Page 1 of The Alpha's Forced Bride

Chapter 1 - Harvey

Winter was unforgiving this year. The darkness brought with it a terrible and pervasive chill that seemed to penetrate the very walls of my newly constructed cabin. The wood was barely a month old when it had been chopped down, sliced, and erected into its current state. For something hastily tossed together, it proved sufficient, and the fireplace held a captivating fire.

I should have been warm while sitting at my desk. It was just a few feet away from the flames, yet I felt the icy fingers of winter on the back of my neck as I bowed over the papers in front of me. A blond man with stony black eyes, a frail frame, and a slight hunch stood with his hands behind his back near the flames. They danced in his eyes, and his glossy midnight irises appeared mysterious and feral.

To anyone else, he was a demon wolf named Clancy; to me, he was my best friend and my right-hand man. He knew how to calculate the measurements of any standing structure just from a few minutes of observation. His capabilities were amazing—so useful that he earned his position without much effort at all.

The rest of the pack was highly supportive of him being at my side. For the most part, none of them opposed my choices and were receptive to him taking command whenever necessary. Clancy had always been an excellent supporter, and everything he did was for the pack and for me.

My desk felt foreign, although it was also freshly-built and had a coldness to the wood. It reminded me of the penetrating winter wind smacking the side of the cabin that faced the ocean. We weren’t too far from the shore, and easy food came from living close to such abundant waters.

The living room was compact but not uncomfortable, though if filled with enough people, it would feel crowded. With Clancy present, it was more like a foyer with a torn couch, a desk, and a small circular table that was too tall to be a coffee table. It was strange seeing all my things cast with firelight; it was as if I were witnessing the room for the first time. It just took some getting used to.

If things became somewhat more normal, perhaps we could get a little better. Many fish filled our nets, yet our appetites seemed to grow stronger. Such was the burden of a possessed wolf. Without a name for my demon and the appropriate ritual, I couldn’t exorcise it. I could shower in holy water all day and still suffer its incessant whispers.

Those things that usually worked in the movies didn’t work in real life. Even if I did know its name, I couldn’t perform the ritual myself. I had to hire someone—a wise witch who had been practicing for many years. Since our pack witch abandoned us, things haven’t been the same. That was where Clancy kept stepping in, using his connection to his unnamed demon to provide us with the magic we desperately needed. It was a valiant offer that came with a heavy price.

I sighed as I rubbed my forehead. “Please tell me you have good news for me tonight.”

“I’m afraid I don’t, Harvey.”

“I was afraid of that.”

He nodded briefly, pushed himself away from the mantel, and shuffled toward me, his hunch growing more evident being backlit by the fire. “Five more members have fallen ill.”

“Again.” That word sounded so defeated, coming from my lips. “With what this time?”

His demeanor was sour. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

“Demon sickness?”

“There’s no sign of the blood being infected. Yet.”

I raised my eyebrows at his pointed punctuation. “Yet.”

“They have fevers of one hundred and four. They’re having seizures and hallucinations.”

“That sounds like the flu.”

He nodded. “A demonic flu.”

“From their possessions, I presume. Where’s that list of ailments?”

Ever since we were cursed ten years ago, I’d been keeping track of our collective suffering, calling it a Plague Journal of sorts. It was really just a chronicling of how wretched our lives had been since I broke that deal with Francois Dubois, and Mabel did his dreadful bidding.

It was me; I did that. It was my fault my people had been suffering this whole time without a witch to guide us. The witch we did have had left us high and dry from the stress of it all. Ten years had seen our pack of fifty dwindle down to a mere twenty members—all because I failed to deliver the ammunition ordered by Francois for his part in the vampire-wolf wars.

My fingers curled over the worn binding of my so-called Plague Journal. Irritation coursed through my veins, a product intensified by the demon that lurked in the shadows behind my solar plexus. That was where he resided, and that was where he liked to sleep whenever he wasn’t occupying my throat to manipulate my words.

I closed my eyes, sighed, and unwound the brown string from the faded leather book. After tossing the string haphazardly aside, I opened my eyes and focused on the pages that drifted past my fingers with barely a visible touch. Another one of the tricks of being possessed meant I was able to do things as a shifter that were typically only available in my wolf form. But with the aid of the demon magic that rippled through my body, I could perform my own little tricks without wasting bits of my soul. My demon called it a perk. I called it an annoyance—until now, of course, when I was using it to speed my way through the thick tome I kept on the right side of my desk.

There. The pages ceased flipping upon reaching the precise location of the ailment list. An assortment of treacherous symptoms had cropped up in many of our members: high fevers, hallucinations, uncontrollable twitches or seizures, rapid-eye rolling, and the blackening of the eyes until they were like glass marbles made from obsidian stone.

There were the more common symptoms of possession listed, like vicious whispers in the dark and visions. Threats were consistently paired with sweet nothings. Deals could be made, or wolves could choose to allow their demons to take over entirely. Their humanity would be choked by the darkness that resided within, and they would become a merged being capable of absolute chaos.

A lot of my previous members succumbed to their demons. I didn’t blame them for it. To perpetually fight a demon for years was exhausting, thus many members fell sick. Most of the time, however, it was unclear how the sickness started. One member, Kirk, was prone to hallucinatory delusions that forced us to strap him to the cot in my basement every week.

I checked my calendar; he was due for another one of those fits. If only we had a witch to help us out.

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