Trapped Between The Alpha And The Lycan King

“You will get married to the Lycan King in place of your sister, Cassidy.”

Alpha Xarold’s words landed like stones, and Cassidy’s eyes flew open in shock. The Lycan King was a beast no one would willingly come within a hundred miles of. What’s more, he was centuries older than her!

“No, Father. You can’t do this to me.” She begged, her eyes wide with horror.

“You should have thought of that before you took my daughter away from me!” Luna Daisy screamed, and Cassidy flinched. They always seemed to forget that she was also their daughter.

“We have no choice, Cassidy.” Alpha Xarold pinched the bridge of his nose.

“What do you mean?” she whispered. Her legs had already gone weak, her knees dangerously close to giving out beneath her. She was used to her parents punishing her—they had done it her whole life—but she had always been released eventually. This would be a lifetime sentence.

“You know that your sister was betrothed to the Lycan King to save our pack, don’t you?” Alpha Xarold’s eyes softened as he spoke. “This is the only way, or everyone will be ash before noon tomorrow.”

“Of course I know. Elara told me.” She bit her lip as her sister’s name escaped her mouth.

“Your sister ran away to protect her unborn pup but what about the pack? Do you understand what will happen when he arrives tomorrow and his bride isn’t here?”

Tears burned her eyes as the weight of what she had done crashed over her. She had been so blinded by love for her sister, so consumed by the thought of the unborn pup, that she hadn’t stopped to think of the thousands who would pay for her choice.

“He will burn this pack to the ground with everyone inside it. Do you want to be the reason thousands of innocent people die?”

Cassidy shook her head violently. The image was already forming in her mind and she couldn’t bear it. Her father was right. This was her mistake, and she had to fix it.

“What if he finds out?” Her voice came out barely above a whisper.

“He won’t, unless you tell him.” Luna Daisy’s expression had shifted into something almost calculating. “No one outside this pack knows you exist. The pack members barely know your face. You are the invisible daughter of the Towers household, and besides, you are the mirror image of your sister. You can do this.”

“But what if someone tells him?”

“No one will, because no one knows you exist. If anyone asks, I will simply say you’ve gone to stay with a distant relative.” Her mother’s voice was matter-of-fact, almost bored. “It isn’t as though anyone would come looking for you.”

Her mother was right. She was the unseen daughter of the Towers family—a shadow in her own home. She had always known it, but hearing it said aloud so plainly squeezed her heart like a fist.

I can do this, she told herself. I have to.

“Just do this one thing for us. You have brought nothing but shame to this family. This is your only chance to prove that you have changed.” Cassidy looked at her father, and he nodded at her—not with authority, but with something that looked almost like pleading.

“Fine. I will do it.”

Luna Daisy pulled her into a bone-crushing hug, the first real embrace Cassidy could ever remember from her mother. Her arms wrapped slowly around her mother’s back as she breathed in her scent, aching with the knowledge that this was only happening because she was useful now.

“Thank you for thinking of the pack’s safety.” Her father’s hand patted her back once, twice. She nodded against his chest.

“Sleep early so you won’t have shadows under your eyes. Everything is arranged, your mother will adjust your sister’s wedding gown to fit you. Goodnight.” For the first time in her life, her father pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

She watched them disappear from her room, then sank onto the edge of her bed.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that this would end in disaster. Everything she had heard about the Lycan King told her he was not a man who could be easily fooled. He was a hybrid who had lived for centuries—practically her ancestor in age. How could one deceive their ancestors?

Oh Moon Goddess, please help me do this for the safety of my family and my pack.

She tried to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw him. The Lycan King, wreathed in shadow, waiting. It didn’t help that in a matter of hours, she would be walking toward him as his bride.

She reached for her water bottle and drank it dry, but it did nothing to settle her nerves.

The stories flooded her mind. She had heard that he killed his mate simply for speaking to his brother. His rage had no equal. She tried not to dwell on what he would do to her parents and her pack if he uncovered the truth—and she knew, bone-deep, that he eventually would. He was the devil, and nothing stayed hidden from the devil. She could only pray that they would be far from his reach by the time he figured it out.

She picked up the photograph on her nightstand—her and Elara, taken when Cassidy was six. Two little girls squinting into the sun, Elara’s arm thrown around her shoulders.

“I hope you and Damon are safe, wherever you are,” she whispered. “I promise I will hold everything together until you come home. I promise.”

She finally closed her eyes.

“You need to get up.”

The voice cut through her sleep and she tried to pull a pillow over her ear, but it followed her.

She opened her eyes slowly. Elara’s personal maid stood at the bedside, bowing.

“You need to rise and prepare for your wedding, my Lady.”

Cassidy blinked and looked around. She wasn’t in her room. She was in Elara’s—surrounded by Elara’s furniture, Elara’s curtains, Elara’s life. Her parents hadn’t been speaking loosely last night.

