Continue the Story
The Cursed Alpha’s Mute Bride – Episode 01
Golden chandeliers flooded the great hall of Wolfhart Castle with warm light, turning crystal goblets into tiny flames and making the silver engagement banners gleam. Music drifted above the laughter of the Eclipse Pack, every note proclaiming that Anneliese Wolfhart had made a match worthy of an Alpha’s daughter.
Wren watched the celebration from the servants’ archway, where the light thinned into shadow. A smear of flour crossed one cheek, and the plain gray dress Gertrude required her to wear was dusted white at the sleeves. No one looking at her would have guessed she belonged to the Wolfhart bloodline too.
Her attention remained fixed on the cake at the center of the banquet table. Three ivory tiers rose beneath delicate sugar roses, each petal shaped by hand during the long hours before dawn. Wren had even spun threads of caramel into a crescent moon—the symbol Anneliese had loved when they were children.
She had imagined her sister recognizing it. Perhaps Anneliese would remember the nights they once spent whispering beneath the blankets, before their father died and Gertrude’s cruelty poisoned everything between them. Wren did not expect gratitude. A single softened glance would have been enough.
Instead, Anneliese stopped before the table and stared as if someone had laid a dead animal among the wedding gifts. Her jeweled hand hovered over the caramel moon. The guests nearest her fell quiet, eager for whatever spectacle their future Luna might provide.
“Don’t tell me that’s the cake.” Anneliese’s laugh rang sharply through the hall. She turned so the entire gathering could see her beautiful face twist with disgust. “Goddess, I knew you were a cursed mute, but are you blind too?”
The words struck harder because Wren had heard versions of them all her life. Heat rushed into her cheeks as pack members leaned together, their whispers moving through the room like dry leaves. A few laughed openly. Others studied their cups, unwilling to defend her and risk Gertrude’s displeasure.
Wren lifted her hands, instinctively shaping the signs she used with the kitchen staff. I made it for you. She stopped after the first motion. Anneliese had never bothered to learn more than a few gestures, and the scorn in her eyes made it clear that she would not try tonight.
The engagement music stumbled to a halt. Gertrude Wolfhart crossed the polished floor in a gown of midnight velvet, the crowd parting before her as though she were already Luna of the Eclipse Pack rather than the Alpha’s widow. Her red lips curved, but there was no warmth in the expression.
“What have you done now?” Gertrude asked. Her gaze traveled from Wren’s flour-streaked dress to the cake, lingering on every imagined flaw. She did not need an answer. Questions from Gertrude were merely doors through which punishment entered.
Wren swallowed against the familiar tightness in her throat. A faint breath of sound escaped her—too broken to become speech, too soft to carry beyond the table. She pointed to the uncut cake and pressed a hand to her heart. She had truly believed she had done a good job.
Gertrude seized her wrist before she could finish signing. “Clean yourself up. You’re disgusting.” Her voice carried easily through the silent hall. “Must you spoil every occasion? Somehow, whenever this family is embarrassed, you are standing at the center of it.”
Pain pinched beneath Gertrude’s fingers, but Wren refused to struggle. Resistance only encouraged her stepmother. She stared at the dark stone in Gertrude’s necklace instead—a strange, smoky jewel that always seemed colder than the air around it—and waited for the grip to loosen.
Anneliese plucked one sugar rose from the cake. She crushed it between her fingers, letting the pieces scatter across the linen. “My engagement feast deserved a proper confectioner, Mother. Nikolaus and his family will think we let kitchen vermin crawl over the food.”
More laughter answered her. Wren’s gaze found Nikolaus near the high table, handsome in ceremonial black, a silver clasp marking him as Anneliese’s chosen mate. He did not laugh. The slow way his eyes moved over Wren made something far worse than humiliation creep beneath her skin.
Gertrude released Wren only to brush flour from her shoulder with a contemptuous flick. “A mute, ugly, useless werewolf,” she announced, circling her like a hunter assessing wounded prey. “No wolf. No voice. No gift worth naming. What pack would ever take such a creature?”
Wren’s nails pressed into her palms. At twenty, she had never shifted, never heard the answering voice of a wolf inside her mind. The Eclipse Pack treated that absence as proof of corruption. Gertrude had made certain everyone attached the word cursed to Wren’s name.
“No one will ever want you as a mate,” her stepmother continued. “You should be grateful we give you a roof and allow you to cook for us. Without the mercy of this family, you would have been driven into the wild years ago.”
Mercy. Wren almost laughed, though her damaged throat could not have shaped the sound. Mercy was sleeping beside the kitchens so Gertrude would not have to see her at breakfast. Mercy was working until her hands blistered while Anneliese wore the jewels their father had meant to divide between both daughters.
The crowd blurred at the edges of Wren’s vision. She remembered her father lifting her onto his shoulders, calling her his brave little bird because she had never feared the castle heights. He had promised Wolfhart blood would always protect its own. Death had taken him before he could keep that promise.
