The King's Reluctant Vow

Chapter 1

Juniper

The heavy ring on his sausage finger makes a dull thud against the oak table. Again. Thud. A punctuation mark for my terror.

“The problem, little librarian,” Milo says, leaning forward until the smell of stale cigars and cheap cologne fills my lungs, “is that interest doesn’t care about sob stories.”

I keep my hands clenched in my lap, knuckles white. The late afternoon sun streams through the tall windows of the reading room, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. A place that has always been my sanctuary now feels like a tomb. His two hulking associates stand by the only exit. Their presence is a physical weight, pressing the air out of the room.

“I told you, I need more time,” I whisper. My voice is a frayed thread.

“Time expired last Tuesday,” Milo counters, his smile showing too many teeth, one of them capped in gold. “One hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That’s not pocket change. Your father, he liked to play high roller.”

My father. The man who taught me to love the smell of old books and the quiet rustle of turning pages. The man who also hid a second life in backroom poker games and bad bets, a life that apparently cost exactly one hundred and fifty thousand dollars more than he had. A life that ended with a heart attack two months ago, leaving me with nothing but his worn copy of Moby Dick and a debt that could swallow the world.

“I’m a librarian. My salary…”

“Is a joke. We know,” he cuts in, waving a dismissive hand. “Which is why we’re moving on to collateral.” His eyes drift around the quiet, hallowed space. They land on the rare books collection behind its protective glass. “Maybe we start taking things piece by piece.”

My blood runs cold. “You can’t. This is city property.”

“I can do whatever I want.” He stands, the legs of his chair scraping against the polished floor. The sound is like a scream. “And today, I want a down payment. Or maybe,” his gaze slides over me, greasy and appraising, “you have another asset you can liquidate.”

A wave of nausea crashes over me. I push my chair back, my body trembling. I would rather die.

The heavy front doors of the library swing open with a gust of wind, startling us all. Two men in immaculate black suits walk in. They move with a silent, predatory grace that makes Milo’s thugs look like clumsy amateurs. They are out of place here, like wolves in a sheep pen.

The taller one, with silver at his temples and eyes like chips of ice, walks directly to our table. He doesn’t even glance at the two goons blocking the door.

“Milo Anton,” the man says. It’s not a question. His voice is calm, crisp, and utterly commanding. “My name is Alistair Sterling. I believe you are trespassing and attempting to collect on a debt that is no longer your concern.”

Milo puffs out his chest. “Who the hell are you?”

Mr. Sterling places a slim leather briefcase on the table and clicks it open. He doesn't produce a weapon. He produces a single sheet of paper. He slides it across the polished wood. “That is a confirmation of a wire transfer, effective immediately, for the full amount of the late Mr. Vance’s debt, plus a twenty percent inconvenience fee. Your business here is concluded.”

Milo stares at the paper, his jaw working silently. He looks from the paper to Sterling, then to me. Confusion and suspicion war on his fleshy face.

“Who paid this?” he demands, his voice a low growl.

“My client,” Sterling says smoothly. “Who he is, is not your concern. What is your concern, is that you will leave this building, you will delete Miss Vance’s contact information, and you will never, ever approach her again. If you do, the consequences will be… substantial.”

There’s no overt threat in his tone, but the air crackles with it. Milo’s thugs shift their weight, suddenly looking less confident. Milo snatches the paper, folds it, and shoves it into his pocket. He gives me one last, hard look before turning on his heel. “Let’s go.”

They leave. Just like that. The heavy doors swing shut behind them, and the silence they leave in their wake is deafening. I can’t breathe. My heart is a frantic bird beating against my ribs.

I stare at the man in the suit. “I… I don’t understand. Who are you?”

“As I said, Alistair Sterling.” He gestures to the chair Milo just vacated. “Please, Miss Vance. Sit. We have a matter to discuss.”

I sink into the chair, my legs threatening to give out. My mind is a whirlwind. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Gone. Just like that. But nothing is free. I know that much about the world.

