Vengeance of the Alpha Daughter

Della Amberley woke before dawn.

It was a habit she had built over years: waking before anyone else in the house, preparing herself before the next order came. Outside, the sky was still a deep blue, and the moon had not quite disappeared. By its fading light, she sat up on the narrow bed and set her bare feet on the cold floor.

Her room stood at the end of the westernmost corridor of the estate. It had once been a storage room. The Amberley family had three floors and more than a dozen guest rooms, every one larger and brighter than hers, but Della had lived here for as long as she could remember. Edmund Amberley said it was close to the kitchen, which made it convenient for her to rise early and get the housework done. Eve Amberley said Della had no business living so near the main house. Guests might get the wrong idea.

The wrong idea about what?

Della had never asked. She knew the answer would only hurt. Instead, she rose quietly, slipped on her old coat, faded from years of washing, smoothed the sheet, fluffed the pillow, and bent to check the cabinet beside the door. Three changes of clothes. One spare belt. A palm-sized wooden box containing several dried moonflower petals.

She had found them in the Borderwood. Moonflowers opened only on nights when the moon was full, and they grew especially well near the riverbank. Della had spent many nights there.

She eased the door open. The corridor was silent, its wall lamps still casting a dim amber glow. She crossed the flagstones barefoot, careful not to make a sound. It had become instinctive by now—not to draw attention, not to cause trouble, not to disturb anyone else's peace.

The kitchen was messier than she had expected. The previous night's banquet had lasted well past midnight, leaving plates, glasses, and dishes piled across the sink and counters. Wine stains and scraps of food had dried hard on the tables and floor. Della did not sigh or pause. She took her place at the sink, rolled up her sleeves, and began washing the first load of dishes.

The water was cold. The steward had not left any hot water the night before. Perhaps he had forgotten. Perhaps he simply did not care. In less than half a minute, Della's fingers had reddened and her knuckles had stiffened, but she did not stop. She was used to it. In this house, her body had never been a reason to put anything down.

When every plate, wineglass, and piece of silver had been washed, she dried them and returned them to their proper cupboards, arranged by size and shape. Then she wiped the tables, scrubbed the wine from the floor, put the banquet chairs back in place, and rehung the curtains. By the time she finished, daylight had come. Sunlight slanted through the windows, catching on a patch of water she had missed and illuminating it on the floor.

She dropped to her knees and rubbed at it again and again with the cloth.

"Della."

A voice came from the doorway, neither cold nor warm, carrying the effortless superiority of someone born to command. Della's hands stilled for a moment. Then she rose, turned toward the door, and lowered her lashes.

Rosalind Amberley stood on the kitchen threshold in a dark-red robe, her hair loosely pinned at the back of her head. She was three years older than Della, half a head taller, and in everyone's eyes more clearly an Amberley daughter. With her thick lashes and sharply defined jaw, she looked, standing there in silence, like the rough draft of a portrait—refined, elegant, and naturally lovely.

Beneath that carefully tended appearance, though, Della could see other things. She saw the slight downturn at the corner of Rosalind's mouth, the expression she always wore while preparing an order. She saw Rosalind's gaze pass over Della's face, then her hands, then the patch of floor where the water had been. Her eyes narrowed by the smallest degree.

Rosalind disliked it when Della cleaned too well. If Della did a poor job, Rosalind had a reason to scold her. If she did it perfectly, Rosalind assumed she was showing off.

There was no way to win. Della knew that, but she remained standing, waiting like a sailor watching for the wind to turn.

"Father's having guests tonight," Rosalind said. "The head of the Calder family and his two sons. You remember them, don't you? They came once last autumn."

Della nodded. She remembered. The Calder family ranked below the Amberleys, but they held a measure of influence within the Moonridge Clan. The last time they had visited, only the family head had come. Edmund had not allowed Della to sit at the table, but he had made her serve wine and food throughout the meal. One of the Calder servants had caught her by the arm in the corridor and asked whether she was employed by the Amberley family. She had nodded without thinking.

It was the safest answer.

"I need you to get my silver-gray dress ready," Rosalind continued. "The pleats at the hem have come loose, and there are several places where the thread has pulled away from the cuffs. The boots need another coat of wax, too. And—" She paused, her gaze dropping to Della's hair. "You should make yourself presentable before dinner. Father doesn't like you appearing in front of guests looking like that."

Della's hair was a little untidy. A few strands had fallen loose while she scrubbed the floor, and she had not yet had time to pin them back. Rosalind had noticed the raw redness on Della's hands from the cold water, but she had not asked about it.

