The room smelled of old perfume and tension. Sunlight cut in through the tall windows and landed in neat rectangles on the polished floor, but it did nothing to warm the faces gathered there. My father sat at the head of the long table, a slow, deliberate presence. Around him the others shifted like animals waiting for a signal careful, restless, a hair's breadth from violence.
My mind went somewhere else. Alpha Kasper. The name had been a soft ache inside me for years, a picture I could not quite place. He was a golf champion who moved through the city like a rumoralways masked, always distant. I had known nothing real about him except the curve of his shoulders, the way he laughed when he let his guard down in private. To me he was a myth made desirable by absence.
Alpha kasper? Wait I remember she was to be engaged with alpha Kasper, someone I have been crushing on for so long, he was a popular golf player who always appear with a mask, but his figures made me fall for him , do you mean she is getting married to him
Oh my God.
My father's face tightened. He spoke in the same calm voice he always used when weighing danger like ledger entries. "It will be cancelled, I can't mess with that family, the moment they realise she isn't off my blood the hollow king will be very angry" my father responded.
The name landed like a stone in my stomach. The Hollow King. I had read about him in whispered papers and old gossip an old throne of power nobody wanted to cross. The thought of his wrath made the air in the room feel colder.
The conversation shuffled along, new hands reaching for explanations. Laura, always a quick blade, cut in with something that made my heart sink. Laura interrupted "there was also a clause to Hannah's will, she will only inherit 30% of her inheritance after she gets married"
A clause. A legal chain that bound not only a fortune but the freedom to claim it. My stepmother's face, smooth as a mask, barely concealed her anger. Leon and Leah proud and volatile stood and left the room in harsh motion, their silence as loud as a slammed door. They wanted to leave angrily before the marriage annulment but Leah did not go; she lingered at the threshold, listening. In a small, sudden movement she stepped back in.
"what??, father?, mother?, please you know what I did before I could get alpha kasper even though I wasn't his mate please don't do this to me, tomorrow was supposed to be our engagement and contract signing please father don't do this to me" Leah pleaded.
Her voice fractured with desperation. I could see the plan unraveling in her eyes, the neat map of lies and half-truths that had been supposed to secure her place. My father looked at her with a caution I recognized from when he spoke of business threats. "I am sorry sweetheart, but we will have to look for someone else to take your place in order to protect you or else when they find out they might kill you" my father responded.
Leah's protest rose, thin and edge-sharp. "You can hide it" and "cause before you will find a replacement it will be very difficult", "who will want to get married in my place?, who will want to be the hollow's king daughter in law" Leah responded.
I had not meant to move, but the room hummed and I stood before I could think. The words tumbled out of me, raw and surprising even to my own ears. I took a breath and answered without planning it.
"I will", "I will get married to alpha kasper, I will complete your contract marriage"
There was a beat of silence, a small, dangerous pause as if the house itself were considering my claim. My father's expression shifted ,first incredulity, then the exhausted relief of a man who counts risks and finds an unexpected solution. "What??, Hannah, I just got you back and you want to leave so soon?" My father responded.
I met his eyes. I had been waiting for this chance, for reasons that were more than just the inheritance or our family's safety. "I am 22 dad, I was supposed to be mated 3 years ago but I couldn't because I had no wolf then but now I will like to be mated, don't worry dad, I will still be with you I won't go anywhere" I responded.
Leah whirled on me, disbelief written across her face. "Dad?, who the hell are you" leah asked as she faced me.
The room drew closer. I felt the old script of my life these people, their contempt, the stories they told about me crumple like thin paper. I stepped forward, removing my hat in a small, deliberate motion.
"Oh I forgot to introduce myself, you remember the Hannah ms Laura just spoke about, yeah that's me my name is Hannah khian, I am our fathers daughter"
For a heartbeat Matilda's calm mask cracked. "oh I see that is the reason why you are dumping us because you found your real daughter, but how sure are you that she is your daughter?" They both asked.
My father's voice was steadier than their confusion. "I smelled me and my late wife in her, and the mark DNA prooves everything" my father responded.
Accusation rolled across the room like thunder. Matilda pointed at me, voice thin with conviction. "You, I know you, you are a thief, you are not supposed to be here, father I am 100% sure this is pure scam from her, she is wolfless"
Leah's scorn echoed in the rafters and for a moment I let them have it ,their contempt, their certainty. I laughed then, low and sharp, because they had not read me at all. I had rehearsed that moment in the dark for years: the look on the faces of those who believed themselves secure.
I reached up and took the hairpin from my hair. The movement was small, practiced. I made a shallow incision at the corner of my brow, and blood rose and ran in a bright, hot ribbon. It stung and then, as I had learned to coax it to do, it flared with a heat that flooded the room. Their eyes changed then, gold, silver, the animal underneath their human shells revealing itself in a twitch of muscle and a flare of scent.
They smelled me, my blood, the echo of my mother, the claim in my scent and for a moment the room held its breath. The scar healed almost as quickly as it had opened, closing like a door on their argument. They had nothing left to say. Anger turned to confusion, and then they left, storming out as if insulted by having been outplayed.
My father watched them go and then turned his attention to me, softer now, confession slipping into his voice. "You didn't need to proof anything to them pup, so do you really want to do the contract marriage?, I don't want it to seem as if I am using you or forcing you" He asked.
I breathed, feeling my chest pulse with a mixture of fear and hunger. This was dangerous. The Hollow King's son if he truly was connected to that web, would not be a gentle safety. He might be the exact thing my family feared. But he was also the man I had watched from a distance for years, the one who had occupied so much of my lonely imagination.
"Yes, although I might not know how he looked and he might be the son of the hollow king, I have been crushing on him for so long father and now there's an opportunity I want to have him" I uttered and my father laughed.
There was a tenderness in that laugh, a memory of my mother that made the room feel suddenly less hostile. "You are just like your mother, come here my little pup" he drew me closer and rubbed my hair.
His hands were steady. For the first time since I could remember I felt anchored, as if the story that had been torn from me was, finally, being rewritten. "Okay get ready tomorrow we will meet the family for the engagement, although alpha kasper was against it because he didn't like Leah's smell but let's just hope tomorrow will be different, I need this compliance"
I nodded. My heart beat fast, fear braided with excitement, a fierce, private joy. I was stepping into danger by choice, but the danger shimmered with the possibility I had kept to myself for so long: not just survival, but the chance to be wanted for who I was.
Tomorrow would change everything. I could taste it already: the sharp tang of risk, the promise of new names whispered in the dark, and the hollow of power that could either devour me or lift me up into a life I had only dared to imagine.