Alpha King's Slave Mate

Chapter 2 – He Bows to No One, but Her

The chamber was too quiet.

For someone like her, silence wasn't peace. It was pressure — thick, invisible, and suffocating. It coiled around her chest like cold fingers, pressing down until her ribs ached. Silence, in her world, had always been the space between screams. The sharp breath before a blow. The pause before commands barked in cruel voices. A warning that pain was coming — or worse, that no one cared enough to deliver it at all.

But here, now, in this room of velvet warmth and distant firelight… silence lingered like something else.

Something she didn't understand.

She stood barefoot on a carpet so thick her toes sank into it. The velvet robe draped over her body like foreign skin, heavy and too soft. Her hair was still damp from the bath. Clean now — for the first time in moons. It clung to the curve of her shoulders, trailing like wet ink down her back. Her hands clutched the robe tight at her chest, knuckles white, heart louder than the silence.

He hadn't moved.

The Alpha King stood by the fire, unmoving, arms crossed, his body a silhouette of strength and restraint. His presence filled the chamber like a second storm — quiet but massive. A living shadow rimmed in flame.

His eyes were the worst. Not because they burned with hunger like other men. Not because they were cruel or mocking or filled with pity.

They were steady.

Watchful.

Like she mattered. Like she wasn't just a shadow someone had dragged in from the dirt.

That terrified her more than all the others.

Because if she mattered, she could be hurt again.

"I don't even know your name," he said suddenly, his voice a low rumble, cutting through the hush like a blade through frost.

She jerked slightly, startled.

Her voice cracked. Hoarse from disuse, rough like gravel. "You don't need to."

His brows twitched — the faintest reaction — and he stepped forward. Not with the heavy, possessive gait she'd known from guards and slave masters. Not like a predator circling prey.

But like a man trying to approach a wounded animal without sending it fleeing into the trees.

"I do," he said. "I want to."

Her breath caught on something raw.

Want.

That word didn't belong here. Not aimed at her. No one wanted her name. Only her compliance. Her silence. Her endurance.

She backed up half a step, eyes darting, fingers tightening around the robe. He stopped immediately. As if he'd sensed that was the edge of the line — the one between curiosity and panic.

"If it hurts to say it," he added, voice gentler, "don't. I won't call you 'slave'. I don't care what they branded you."

Her throat worked around something unspoken.

Finally, in a whisper almost lost to the fire, she said, "Riven."

It felt like handing over a knife, not a name.

His eyes flickered.

"Riven," he repeated, the sound of it unfamiliar and reverent in his voice.

She shivered.

She hadn't heard it spoken kindly in years. Even she'd stopped using it in her head. Her name had become a relic — a piece of a girl who no longer existed.

"Is it… yours?" he asked softly, as if the question itself required permission.

She nodded. "My mother gave it to me. Before she—"

Her voice fractured. She turned away sharply, hair falling over her face like a curtain. She didn't want him to see the way her lips trembled.

Thorne's jaw tightened, but he made no move. No interruption. Just silence again, but not the cruel kind.

"I'm sorry," he said, voice lower.

She stared at the fire.

He stepped forward, once more closing the gap.

"Why did you bring me here?" she asked, still not looking at him. Her voice was stiff with suspicion, heavy with the ache of someone who had been used too many times for too little reason.

He didn't lie.

"Because you're mine."

She froze.

He saw the way her back tensed. The slight lift of her shoulders. As if she'd just been struck.

But he continued before the fear could settle in.

"I didn't ask for this. I didn't expect it. But I won't fight what the Moon Goddess has placed between us."

Her laugh was dry. Bitter. "I didn't ask for it either."

She turned, eyes flashing silver like shattered glass.

"Do you expect me to love you just because of fate?" she asked, voice sharp and brittle. "To crawl into your bed and call it destiny?"

Thorne's expression didn't shift into anger.

Instead, something far deeper passed through his gaze.

Sorrow.

Longing.

Control.

"I expect nothing," he said, each word slow, solid as stone. "Not your trust. Not your body. Not even your love."

And then, before she could speak, he moved.

He went down.

On one knee.