"I'll have it ready," Della said.

Rosalind watched her for several seconds, as though waiting for a different answer. Della knew what she wanted to hear—something more obedient and explicit, like "I'd be happy to" or "I'll do it at once," the sort of thing a steward or servant might say to a master. But Della could not make those words come out.

She had never served anyone except Rosalind. She had never been a proper servant, but neither could she believe herself one of the masters. She did not know what she was. She was simply the person who lived here, did these things, and tried not to cause trouble.

Rosalind lifted one brow but did not press the matter. She turned and walked a few steps, then stopped and glanced back.

"Oh, and Callum will be here tonight, too."

Della's fingers tightened around the edge of the sink.

"The Calder guests have nothing to do with him," Rosalind went on, a different note entering her voice, salt in something sweet. "He's coming on his own. Father says he has business to discuss with the Calder family's younger son. Callum's been busy lately. His father has handed part of the border patrol duties over to him."

Della said nothing.

"You remember him, don't you?" Rosalind turned and leaned against the doorframe, watching Della with deliberate casualness. "During the snow hunt last winter, he stopped the group that was chasing you."

She remembered. She could never forget. Callum Marsh had stepped in front of her on the snow-hunt grounds and told the young men mocking her for being unable to complete her shift, "Enough." Snow had been falling thickly that day. The white vapor of his breath had hidden half his face as he spoke, but Della remembered the breadth of his shoulders and the quiet certainty in his voice.

It was the first time she had felt that someone in the world might stand up for her without asking anything in return.

But something about the way Rosalind brought it up made Della uneasy. Rosalind did not say that he had helped her. She said he had stopped the people chasing her, as though being chased were an ordinary part of Della's life and Callum's intervention merely a passing incident worth mentioning.

"I remember him," Della said.

"Good." Rosalind smiled, then left.

Della remained where she was, her fingers still curled around the sink. She waited several seconds to make sure Rosalind had gone, then slowly released her grip. Her knuckles had gone white with cold, and the joints were beginning to swell. She plunged her hands back into the water, let the familiar sting run through them, and continued washing the remaining glasses and dishes.

She calculated the time in her head. Forty minutes to restore the pleats in the dress. Twenty to wax the boots. Fifteen to wash and change herself. If everything went smoothly, she would have roughly two hours free—enough to finish what was in front of her and slip out for a while before lunch.

She wanted to go to the Borderwood. She had not made it there yesterday, or the day before. Ever since Callum had begun coming to Amberley Estate so often, she had found herself needing the woods more and more. She needed the quiet, the absence of orders and judgment, the brief reprieve from feeling that her very existence was a fault.

By noon, she had finished every task assigned to her. Rosalind's dress hung neatly on its hanger, the pleats smoothed with steam and the loose threads at the cuffs sewn back into place. The boots sat on the windowsill, drying as the wax set. Della changed into a clean gray coat, braided her hair again, and looked at herself once in the mirror.

The girl in the glass was pale, with faint shadows beneath her eyes and little color in her lips, but at least she was clean and neat. Della could not see anything about herself that resembled the Amberley family. Edmund and Eve both had dark hair, high bridges to their noses, and sharply defined features. Rosalind had inherited all of it perfectly. Della's hair was light brown, almost gray-brown in dim light. Her face was narrower and smaller, her chin not square enough, her cheekbones not high enough.

As a child, she had thought she was simply unattractive. Gradually, she came to understand that the real problem was that she did not look like them.

She pushed open the back door and turned onto the path leading to the Borderwood. Wind swept into her face, carrying the scents of damp earth and pine. She drew a deep breath, and the knot in her chest loosened by half an inch.

The Borderwood lay three miles north of Amberley Estate. Beyond it stood the boundary of Moonridge territory. No one went that far. Past the trees was Nightfang territory, land held by a hostile clan; patrols changed along the border every few hours, and crossing it was a death sentence. Della had never dared go that far. She stayed near the stream at the forest's edge, sitting on the crooked old oak, listening to the water and occasionally gathering moonflower petals.

It was the only place in the world that belonged to her.

She climbed into the old oak and settled on its thickest branch, leaning back against the trunk with her legs swinging over the drop. The stream ran about six feet below. Sunlight filtered through the leaves and scattered across her legs in broken flecks. She closed her eyes and let herself think of nothing at all.

The quiet did not last.

She heard voices. Not footsteps—voices, drifting up from downstream and drawing closer. Della instinctively folded in on herself and pressed tighter against the trunk. She was not afraid of being seen; the branches were so dense that no one below could easily spot her. She simply did not want anyone to discover her here.

