Captive of the Feral Lycan King

Tessa’s POV

“You leave by dawn.”

My father’s voice cut through the air like a blade. He stared down at me from his throne, while I knelt on the stone floor. His eyes held nothing. No warmth. No hesitaton. Nothing.

My breath caught. Sweat beaded along my hairline and slid down my temple as fear flooded through my veins.

“F-Father. What do you mean?”

I already knew. goddess, please help me.

“Father, you can’t send me to him. The Feral Alpha will kill me.”

“I can,” he said, waving his hand to dismiss me. “And I will.”

My fingers dug into my thighs hard enough to bruise. The room tilted, the edges blurring as panic crushed the air from my lungs.

Dmitri.

The Feral Alpha.

The monster whose name mothers hissed at their children when they misbehaved. The beast who took women to his bed and left only corpses behind.

“They say his beast…” My voice splintered. “None of them survive. None of them. You’re sending me to my death.” I looked up at him, searching for something—anything—human in his face. “I’m your daughter.”

But his expression didn’t change. My heart sank. He had already made his decision.

When he summoned me an hour earlier, I assumed it would be another degrading task, something meant for the omegas—scrubbing floors, serving at banquets, the usual reminders of my place.

I should have known better.

Father had never loved me. He made that clear from the moment I drew my first breath, the breath that had stolen my mother’s last. He blamed me for her death every day since. When I grew up wolfless, he stripped away what little status I had and reduced me to an omega. He poured all his affection into Thea, my twin sister, and I learned to live with the scraps. At least I had a roof over my head, food, a bed—the bare minimum to survive.

It had been enough.

But now he was sending me to Dmitri, straight into the arms of a monster who killed women for sport.

No. I had to do something. I had to save myself.

“Father, please.” The sob tore from my throat before I could stop it. My hands clasped together, trembling. “Please, don’t do this. I’ll do anything you ask. Anything. I’ll work twice as hard. I’ll take the worst jobs. I’ll tend the dogs at the kennels, I’ll clean the latrines, I don’t care. Just please, not this.”

Nothing.

His eyes stayed cold, unmoved. My heart plummeted.

“There’s no use begging for what’s already decided,” he snarled. “Since the day you were born, you’ve been useless to me. Think of this as you finally serving a purpose. I’d rather sell you to that feral beast than lose Thea. At least she has a future now that she’s awakened as a white wolf.”

I froze.

The words didn’t make sense at first. Thea. White wolf. Since when?

White wolves were among the rarest creatures in existence—one in a thousand, maybe less. They had power that rivaled an Alpha’s, sometimes exceeded it. They were chosen by the Moon Goddess herself, blessed and revered.

And somehow, my twin sister had awakened one.

While I had nothing.

Why? Why was I the one cursed with this life?

“Surprised?” My father’s lips curled into a cruel smile. “Well, since you’ll be gone by dawn, I suppose you should know why.” He descended the steps from his throne, slow and deliberate. “Dmitri caught wind that our pack harbors a white wolf—your sister. He’s sending an envoy tomorrow with an offer I can’t refuse.”