Not in mockery. Not in apology.

But in vow.

Riven's lips parted, breath stolen.

He bowed his head slightly. Just enough to humble a man like him — a king who had never bowed before another soul.

Not even before the gods.

But for her?

He knelt.

The fire flickered behind him, casting shadows across the angles of his face, highlighting the tension in his clenched jaw, the raw devotion in his voice.

"I kneel only to the one who holds my soul," Thorne murmured, eyes still downcast. "To the one fate carved from my bones."

She couldn't breathe.

Couldn't move.

He didn't try to touch her.

Instead, he reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out a soft cloth, folded with care, smelling faintly of honeyed herbs and warm soap. He placed it in her hands, which trembled.

"For your wounds," he said.

She stared at it like it might vanish. Then stared at him.

Her voice trembled. "I don't understand you."

He finally looked up.

And what she saw in his eyes made her knees weak.

Not lust. Not rage.

Remorse.

Tenderness, buried deep beneath years of steel and shadow.

"Because I've been cruel too long," he said.

Silence followed.

But this time, it wasn't empty.

It was full.

Full of questions neither dared to ask. Full of truths neither was ready to admit.

Full of beginnings.

---

The moon was high when she slipped from the bed.

Not his bed. The smaller one in the corner he had insisted be prepared for her. "Until you choose otherwise," he had said.

She hadn't answered.

But his promise had held true.

He hadn't come to her room since sundown. Hadn't crossed her boundary. Hadn't looked at her with anything other than patience.

Still, sleep had refused her. Memories haunted the edges of her rest like ghosts — screaming, fire, chains.

She stood by the arched window now, the moonlight casting silver over her damp hair. Her fingers ran along the smooth curve of the stone ledge, trailing old cracks.

Somewhere far below, wolves howled.

She closed her eyes.

And in the dark behind her lids, she saw her mother's face.

And then… the fire. The crashing door. Blood.

Her stomach clenched.

A sound behind her made her body stiffen — instinct.

The door creaked.

No footsteps.

Just presence.

She turned slowly.

Thorne stood there, massive and quiet, a tray balanced in his hands. The scent of warm bread, herbs, and broth drifted toward her.

She blinked.

"You waited until midnight to bring me food?" she asked, voice dry with disbelief.

"I didn't want to startle you," he said softly.

She stared.

He set the tray down on the low table near the fire and turned as if to leave, his movements fluid, quiet.

But something in her reached out before she could stop it.

"Wait."

He paused.

She licked her lips, unsure.

"Stay," she said finally. "Only for a moment."

He didn't speak, but his jaw shifted slightly.

Then he obeyed.

He sat, not across the table, but beside the hearth, giving her space. She lowered herself into the opposite chair, taking the bread with careful hands.

It was still warm.

Her stomach growled. Heat touched her cheeks.

Thorne didn't laugh.

He simply smiled — faintly. The first time she had seen that expression on his face.

It changed him.

Made him look less like a carved weapon and more like a man who remembered what softness could feel like.

"You don't act like a king," she said, breaking the silence.

He tilted his head. "What should a king act like?"

"Demanding. Cold. Unfeeling."

"I was all those things," he said. "Maybe I still am."

She looked at him over the rim of her cup. "And now?"

"I'm trying to remember what it means to be more."

She didn't know what to say to that.

So she ate in silence.

When her bowl was empty, she set it aside, fingers curling into her lap.

And then — softly, hesitantly — she asked, "What if I never love you?"

It wasn't a challenge.

It was a warning.

A plea.

Thorne met her gaze.

"If you never love me," he said, "then I will love you alone. And protect you anyway."

She stared at him.

Because he meant it.

Because no one had ever said they would love her even if it was one-sided.

She swallowed hard.

And for the first time in years, something inside her cracked open — not in pain.

But in wonder.

In fragile, hesitant hope.

She didn't reply.

But her fingers reached — slow, unsure — toward the tray. She took one more slice of bread. Ate it in silence.

And didn't stop him when he stayed.

That night, the chamber remained quiet.

But for once… silence didn't feel like pressure.

It felt like the start of something healing.