“What time is it?”

The omega’s eyes widened. Surely her mistress knew what day it was.

“Six o’clock, My Lady. Thirty minutes earlier than your usual time.” She smiled apologetically.

Cassidy groaned. So this was how her sister lived—woken gently, with ceremony. No one had ever bothered to wake Cassidy. She had simply risen when she chose, or not at all.

“Just a minute,” she muttered and pressed her face back into the pillow.

“Please, My Late. If you are late, the Luna will have me dismissed. I have nowhere else to go.”

Cassidy exhaled and sat up.

“Where are you going, My Lady?”

“To the bathroom. To get ready,” Cassidy said, already swinging her legs off the bed.

“All by yourself?” The omega looked genuinely alarmed.

Cassidy caught herself. Right. Elara was the pack’s princess and had been treated as one her entire life. If Cassidy was going to play her convincingly, she couldn’t afford a single slip. There could be no leakage in the story.

She stepped back and waited.

The omega opened the door, and three others filed in with quiet efficiency, bowing in unison.

“Good morning, My Lady.”

Cassidy nodded and submitted herself to them. They undressed her, guided her to the bathroom, bathed her, dried her, and finally draped Elara’s silk robe around her shoulders. It was softer than anything she owned.

This is how Elara lived every day.

“There is my perfect daughter.”

Cassidy turned. Her mother stood in the doorway, her face alight with a warmth she never directed at Cassidy. She crossed the room and pressed a kiss to each of her cheeks. The omegas bowed and slipped out, pulling the door closed behind them.

“The make-up artist will arrive shortly. She will make sure you look every bit the part.” Her mother’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Do not ruin this. I will not forgive you if you do.”

The words stayed with her even after she stepped into the gown and her mother had left the room.

It was breathtaking —constructed from the finest materials, with a silhouette she had only ever admired from afar. It was, she realized, the wedding gown she had always imagined for herself. She might have been genuinely happy, if she weren’t walking to her own grave.

Then the air shifted.

The hair at the back of her neck rose, and something tugged at the deepest part of her—a pull she had never felt before, ancient and magnetic and terrifying.

Mate.

Her wolf’s voice surfaced like a warning, and Cassidy spun around.

She couldn’t find her mate. Not now. Not today, not when she was being sacrificed to the Lycan King to preserve the lives of everyone she loved.

Her mouth fell open.

Mate, her wolf whispered again.

He was her mate.

Her mind reeled. What crime had she committed in a past life to deserve this kind of suffering? Even her wolf, frantic with recognition, didn’t dare step toward him—it only whimpered, pressing itself small inside her chest.

Her head screamed at her to back away. Her heart lurched toward him. Her feet, apparently loyal to neither, began to move.

She tried to stop them. They didn’t listen.

They carried her forward until she stood barely an inch from him, and she breathed in his scent without meaning to. It moved through her like current, and her wolf shivered.

“Mate,” she said, before her mind could catch the word.

He raised his hand. She could feel the heat of it, the proximity but he wasn’t touching her. Not yet. His eyes held something she recognized. She had seen it once in her father’s gaze when he looked at her mother. Elara had told her that was what love looked like.

Then it was gone.

What replaced it was something she knew far better: hatred. Disgust. The expressions she had grown up reading like a language.

His hand closed around her throat.

She clawed at his grip, fought for air, tried to grab the door frame but her hand fell uselessly back to her side as though it had forgotten her entirely. Tears spilled down her face as her lungs burned. She looked at him, silent, begging and he did not flinch. He simply watched as her knees buckled and she sank to the floor at his feet. When she crumpled, coughing, gasping, he crouched to her level and caught her chin, forcing her head back so she had no choice but to meet his eyes.

“Hello, mate.” His voice was quiet and unhurried, and every word was soaked in contempt. “A pleasure to meet you but you can’t die just yet. Your nightmare has only just begun.”

Her heart seized. She swallowed against the rawness of her throat.

He already knew.

She reached up and touched her own face. Wet. She hadn’t even realized she was crying.

“You look beautiful, my love.” Her father whispered the words against her ear as he offered her his arm. The doors would open any moment, and she prayed the Moon Goddess would change his mind.

“Father, please, I can’t do this. He is my mate.” She kept her voice low, letting the tremor in it speak for her. They could still turn back. There was still time.

“Then you have nothing to worry about, Cassidy. He won’t hurt you.” Joy flickered in his eyes, and she almost screamed. He wasn’t listening.

“But he is the Lycan King, Father.”

“I know, baby girl.” The white-haired man beside her exhaled slowly. “But there is no other way. You are strong. You will survive this.”

She searched his face for doubt, for hesitation, for anything she could pull on. There was nothing.

“We started this and we cannot back out now. Think of the pack. You are saving everyone.”

Little act. The words sat sourl