let her wear it.” I press it into Jasmine’s open palm. “Congratulations again,” I whisper. “I hope it keeps you warm.” The elders nod, pleased at last. “There. She’s finally learned her place,” one says. “Jasmine’s kindness has made her so humble.” Humble. As if dying has done them all a favour. I turn to leave, choking on my own blood, but the room tilts. My legs gives way under me, and darkness rushes up, and this time no one in that room even pretends to reach for me. Then the doors to the large halls rip off their hinges and slam into the wall. Power floods the room, so heavy the elders drop to their knees on instinct. A handsome man stands in the broken doorway. He is huge, taller than any wolf here, with a long scar carved down one side of his face. I have never seen him before in my life. But goddess, he is breathtaking! He crosses the room before I can hit the floor and catches me against his chest. His arms are strongly tightened around me. What is he doing? His intoxicating scent teases my wolf, a pleasurable scent that unreleashes warmth and butterflies. Goddess. What is happening? The handsome stranger’s voice comes out low and shaking with rage, aimed at every wolf in the room with an Alpha command. “Who let her get like this?” No one answers. No one breathes. “A healer!” The word is a roar that surges through the hall. “Bring one now, or I will kill every wolf under this roof with my bare hands.” The elders press their faces to the floor. The whispers spread out thin and terrified. “The Lycan King!” “Why is he holding her?” I look up at the scarred stranger keeping me off the floor. I force my eyes to stay open. The Lycan King does not look at Aiden. He does not look at the elders. He looks at my bloody chin, and then he looks into my eyes, deeply, with those electrifying blue eyes and a softness no one has ever spared me. “I have looked everywhere for you,” he whispers. “Who did this to the last Royal Spirit Wolf?”