Page 1 of Sold to Three Alpha Kings

Chapter 1 - Charlize

The kitchen floor is always cold. Today it gets into my bones, settling right into the hollow where a wolf’s warmth is supposed to live.

I scrub the heavy iron pot with sand and dry heather, my knuckles split from the winter water. Scrub, rinse. Scrub, rinse, escape. That’s the rhythm I’ve built out of it, the one I run in my head so my hands keep moving even when the rest of me wants to stop.

In the dark water, my reflection swims back at me, red hair and round, pale cheeks. I’m a twenty-four-year-old grown woman with a body the pack elders like to call wasteful. Too much softness, they say. Too much fat. Not one drop of the sharp wolf spirit that runs through everyone else on this island.

I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand, my heart filled with resentment for this pathetic life of mine.

“Faster, you useless thing!” Elena doesn’t even look at me when she says it. She sweeps past with her nose in the air, her gray-wolf coat tucked under a woolen shawl I paid for with last week’s floor-scrubbing wages.

I should be used to being treated like trash by now. But somehow, for some reason, it still hurts like hell.

“Bread needs to be in the oven before the sun hits the pine tops. If Ricky’s breakfast is late again, I’ll have your father thrash you.”

I’m tempted to yell at her, and in my head I’ve grabbed her neck twice already. But in reality I’m as weak as they come. I don’t have the guts to raise my voice at the woman who literally has my life in her hands. One word from her and my father would end me in a heartbeat.

Maybe that wouldn’t be such a terrible idea. I mean death beats living like this. Like a rat in my own father’s house.

“Hey, did you hear what I said?” Elena demands, her voice laced with disdain. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

I raise my head and swallow hard. “Yes, Mother.”

Her brows arch as her scowl deepens. “What did you call me?” She closes the distance between us and grabs a handful of my hair.

I wince when she pulls hard against my scalp.

“I am not your mother,” she says, holding my gaze so I’d see the hatred in her eyes. “I would never birth such a disgrace and a burden like you. Never call me that again, do you understand?”

I nod, squinting at the pain of my hair being tugged at.

“Who am I to you?”

I swallow. “You’re my stepmother.”

“Good.” She lets go of my hair and withdraws from me with a grimace on her face. “Be sure to remember that next time.”

I keep my eyes down. “Yes, Stepmother.”

My compliance is a mask; thin and wearing out, but it’s the only shield I’ve got. Beneath the submissive bend of my neck, my chest burns with a quiet, blackened rage.

My birth mother bled out bringing me into the world. Maybe if she were still alive, my life wouldn’t be so miserable. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about her—that I don’t imagine what it’s like living with someone who loves and cares for me. Sometimes, my reality makes me so sad I cry myself to sleep.

The pack healer had pitied me once, whispering that my wolf wasn’t truly dead, only dormant. According to him, its life force had run completely dry, leaving a hollow, starved husk where a fierce beast should have been.

But pity doesn’t buy bread, and it certainly doesn’t stop my family from treating me like a gloriously free slave.

My heart skips a beat when I hear heavy footsteps behind me. I don’t have to turn around to know who it is. I recognize his scent.

It’s Ricky. Elena’s son and her pride.

The arrogant nitwit is my half-brother. Golden boy, true-born Alpha, spoiled so thoroughly the rot shows in his scent now. He drops onto the bench and slams a fist on the table.

“Where’s the tea, fat fuck?”

I clench my jaw tight, bruised by his constant insults.

“Mother, tell her to move her fat legs. I’m seeing Chloe today, and I won’t go there on an empty stomach.”