“You said… your client?”

“Yes,” Sterling says, folding his hands on the table. He is the picture of corporate precision. “My client has taken an interest in your situation. He has solved your immediate problem. Now, we must discuss your repayment.”

Of course. The relief that had begun to bloom in my chest withers and dies. I’ve just traded one monster for another, more polished one.

“I don’t have any money,” I say, the words tasting like ash. “I can’t possibly pay back that amount. Not ever.”

“My client is not interested in your money,” he replies, his voice perfectly even. “The terms of your repayment are… unconventional. My client requires a wife.”

The world stops. The dust motes freeze in the sunbeams. I stare at him, certain I have misheard. “A what?”

“A wife,” he repeats, as if discussing a stock purchase. “Specifically, you. You will marry him. In return, the debt your father incurred is permanently erased. You will be provided with housing, security, and a generous stipend. The arrangement is for a term of five years.”

This is insane. This is a dream. A nightmare. “Why? Why me? I don’t know him. He doesn’t know me.”

“The reasons are my client’s own. He requires a wife who is… suitable. Unattached, with a clean public profile, educated. You are a librarian, for God’s sake. You are perfect. You have no family to create complications. You have a motive for accepting. Desperation is a powerful incentive.”

The cold, brutal logic of it hits me. I’m not a person to them. I’m a solution to a problem. A box to be ticked.

“And if I say no?”

Sterling’s gaze doesn’t waver. “Then we withdraw our payment. Milo gets his money back, and you get your problem back. I doubt his next visit will be as civil.”

He lets the threat hang in the air. The image of Milo’s leering face flashes in my mind. He’s right. I’m trapped. My father didn’t just leave me in debt. He left me in a cage, and this man is offering me a different one. It might be larger, more comfortable. Gilded, even. But it’s still a cage.

“This offer is non negotiable, Miss Vance,” Sterling adds, a note of finality in his voice. “It is on the table for the next five minutes. My client does not like to be kept waiting.”

My client. The words echo. Who is this man who buys people like they are pieces on a chessboard? “Who is he?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.

“His name is Jack Rourdan.”

The name hits me like a physical blow. Jack Rourdan. The world’s most reclusive billionaire. A ghost who runs a global tech empire from the shadows. No one has seen a current photo of him in a decade. He’s more myth than man. And he wants to marry me, a librarian from Brooklyn.

Five minutes. I look around my library. The books I’ve spent my life loving, the quiet corners where I’ve hidden from the world. It’s not enough to save me. My choices are a greasy loan shark or a phantom billionaire. There is no choice at all.

“Okay,” I say, the word feeling alien on my tongue. “I agree.”

Alistair Sterling allows himself a small, thin smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “Excellent. A car is waiting.”

An hour later, I’m in a penthouse that feels like it’s on top of the world. The entire west wall is a single pane of glass, revealing a panoramic view of the city skyline as the sun begins to set. The room is cavernous, minimalist, and cold. Black leather, polished chrome, grey marble. There isn’t a single book. Not one personal touch. It’s less a home and more a monument to wealth and emptiness.

Alistair Sterling stands by the window, while I stand awkwardly in the center of the room, still in my simple work dress, clutching my purse like a lifeline.

Then he enters.

Jack Rourdan moves with the same silent grace as his lawyer, but where Sterling is a wolf in a suit, Rourdan is a panther. He is tall, broad shouldered, and dressed in a simple black shirt and dark trousers that do nothing to hide a physique that speaks of disciplined power. His face is all sharp angles and severe beauty, his dark hair cut short, his eyes a startling, pale grey. He’s devastatingly handsome, but there’s no warmth in him. He looks at me not like a future wife, but like an acquisition he’s inspecting for flaws.

“Miss Vance,” he says. His voice is a low, resonant baritone that seems to vibrate in the air. “Thank you for coming.”

I just nod, my throat too tight to speak.

