The Alpha King’s Broken Mate

Survive or not.

Caspian’s POV

She said to stop and I did. But it was already too late.

The door closed behind me with a sharp finality that echoed louder than the sound itself. I stood in the hallway, frozen, the silence of the corridor bearing down on me like judgment.

I could still hear her voice, small, strained, shaking in my head.

“Don’t touch me.”

That plea wasn’t one born of flirtation or coyness. She sounded like she was terrified. And I had caused it.

My jaw clenched until it ached. I turned away from the door like it burned

I had never had to worry about anyone before. This feeling is new to me! I worry about someone else's well being apart from mine.

No, it's not because I need her now, it is not because of the way her body speaks to me.

Namiko’s scent clung to me, tangerines and warmth and something wild. Her skin had tasted like frost melting into spring. She had been so soft beneath me, so yielding. But she hadn’t moaned like I wanted to, she had not submitted to me. She didn't cry out my name in pleasure. Only pain.

I had taken her without tenderness.

I hadn’t forced her, not by the standards of kings and wolves, not by the brutal expectations of our kind. She had stayed, I had not forced her. She didn't fight me. She hadn’t said no until she did.

But it almost didn’t matter.

Because when she did say it, I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to.

I’d been consumed, drowning in the need to claim, to mark, to dominate.

My wolf had suddenly turned me into a beast.

I dragged my hands through my hair, pacing the hallway like a caged animal. I couldn’t go back in there. Not now. Not when her silence was louder than my own heartbeat. That's why I had a maid arrange her own room for her.

I had seen a very hollow look in her eyes, as if she locked herself in another dimension and would rather lock out what was going on around.

She looked at me like that, as if I was no longer a man, but another monster.

I slammed my fist into the stone wall. Why didn't I notice the moment she left her body?

Why hadn’t I cared? But the question is why do I care about what I did to her?

I wanted obedience. Proof that she belonged to me. That she knew her place. That her submission was a crown I could force on her head.

I stalked down the corridor, blood still dripping from my hand that would not heal. I passed a few guards, they looked away, wisely silent. No one dared speak when I wore this kind of rage. Not even my Beta would be foolish enough to approach.

When I reached my private chamber, I shut the door harder than necessary. The room was dark, lit only by a dying fire. I poured a glass of whiskey with a shaking hand, and downed it in a single swallow.

The burn in my throat wasn’t nearly enough.

I had bedded dozens of women. Hundreds, maybe. I’d never cared. I didn’t need to. They came to me knowing what I was, what I demanded.

But Namiko hadn’t been like them.

She is a hybrid and I need her.

I’d built an empire on fear and force, on loyalty won through blood and dominance. The court respected me because I ruled without hesitation. Because I didn’t apologize.

I poured another drink, but this time I didn’t drink it. I stared into the amber liquid, my reflection distorted, unfamiliar.

What would my father say?

He’d probably laugh. Call her weak. Tell me a broken b***h can still breed, But I wasn’t my father, not entirely.

A king with no soul left to salvage.

I slammed the glass down on the desk, the whiskey sloshing over the rim. The fire popped in the hearth, casting shadows that looked too much like ghosts.

Namiko

The scent of him still clung to my skin, no matter how many times I scrubbed him away, no matter how raw my hands became, how scalding the water turned, I couldn’t erase him. His touch had soaked into me lingering like smoke in a ruined temple.

I sat on the cold stone floor of the bathing room, arms wrapped around my knees, forehead pressed to them, shaking. What had I done? What had he done?

My breath caught again, sharp as a blade, and I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound. I couldn’t cry. Not here. Not where anyone could hear me. The palace was full of ears, full of eyes. They would see me as a weakness and tear it apart. Maids are everywhere. It is clear that they already hate me. They don't really want me here. The council didn't hide that fact.

He had just f****d me brutally and . possessively as if I was something to be used, something he was allowed to conquer. And I had let him. I had laid still, silent, trying to survive it like I had survived everything else. Until I couldn’t anymore.

Until that word “No” had broken free from my lips. But then, he’d stopped. That was the part I cannot understand.

Caspian Ravenwood, the Alpha King, the beast cloaked in black silk and cruelty, the one his rumors have spread around in the werewolf world as a devil, he had stopped when I asked him.

He could’ve forced me, he could’ve finished, I mean that's what he wanted to do. His eyes had gleamed with the kind of hunger that never ended in mercy.

But something in my voice, something in my eyes, must’ve shattered through him.

And then he was gone.

Why?

I didn’t want to care. Didn’t want to think about him. But my mind wouldn’t let me go. It dragged me back to the heat of his skin, the weight of his body, the flash of confusion in his expression when I said no.

I stood up, wrapping a towel around myself, my hands trembling as I looked in the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot. My lips are swollen. A purple bruise bloomed on my collarbone where his teeth had marked me.

Mine, his body had said. Mine, his touch had screamed. But I wasn’t. Not really. I am just someone he needs at the moment. At the end of the day, I am still a nobody.

I dried off and dressed slowly in one of the soft gowns the maids left for me. I didn’t want to go back to his room. Didn’t want to lie in that bed again, haunted by the shape of his absence and the ghost of what had happened between us.

So I didn’t. And he must have thought this through when he asked a maid to bring me into this room. He was avoiding me.

I wandered the halls like a phantom, barefoot and silent. No one stopped me, no one even looked at me twice. I guess I am now under the power of their Alpha king. Whether they find me unworthy or not, they have to respect the Alpha king. I am now his woman.

Eventually, I found an old chapel, I slipped inside and closed the door.

It felt calm and undisturbed, and in a way it felt like I could let everything out, a tear to two slipped out but maybe not today. I should not be slacking off, I need to finish my task, I need to find out how to heal the alpha king.

A sound stirred behind me. I stiffened, wiping my face fast, heart hammering. Footsteps came close, quiet, steady, and purposefully echoed against the floor. I turned, expecting a guard.

But it was him. Caspian.

He stood in the doorway, dressed in black, his long coat still damp from the storm outside. His hair was tousled, his eyes unreadable. A shadow of stubble darkened his jaw, and something about him looked. . . unmade.

I stood quickly, backing away. “How did you find me?”

He didn’t answer right away. Just looked at me like I was some riddle he couldn’t solve.

“You weren’t in my chambers.”

“I didn’t want to be.”

His jaw tightened. “I noticed.”

I crossed my arms, trying to build a wall between us. “Is that why you came? To drag me back?”

“No.”

Silence pressed between us, and then he stepped forward, slow and deliberate. I flinched before I could stop myself.

He halted.

That look again like something inside him recoiled at my fear. “I didn’t come to hurt you,” he said, voice rough.

“It still doesn't stop the fact that you did”

He winced, a flicker, a c***k in the ice, and I hated how that softened something in me. I wanted to hate him. I needed to. But hate didn’t erase the fact that he had stopped.

He had listened, and now, he was in front of me, here and now.

“Namiko,” he said slowly, as if tasting my name. “I don’t know what happened to you last night.“ He took another step. “But you offered yourself to me. You said you’d bear my children. Heal me. But I took that as permission to take everything.”

My throat tightened. “You did.”

He ran a hand through his hair, frustration bleeding through. “I don’t know how to be gentle. I don’t know how to want someone without conquering them. That’s what they bred me for. But with you. . .”

I swallowed hard. “With me what?”

He looked pained. Like speaking what he has in mind will cost him something. “With you, I want to try.”

I stared at him.

Caspian Ravenwood. The Alpha King. The beast they warned children about. He wants to try with me?