"...What does your father intend to do?"

It was Rosalind's voice.

Della went still. She opened her eyes and looked down through a gap in the leaves. Two people stood on the shingle beside the stream, their backs to her. Rosalind wore the dark-red robe beneath a cloak. Facing her stood a young man with a lean frame, broad shoulders, black hair, and a familiar profile—

Callum Marsh.

Della's hand closed around the tree trunk.

"He's still weighing it," Callum said, his voice steadier and deeper than she remembered. "The Calder family has been edging closer to Moonridge. If your father declares his support for their territorial plan at the Alliance Council, my family's side won't put up much resistance."

Rosalind gave a satisfied laugh. "I told you Father wouldn't go to all that trouble for nothing. He invited the Calders to dinner for more than the pleasure of showing off his silverware."

Callum smiled as well, but his tone grew more serious. "That matter... has your father confirmed it?"

"Confirmed what?"

"That he's willing to support my bid to lead the Northern Border Patrol next year."

Rosalind turned to face him and folded her arms. "Callum, you've asked me that too many times. I've told you—if you stand with me, Father won't send you home empty-handed."

Callum was silent for a moment. "I only want to be sure. Your father isn't the sort of man who makes casual promises, but neither is he the sort who fulfills them casually. I need to know—"

"You need to know what?" Rosalind cut in. Her smile remained, but something else moved beneath it, like a thin sheet of crystal over boiling liquid. "You need to know whether I've convinced him? Whether I'm worth standing here by this river and having this conversation with me?"

"Rosalind—"

"I don't need an explanation." She stepped closer and tapped him on the chest. The gesture was light, but it carried an unmistakable claim of control. "You're here. You're still here. That's enough."

Callum looked down at her, his expression conflicted. Della could not tell what he was thinking; half his face lay in the tree's shadow. But he did not step away.

"What did your father say," Callum asked, "about... fated mates?"

Something inside Della's chest clenched hard.

Rosalind's laugh was soft. "Don't tell me you're still worried about that."

"I'm not worried," Callum said. "I just want to know. If there really is someone..."

"There won't be anyone." Rosalind's voice turned suddenly hard. "And even if there is, you can refuse her. A fated mate isn't a shackle. If you don't want the bond, you don't have to take it. The pain will pass. Your position won't."

Callum said nothing. The sound of the stream filled the silence between them.

"Besides," Rosalind continued, her voice sharpening beneath its sweetness, "even if someone like that does appear, what do you think she could offer you that I can't? Some stranger who came out of nowhere is more useful than an Amberley daughter?"

High in the tree, Della dug her fingers into the bark. She had no idea what her face was doing. She only knew that she was cold. The cold began in her fingertips, crept over her wrists and up her arms, then settled in her chest until her heart felt carved from stone.

Callum was her fated mate.

The words echoed through the deepest part of her mind. Neris, her inner wolf spirit, let out a low, wounded whine inside her. Neris had known before Della did. An inner wolf spirit sensed a fated mate more directly, more instinctively, than a human mind could. Neris had known from the first time Callum stood between Della and those young men on the snow-hunt grounds.

But Della had never dared confirm it. She had told herself it was only gratitude. Only a kind act magnified into something larger than it was. She had told herself that Callum belonged with Rosalind, that he mattered to Edmund, that an entire house and every rung of its hierarchy stood between him and her. She had told herself not to think about it because thinking about it hurt too much.

Now she no longer had to think.

Callum was her fated mate. Callum knew such a bond was possible. And Callum was standing there with Rosalind, discussing how to reject the woman who might be his.

Rosalind was telling him that refusing a fated mate cost nothing. Position was what mattered.

Della lifted her hands from the bark and looked down at her palms. Fine splinters had broken the skin, leaving tiny beads of blood. She stared at them for a long time. Then she made a decision.

She could not remain in Moonridge territory.

The decision came so quickly that she had not fully caught up with it herself. Her body understood first. Her shoulders loosened. The invisible tension that had held her taut for years simply vanished. She leaned back against the trunk, drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

She would leave. She had no idea where she would go. Nightfang's border lay three miles north, beyond the trees—a hostile territory where crossing over might get her killed. But dying in a direction she had chosen herself was better than staying here, in a place where not a single corner belonged to her.

She had just begun to slide down from the branch when it snapped beneath her weight as she shifted.

Crack.

The sound carried with startling clarity through the ravine.

Both figures by the stream turned at once and looked toward the tree.

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