“Let us be clear about the terms,” he continues, stopping a few feet away from me. The sheer force of his presence is overwhelming. “Sterling has purchased your father’s debt. You now owe me. This marriage is how you will repay it. It is a business contract.”

He paces slowly, his movements fluid and controlled. “For the next five years, you will be Juniper Rourdan. You will attend public functions with me. You will smile for the cameras. You will live on my estate. You will play the part of a devoted wife. The press will find our story charming. A reclusive billionaire and a humble librarian. A modern fairy tale.” His lip curls slightly, as if the very idea disgusts him.

“In private,” he says, his pale eyes pinning me in place, “we will be strangers. My life is my own. Yours will be yours, within the boundaries I set for you. There will be no emotional attachment. There will be no intimacy of any kind. This is not a marriage of the heart, or of the flesh. It is a transaction. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I manage to say.

“Good.”

There is a low sound from the corner of the room, and for the first time I notice the dog. It’s enormous, a beast of charcoal fur and muscle, lying silently on a simple mat. A Cane Corso, I think. It gets to its feet as Sterling takes a step to hand Jack a folder.

A deep, guttural snarl rips through the silent room. The dog’s lips peel back from its teeth, its body coiled like a spring. It’s a terrifying, primal display of aggression aimed directly at the lawyer. Sterling freezes instantly.

“Nyx, enough,” Jack says, his voice sharp.

The dog doesn’t listen. The growl intensifies. Instinctively, my head turns. My eyes meet the dog’s. It’s a strange moment. The world seems to slow down. The raging fury in the animal’s dark eyes just… vanishes. The snarl dies in its throat, replaced by a soft, confused whine. The dog sinks to the floor, its head on its paws, its gaze fixed on me with an expression I can’t decipher. It looks almost… apologetic.

The silence in the room is absolute. Sterling looks stunned. I’m just as confused. I’ve never been particularly good with animals.

I look at Jack. His cold, controlled mask has slipped. Just for a second. His eyes are narrowed, fixed on the now docile dog, then on me. There’s a flicker of something in their pale depths. Not surprise. Something sharper. Something ancient and unreadable. It’s there and then it’s gone, replaced by the same icy indifference as before.

He dismisses the entire event with a single word. “A fluke.”

He turns back to me, the moment forgotten, or at least intentionally buried. “The contract is prepared. You will sign it now. Your new life begins today.”

He holds out a pen. I look from his impassive, beautiful face, to the strange, quiet dog, to the view of a city that suddenly feels a million miles away. This isn’t a fairy tale. It’s a prison sentence with a skyline view. But it’s the only option I have.

My hand trembles as I take the pen. “I understand.”

Chapter 2

Juniper

The car ride is silent. A long, black car that glides through the city streets like a phantom. I stare out the window, watching the familiar chaos of Brooklyn blur into the sleek, sterile canyons of Manhattan, then give way to the darkening highways that lead north. I don't know where I am going. I only know I am leaving everything behind.

We drive for what feels like an eternity. Eventually, the car turns off the main road, passing through a set of immense iron gates that swing open without a sound. We are on a private road, flanked by a forest so dense it swallows the headlights. It feels like entering a different country. A different world.

The car finally pulls to a stop in front of a house. No, 'house' is the wrong word. It’s a fortress of dark stone and glass, a modern monstrosity that looks like it was carved out of the mountainside itself. It’s imposing and beautiful and utterly devoid of warmth.

The driver opens my door. I step out, my simple work dress feeling flimsy and absurd in the face of such aggressive wealth. The front doors, massive slabs of dark wood, swing open.

A woman stands there. She is tall and severe, her grey hair pulled back in a bun so tight it seems to pull her face taut. She wears a simple, perfectly tailored black dress. She looks like a warden.

“Miss Vance,” she says. Her voice is crisp and cold, like snapping twigs. “I am Mrs. Davenport. The head of staff. Welcome to the Rourdan Estate. Please, follow me.”

