Page 3 of Sold to Three Alpha Kings

Chloe is the only Omega left of marrying age in our small, miserable pack, and her father knows exactly what leverage that gives him. The man wants a heavy bride-price, and our family is flat out broke.

Every coin I bring in doing back-breaking chores for the villagers—washing linens, hauling wood, gutting fish until my hands stink of it for days—goes straight into my father’s palm the second I’m through the door.

It’s never enough because these people don’t know how to manage money. And when it isn’t enough, somebody’s temper finds my skin.

“Fifty more silver by the next moon. That’s what we need,” Charles mutters, pacing the narrow room. “Or Chloe’s father will hand her to the merchants instead.” He looks at Ricky. “An Alpha of your standing deserves the best Omega. We cannot let those low-born bastards have her.”

“Then she should work more! Look how big she is—she eats more than all of us combined.” Ricky jabs a finger at me without even looking up.

That’s not true. I barely even eat twice a day.

“More shifts at the tannery,” he adds. “Who cares if she drops dead—she’s shiftless. Hardly even a wolf.”

Something old and dangerous flares behind my ribs. I look at the floor instead of at him and let my hand drift, casual, to the folds of my skirt.

Stitched into a hidden pocket under the wool is the only thing in this house that actually belongs to me: a small leather pouch. Fifteen silver. Forty copper. Nothing, against what they need. Everything, against what I need.

I’ve been skimming it for months. A coin here, a coin there, from villagers who felt sorry enough to overpay me, hidden away before my father can turn my pockets out.

The plan is simple. But also a dangerous one. I’m leaving this island.

Not just leaving—going to the humans. I want a world where scent doesn’t matter, where the word shiftless has no meaning.

I know what it costs. I’ll never find love or get married. Never have children of my own—the wolf blood in me runs deep enough that even shiftless, a child of mine could be born a wolf. And dropping a wolf pup into a world that doesn’t know what that means would be creating an inverse of my problem.

I’m human in a wolf world. My kid would be the opposite and would still struggle to fit in. But that aside, the biggest issue would be that the wolves would hunt me down and murder me for it. This is because deserters are killed.

If I leave shiftless, they won’t be able to find me because there’s no scent to mark. I’m basically human. With a wolf child, however, I’d be easy to track. All they’d have to do is follow my kid’s wolf scent.

I made peace with that a long time ago. Better a quiet ghost in the human world than a slave in this one.

“You!” My father’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts. “Go to the market. Trade ships come into the southern docks tomorrow for the winter exports. See if the merchants need extra hands hauling crates. And don’t come back without silver.”

My heart slams once, hard, against my ribs.

The trade ships.

“Yes, Father.” I keep my voice flat. I don’t let my glimmer of hope show.

“Don’t spend a copper on yourself, you greedy pig,” Ricky calls after me as I grab my shawl and duck out the back.

The cold outside hits my face like a slap. I pull the faded red shawl over my hair against the wind and start down the steep path toward the village. Towering pines line the path, their branches sagging under their load of snow on either side of me.

This whole island is one massive star-shaped stretch of rock and forest. We live in one region—one leg of the star ruled by the leaders of the three largest Packs in the region. To everyone else, the fifteen Alpha Kings that rule the different regions are something close to gods.

To me they’re just bigger versions of my father and my brother.

The market square is loud by the time I reach it. Roasted chestnuts, wet fur, cheap ale, the whole mess of smells fighting for space in the cold air.

Merchants are still setting up stalls, getting ready for the traders. I drift through the crowd the way I always do—unnoticed.

No scent of my own, nothing that reads as beta or the pull of an Omega, so most wolves look straight through me. A ghost among beasts, more or less.

I stop at a stall of withered winter apples and pretend to inspect them, ears working harder than my eyes. I need to know which ship sails farthest from this island, which captain might take silver for silence, when the dock guards change shifts.

“Did you hear?”

A cluster of Beta girls from our pack, huddled by a ribbon stall, cheeks pink from cold and something like excitement.