The Cursed Alpha’s Mute Bride Episode 1

📖 The Story Continues

The Cursed Alpha’s Mute Bride – Episode 1

Golden chandeliers flooded Wolfhart Castle’s great hall with warm light, setting crystal goblets ablaze and making the silver engagement banners gleam. Music floated above the laughter of the Eclipse Pack as guests celebrated Anneliese Wolfhart’s match to Nikolaus, one of their strongest warriors. From the servants’ archway, Wren watched the happiness that had no place for her.

Flour dusted the sleeves of Wren’s plain gray dress and left a pale streak across her cheek. No one looking at her would have guessed she shared Wolfhart blood with the beautiful woman accepting congratulations near the high table. Wren’s attention stayed on the three-tiered cake she had spent the entire night creating as a gift for her sister.

Ivory frosting covered every tier, delicate sugar roses climbed the sides, and spun caramel formed the crescent moon Anneliese had loved as a child. Wren had imagined the decoration might awaken a gentler memory from before their father died and Gertrude’s cruelty poisoned their home. She expected no embrace. One softened glance would have been enough.

Anneliese stopped before the cake and stared as if someone had placed filth among her engagement gifts. Her jeweled fingers hovered over the caramel moon while nearby guests quieted, eager for a spectacle. “Don’t tell me that’s the cake,” she said, her laugh cutting through the hall. “Goddess, I knew you were a cursed mute, but are you blind too?”

Heat rushed into Wren’s face as whispers spread through the room. A few wolves laughed openly; others studied their wine, unwilling to risk Gertrude’s displeasure by defending her. Wren lifted her hands to sign, I made it for you, but stopped. Anneliese had never learned more than a few gestures, and the disgust in her eyes made any explanation useless.

The music stumbled to a halt when Gertrude Wolfhart crossed the polished floor in midnight velvet. The pack parted before the late Alpha’s widow as though she already possessed the permanent authority she so carefully displayed. “What have you done now?” she asked, inspecting Wren and the cake with the cold satisfaction of someone who had already chosen a punishment.

Wren swallowed against the familiar tightness around her throat. A faint breath escaped her, too damaged to become speech. She pointed toward the untouched cake and pressed one hand to her heart, trying to show that she had honestly believed she had done something kind. Gertrude seized her wrist before she could finish, her fingers digging into tender skin.

“Clean yourself up. You’re disgusting,” Gertrude announced loudly enough for every guest to hear. “Must you spoil every occasion?” Wren endured the grip without struggling, knowing resistance only encouraged her stepmother. Her gaze settled on the smoky black stone hanging at Gertrude’s throat, a jewel that always seemed colder than the surrounding air.

Anneliese plucked a sugar rose from the cake and crushed it between her fingers. “My engagement deserved a proper confectioner. Nikolaus and his family will think we let kitchen vermin touch the food.” Broken petals scattered across the linen as laughter rose again. Wren looked toward Nikolaus, hoping for basic decency, but his slow gaze moving over her body felt worse than mockery.

Gertrude released Wren and circled her like a predator examining wounded prey. “A mute, ugly, useless werewolf,” she declared. “No voice, no wolf, and no gift worth naming. What pack would ever accept such a creature?” At twenty, Wren had never shifted or heard the answering presence of a wolf inside her mind, and Gertrude had taught everyone to call that absence a curse.

“No one will ever want you as a mate,” her stepmother continued. “You should be grateful we give you shelter and allow you to cook.” Mercy, Wren thought bitterly, meant sleeping beside the kitchens so Gertrude would not see her at breakfast. It meant working until her hands blistered while Anneliese wore everything their father had intended his daughters to share.

The crowd blurred as Wren remembered her father lifting her onto his shoulders and calling her his brave little bird. He had promised Wolfhart blood would always protect its own, but death had taken him before he could keep that promise. Wren refused to cry in front of Gertrude. Tears were another gift her stepmother enjoyed receiving, and she had already given too many.

She breathed through the humiliation, filling her lungs with beeswax, roasted meat, and the vanilla folded into the cake. Then she straightened until her spine no longer bent beneath the room’s contempt. Somewhere behind the silence forced upon her, an ember of anger survived. They had taken her place and her voice, but she would not willingly surrender what remained of herself.

Anneliese noticed the change and narrowed her eyes. “Look at her pretending she has pride.” She dropped the ruined flower at Wren’s feet and ordered her to remove the cake before the guests lost their appetites. For one reckless moment, Wren imagined sweeping the confection onto the marble and letting their perfect celebration drown in frosting and porcelain.

Instead, she reached for the serving cart because the kitchen maids would suffer for any mess she left behind. As she passed Nikolaus, he caught the cart’s edge and stopped it. “Leave it,” he murmured too softly for Anneliese to hear. His gaze lingered on Wren with an intimacy she had never invited. “I might want a taste later.”

Wren jerked the cart free and hurried into the corridor, unease cooling the heat of her shame. Nikolaus was her sister’s fiancé, yet something predatory lived behind his polished smile. When the kitchen door finally closed, she gripped the worktable and stared at the cake that had been condemned without a single guest tasting it.

Beneath the smooth icing, it remained exactly what she had intended—delicate, sweet, and made with love no one wanted. Wren repaired a cracked strand of caramel while Gertrude’s accusations pressed close. Ugly. Useless. Unwanted. If a lie was repeated often enough, she wondered, could it become a curse as powerful as magic?

Her reflection in the dark window looked pale and exhausted, but not defeated. She gathered the broken sugar petals one at a time, unaware that tonight’s cruelty had already set another future in motion—one connected to forbidden territory, a feared Alpha, and secrets Gertrude had buried for years.

The celebration resumed beyond the kitchen walls, the pack toasting Anneliese’s glorious future while Wren cleaned the remains of her rejected gift. Her anger stayed quiet, protected beneath years of practiced obedience, but for the first time it felt warmer than her despair. She had no idea how soon that fragile defiance would be tested.

The kitchen door opened behind her. Gertrude stood on the threshold, the black stone at her throat drinking in the firelight. “Since you insist on looking like filth, you can wash at the eastern creek.” Wren went still, because the creek lay beyond the border of Alpha Hunter Silver’s land—and trespassers there were rumored never to return.