I follow her into a foyer larger than my entire apartment. The floors are polished black marble that reflects the cold, recessed lighting. It’s silent. So silent it feels wrong. There’s no hum of life, no distant television, no sounds of a home being lived in. It’s a museum. Or a mausoleum.

“Mr. Rourdan has already departed on business,” Mrs. Davenport states, her heels clicking with military precision on the marble. “He has left your introduction to the estate in my care.”

“Of course,” I murmur.

“There are rules,” she continues, not breaking stride as she leads me down a wide hallway. “One. Punctuality. Meals are served at eight, one, and eight. Precisely. Your presence is expected.”

She pauses. “Two. Privacy. The east wing is Mr. Rourdan’s private domain. It is off limits. You are not to enter for any reason. Ever.”

“I understand.”

“Three. Security. The grounds are extensive but monitored. You are free to walk the designated paths. Do not stray from them. For your own safety. And no unapproved visitors. All communications are routed through my office.”

A gilded cage. That’s exactly what this is. A beautiful, luxurious, high security prison.

“Do you have any questions?” she asks, finally stopping and turning to face me.

Before I can answer, a new voice cuts through the silence. A voice like honey laced with poison.

“Questions? I’m sure the little stray has a million of them. Don’t you, darling?”

A woman emerges from a side room. She is, without exaggeration, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Tall, with a figure that seems poured into her emerald green dress. Her hair is a cascade of fiery red waves, and her eyes are a startling, intelligent green. She moves with a liquid grace, a predator’s confidence. She is everything I am not.

She stops in front of me, her eyes sweeping over me in a slow, deliberate appraisal that makes my skin crawl. It’s dismissive. Contemptuous.

“So, you’re the one,” she says, a small, cruel smile playing on her lips. “The librarian. Jack always did have an odd sense of humor.”

Mrs. Davenport’s expression tightens. “Lady Livia. I was not aware you were on the premises.”

“I let myself in,” Livia says, her gaze never leaving mine. “I had to see the new pet for myself. Tell me,” she leans in, her perfume a heady, expensive cloud of jasmine and something wilder, “what does a billionaire buy with one hundred and fifty thousand dollars these days? It seems the quality has gone down.”

My face flushes with heat. She knows. Of course she knows. They all probably know the pathetic, sordid details of my life.

“I am not his pet,” I say, my voice steadier than I feel.

Livia laughs, a sharp, metallic sound. “Aren’t you? You live in his house, you eat his food, you wear the clothes he will buy for you. You signed a contract. That sounds like a pet to me. A very well compensated one, I’ll grant you. But still on a leash.”

“That’s enough,” I say, surprising myself.

Livia’s eyebrows raise. “Is it? I don’t think so. I don’t think we’ve even started. You see, this house, this life… it has a certain standard. And you, in your little polyester dress and your scuffed shoes, do not meet it.”

She circles me slowly, like a wolf inspecting a lamb. “You’re human. So fragile. So… temporary. It must be terrifying, being surrounded by so much power. Knowing you’re the weakest thing in the room.”

“Livia,” Mrs. Davenport warns, her voice sharp.

Livia ignores her. “This is our world, little librarian. A world of strength, of lineage, of blood. You have none of that. You’re a placeholder. A legal fiction to satisfy some human corporate nonsense.”

Her eyes flash. “It’s a five year arrangement, I hear. A rental. Very practical of Jack. But once the contract is up, he will need a Queen. A real one. Someone with the right blood to stand by his side. Not a pathetic human placeholder he bought to solve a debt problem.”

Every word is a perfectly aimed dart, designed to wound, to humiliate. She wants me to break. To cry. To run away and prove I am as weak as she thinks I am.

I lift my chin. “My name is Juniper.”

“I know what your name is,” she scoffs.

“And I’m not a placeholder. I am his wife.” The word feels like a lie in my mouth, but I say it anyway. It’s the only weapon I have.

Her smile widens, but it’s all teeth. “You are a signature on a piece of paper. A temporary inconvenience. Nothing more. Don’t ever forget that.”

