The Alpha King Marked Me. I Still Haven't Told Him I'm A Girl novel Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Two

I wipe the tear from my cheek as I feed my father the colourless soup. It is probably his last meal. He knows it too. He just parts his lips enough for me to put the spoon through.

He looks like a corpse.

I drop the spoon and the loud clang startles us both. "You do not have to go."

He raises his eyes from the untiled ground and amber eyes--much like mine--lacking fire meet mine. He starts to speak, and my throat starts to hurt when no words come.

He is unable to speak. Not since the illness took him. His face contorts as he tries to make words, and my heart breaks when he fails. Silver lines his eyes and I know what he wants to say. That he must leave us to protect us. Me. I lunge forward, taking his weathered hands in mine and I kiss his knuckles. "No. I won’t lose you too, father."

His hands leave mine gently and they tremble as they rise to my cheek. His thumb smears the tear on my cheek and my heart aches too much to bear. I jerk out of his reach and flee from his presence, sobbing.

I run into mother and her eyes are swollen and red as well. I don’t say word to her either, because I know the haunted look in her eyes. She has begun grieving.

I can’t accept any of this. It’s too much. I won’t lose father. I head for the abandoned cellar in the house, an idea forming in my head.

********

Cutting my hair was the easiest of the things I had to do. I hated it anyway. It has the rarest hue of gold, radiant and blush tinged. It almost looks red. It stands out, even in the dark, calling attention to me even when I don’t want it.

If I’m hoping to pass off as a male, it is the first thing I must lose.

I cut it low, until it reaches my neck. It’ll grow just as fast. Werewolves never run out of hair.

The bleach is next. The foul stench of black henbane as I rub it into my roots has me gagging, but I continue, massaging it into my cropped hair until there is not a single golden strand left.

I drop my hands and look at the mirror, growling low in my throat. It doesn’t matter what I do. My features are too delicate to resemble a man’s. My eyes of the richest, brightest amber have a softness to them that should not belong in the eyes of a man. The bulge of my breasts can be fixed, but the slimness of my waist and flare of my hips cannot be hidden.

I do not have a choice. The thought of burying my father has me throwing his trunk open and rummaging through it for whatever I can find to help me.

I find his chainmail, plate armour, helmet, the shield with the glaring family crest of House Ironfang, gauntlets, greaves, bracers, his lance and a sheathed sword.

All too heavy for me to carry. I grab most of what I can, pulling them on after wrapping my breasts tightly with wraps until it is flat as a board.

And when all is done, I take the sword, breaths leaving my lungs fast and hard enough, and I mar my skin with the ashen tip, sobbing and snarling as it cuts in deep. It heals just as quickly as the cut forms, but the ash in the sword leaves behind a faint scar on my cheekbone.

There goes my future. No man will take me with the scar.

But it is the only way I can join the army without question. Because in Silvermoor, women do not have scars.

I toss a look back at the altar as I walk through the gates, pulling father’s best horse with me. I don’t bother with the prayers to the Moon Goddess.

She didn’t save my brothers from the war. She didn’t take pity on my mother, even if she prayed every day. She watched us mourn and bury our dead every year. She watched us die with them.

I lost faith in her long ago. The only one who can save me now is me.

And there is no chance I am coming back alive.

***********

Thane

Family meetings.

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