A Queen's Dark Prison

Chapter 4: Getting The Alpha To Eat

-Octavia-

“You’re mine now!” Valerio catches my arm, pulling me back against his warm body, his lips quickly descending on my neck, right where his mark is. I can’t suppress the moan that escapes my lips. It always feels so good whenever he kisses the mark on my shoulder. Just his finger gracing it is enough to make me hot and pant for him. I look over my shoulder, seeing him pull back a little and smile.

“I’m all yours,” I vow, seeing the love shine in his eyes.

We have just had the ceremony, and while I wanted to make it challenging for him to catch me, I truly wanted him to reach me. So I hadn’t made it very difficult, and now I am his, even though he has already claimed me fully. He turns me around and then shreds my red ceremonial dress, leaving me standing naked before him. He growls deeply, pleased, and then pulls me close again to kiss me.

“I have never loved anyone like I love you,” he whispers.

His words barely hold any power, but I hear them anyway. I know what he means. Love is not something I was taught. Love is... I can’t understand it, but I know I feel it. I feel it for him... Only him.

“Never let me go again,” I implore.

It is rare for us to be so vulnerable, but today is something special for us both. We are both so stubborn, having lost so much and thinking our high walls would protect us. They won’t, but we will. We will protect each other. We will stand by each other.

“Never,” he promises. “I will never let anything take you from me.”

I smile up at him before he crashes his lips to mine, then lowers me to the ground to claim me and make me truly his.

-Rider-

My brother was just where I knew I would find him: behind his desk. It was unbelievable how much he reminded me of our father. It was like he was here. Valerio had always been a copy of him. Maybe that was why our father had always favored him. Or maybe it was just because he was better than the rest of us.

He had been born to lead. We all knew it. Even though I tried hard to earn my father’s approval, I never believed I ever really got it in the same way Valerio did. The rest of us just reminded him too much of our mother, not that our father didn’t love her. They were fated mates, and he adored her more than anything. He just found it difficult to show his feelings.

I knew our grandfather hadn’t been very kind, not that we spoke much of him. Our father, just like Valerio, had had to take over at a young age. Valerio, in a way, was even younger, sadly. The crown may have been taken from him, but he was still king.

Though it had been hard on both of them—taking over because their father had been killed—history just liked to repeat itself, but I knew our father would never have done what Valerio had done, which was tell everyone to go f**k themselves and then accept a traitor’s daughter.

Yeah, he would certainly not have gone that far, but then again, I couldn’t really tell. It seemed like our father might have had some hidden sides to him. I never knew he had cradled Ryker’s body while crying for him, the day he died, but Valerio said that was what he saw.

Our father had tried to save the son we all thought he didn’t love, but he secretly did. He was just too set in the old ways to really show it. Valerio had luckily broken those old ways. Yet the council didn’t, and I couldn’t say any of us were sad they were gone.

However, we had to build a new one and make it better. My brother knew this too, and it was without a doubt one of the tasks he was working on at the moment.

“Either come inside and close the door or get out,” my brother ordered, not even looking up from his computer.

I smiled a little and then closed the door behind me.

“I think we should talk,” I proposed.

“I would rather you were quiet, so I can work.”

I sighed, shaking my head. “As your doctor—”

“Nope.”

“What?” I inquired.

He finally glanced over the edge of the computer, his eyes narrowing.

“Do not play the doctor card,” he stated. “You come in here as my brother. Not a doctor.”

I smiled and then crossed my arms.

“Fine, that is even better,” I informed him, noticing his confusion.

“What?”

“Yeah, then perhaps you might listen, because as your doctor I would advise you to eat, but as your brother, I am here to tell you I am concerned.”

Valerio sighed and shook his head.

“I should never have said anything,” he muttered and focused on the computer again.

I walked over to him and slammed the screen down. That at least elicited a proper reaction, and Valerio growled deeply before standing from his chair, grabbing me by the collar of my dark grey shirt, and pushing me up against the wall.

“Don’t f*****g do that!” he growled.

I just smiled.

“Finally, a real reaction,” I remarked. “What now? Are you going to punch me? Are we finally going to figure out who is the strongest?”

That almost made him smile.

“When was the last time you fought someone?” he asked me.

“Hmm, it has been a while, but I am also born from the royal line, and I do work out with the males here. I haven’t grown soft.”

He raised an eyebrow, not entirely convinced, but at least he let go of me.

“I don’t have time to figure out who of us is the strongest one,” he said and walked back to his desk, sitting down on that chair that looked almost like a damn throne with golden lines around the edges.

He tried pushing up his computer screen, but I was over there so fast, closing it again. Valerio drew back, his whole body tense, and it was clear I was getting on his last nerve.

“Do that one more time and you won’t have a hand, brother,” he warned me, looking up at me.

I just smiled a little.

“Good thing I know how to attach a limb,” I retorted.

Yet Valerio wasn’t in the mood for joking.

“Listen, I have not been myself in months,” he said. “I barely even remember anything before Octavia was taken. This is the first time in a long time I am a little clearheaded, and that is because... is because I saw her. I was so damn close, Rider. She was right in front of me, and then those d**k heads got in the way. I just... I need to get this done, so I can go after her again.”

“But you aren’t alone in searching for her anymore. You can eat without it changing anything.”

“How do you know that?” he asked me. “How do you know that every second doesn’t count?”

“Honestly?”

He nodded.

“I don’t,” I admitted.

“See?!”

“But I also don’t know if we will ever get Octavia back,” I said, noticing his anger, but he didn’t move from his chair again. “What I do know is that you are starving yourself. When was the last time you ate?”

“I ate a little before I got here.”

“Which was almost over a day ago. Now, you need to come down to eat, and not just for your sake, but everyone else’s as well,” I told him.

“What the f**k do you mean?”

“I mean, that you are this pack’s alpha, but you are also our king. We need you to take care of yourself, or it will affect us too,” I explained.

That seemed to make something click, and he sighed, looking away.

“Food tastes of nothing,” he whispered.

“What?”

“It doesn’t have a taste anymore!” he shouted. “I can’t eat it because it’s... it’s disgusting.”

“But you need it,” I told him calmly. “We all need to eat, but we barely can because you are up here pushing yourself and hurting yourself. We feel it too. Don’t you remember what Father taught us?”

I knew that did something. Bringing up our father always did, because Valerio had adored him. We all had. He was so strong and a good king. A really good king. He might not have been the best father, but he was there for us, or almost all of us. He had been hard on Ryker, but he was still a father to us.

“The pack is only as strong as its alpha. If the alpha fails them, then don’t expect the pack to have his back,” Valerio recited.

“Exactly. So are you going to come down and eat with us?” I asked.