She turns to Mrs. Davenport. “Show her to her room. And have someone burn that dress. The smell of poverty is giving me a headache.”

With a final, withering glance, Livia turns and glides away, disappearing back into the room she came from. The oppressive silence of the house rushes back in to fill the space she leaves behind.

I stand there, trembling. Not from fear, but from a rage so pure and hot it shocks me. I have never hated anyone in my life. Until this moment.

Mrs. Davenport’s expression is unreadable. For a moment, I think I see a flicker of something, maybe pity, in her eyes. But it’s gone as quickly as it appears.

“Your suite is this way, Miss Vance,” she says, her tone back to its icy efficiency. It’s as if the entire exchange never happened.

I follow her up a wide, sweeping staircase and down another long, silent hallway. She opens a set of double doors and gestures for me to enter.

The room is breathtaking. It’s not a room, it’s an apartment. A sitting area with a white sofa and a fireplace, a bedroom with a bed that could sleep a family of four, and a wall of glass that looks out over the dark, endless forest. A bathroom the size of my old living room is visible through an open door.

On the bed, laid out perfectly, are several sets of new clothes. Silk pajamas, cashmere sweaters, tailored trousers. An entire new life, purchased for me.

“A tailor will arrive in the morning to take your measurements for a full wardrobe. A stylist will be in touch regarding your preferences for public appearances,” Mrs. Davenport says from the doorway. “The tablet on the nightstand contains your schedule for the week. Dinner, as I said, is at eight.”

She hesitates for a fraction of a second. “A word of advice. Lady Livia is the daughter of Alpha Valerius of the Silvermoon Pack. A noble family. She is… accustomed to getting her way.”

“She’s a she wolf,” I state, remembering the outline's words.

The confirmation is in the way Mrs. Davenport’s posture stiffens almost imperceptibly.

“You are very observant,” she says, her tone giving nothing away. “Try to stay out of her path.”

She closes the door, leaving me alone. The click of the latch is loud in the cavernous room.

I walk to the giant window. The sun has set, and there are no city lights out here. Just the moon, a sliver of silver in the black sky, and the dark, rustling shapes of the trees. I press my hand against the cool glass. It’s thick. Unbreakable.

Livia’s words echo in my head. ‘A little mouse in a lion’s den.’ ‘A temporary inconvenience.’

She is wrong about one thing. I am not a mouse. My father, for all his faults, taught me to read. He taught me that knowledge is power. And that stories are full of heroes who start out as the weakest thing in the room.

I feel small. I feel out of my depth. But I am not broken. A core of something hard and stubborn inside me refuses to crumble.

This might be a prison. Livia might be a serpent in this cold, empty Eden. But I made a deal. Five years. I can survive five years.

I have to.

Chapter 3

Jack

The air in my home is wrong.

I feel it the moment I step from the silent elevator into the east wing. A change in the current. A foreign thread woven into the sterile tapestry of my life. It is not the cloying sweetness of Livia’s perfume or the dry dust of the household staff.

It is something else.

Something like old paper and ink and the subtle, clean scent of rain on pavement. It’s human.

Her scent.

My wolf stirs. A great, restless beast pacing the confines of my soul. It lifts its head, tasting the air, a low rumble starting in its chest. The urge to follow the scent, to track it to its source, is a physical pull. A hook in my gut.

I ignore it.

I walk to the bar, my steps measured on the polished concrete floor of my private study. The room is a cage of glass, overlooking a thousand acres of black forest that knows me as its king. This is my sanctuary. My fortress. And she has breached its walls without taking a single step into this wing.

The crystal tumbler is heavy in my hand. The amber liquid inside sloshes as I pour it. The wolf snarls, impatient. It wants to see her. It wants to know why the air has changed. It wants to understand the girl who quieted Nyx with a look.

A fluke. It was a fluke.

I repeat the words in my head, a mantra against the rising tide of instinct. The girl is a necessity. A piece of corporate and political strategy. The Rourdan Corporation requires a stable public image to appease human boards and governments. A wife provides that. It is a shield. A five year inconvenience to protect a lifetime of sovereignty.

She is a means to an end. Nothing more.

But the wolf does not understand business contracts. It only understands the scent invading its territory. It only remembers the way my most lethal protector went silent and soft at a single glance from this small, fragile human.

The memory of another woman surfaces, unbidden and sharp as shattered glass. Ravenna. My first fated mate. Her scent had once filled my home, a heady mix of night blooming jasmine and wild ambition. I had trusted that scent. I had trusted the bond that sang between us, a sacred song I believed was unbreakable.

She broke it. She broke me.

Her smile, her touch, her whispers of devotion. All of it a lie, a beautiful poison hiding a conspiracy with my enemies. The memory is a phantom pain, a scar across my soul that has never faded.

I learned my lesson. The mate bond is a flaw in our design. A weakness to be exploited. A vulnerability I will never allow myself again.

My desk monitor chimes. A secure video link. Alistair Sterling’s severe face appears on the screen.

“She’s arrived,” he says, without preamble. His voice is a dispassionate report of facts.

“I am aware,” I say, my voice low. “I can smell her from here.”

Alistair does not react to this. He knows what I am. He is one of the few humans who does. “Mrs. Davenport has briefed her on the protocols. She seems… compliant.”

“She is desperate. Desperation ensures compliance.” I take a sip of the liquor. It burns, a welcome sensation. “Any complications?”

A flicker of hesitation in his eyes. “Lady Livia made an appearance. She was… herself.”

“Predictable,” I clip out. Livia and her endless posturing. She sees herself as the rightful queen of this kingdom, a position she tries to secure through ambition and intimidation. A pathetic display. “Did the girl break?”

“No,” Alistair says, and I detect a note of surprise in his voice. “She did not.”

Interesting. I expected tears. Perhaps the librarian has a spine after all.

“One other thing,” Alistair adds, his gaze steady. “The incident in the penthouse. With Nyx.”

“A statistical anomaly,” I say, the words sharp and final. A dismissal. A lie.

“Of course,” he says, but he does not look convinced. “The contracts are filed. The media strategy is in place. As far as the world is concerned, you are a newly married man.”

“See that it stays that way.” I sever the connection, plunging the room back into silence.

A newly married man. The phrase is a mockery.

My wolf continues its restless pacing. Settle, I command it. She is nothing to us.

But it fights me. It is drawn to her. A compass needle swinging towards a magnetic, unknown north. The primal part of me, the beast I have spent my life mastering, is inexplicably intrigued by the human girl I have locked in my gilded cage.

It infuriates me.

On instinct, I tap a command into the tablet on my desk. A security feed flickers to life. A view of her suite. My suite, technically. The one designated for the Lady of the house. A role that has been vacant for a very long time.

There she is. Juniper Vance.

She stands before the wall of glass, a small, dark silhouette against the moonlit forest. She is not exploring the room, not indulging in the lavish prison I have built for her. She is just standing there, perfectly still, looking out at the darkness.

As if she can feel my eyes on her, she wraps her arms around herself. A gesture of self comfort. A gesture of a woman who is utterly alone.

She is a complication I must endure. A problem I have purchased to solve another. I must keep her at a distance. I must maintain the cold, sterile space between us that the contract demands.

But I cannot shake the memory of Nyx whining at her feet. I cannot erase the flicker of unreadable power I saw in her eyes for a fraction of a second.

And I cannot ignore the fact that for the first time in years, some part of this empty, silent house feels… alive.

I shut off the monitor, cutting off the image. I finish the drink in a single swallow, the burn grounding me.

Control. That is all that matters. I am the Alpha King. I am in control of my home, my life, my wolf.

This changes nothing.

But as I stand in the silence of my wing, I can still smell the rain on the wind. And my wolf, for the first time in a decade, is quiet. Not sleeping. Just watching. Waiting.